A wooden figure used to take on human diseases shamanistic healing rituals of the Basap in East Kalimantan.

In January 2002 I accompanied a German student in ethnology, Christian Oesterheld, to the Basap area, on Mangkalihat Peninsula, in East Kalimantan. He stayed there nearly three months doing research. It was my fourth journey to the Basap since 1976.

While staying with the Basap we had the opportunity to meet with a shaman who called himself a dukun. He performs healing rituals to cure sick people. For the performance of each ritual he produces a specific carved wooden figure that depicts the patient he is treating. During the two nights of a healing ritual, which he calls bulungan, he performs a shamanistic dance, or tarian tangiagan, with the figure, and he repeatedly "takes" disease spirits from the sick body-parts of his patient and presses them into the figure. The patient is then supposed to become healthy. The figure now bearing the disease spirits is finally taken into the forest. Christian Oesterheld plans to report on the details of the ritual in his doctoral thesis.

I was lucky to get a two-legged figure, 40 cm (15.7 inches) in height, with clear female attributes, which was made for an old woman obviously suffering from arthritis in both knees. The figure was made of the soft wood of semurut, which was botanically identified as Alstonia scholaris, Apocynaceae. The eyes, tongue, and vulva of the figure are painted red, and the eyebrows and nose are black. The figure has her two arms raised. Her right hand has four fingers, while her left hand consists of a fist and a thumb pointing up.

On the right hand a twig of a plant was fastened which the shaman called ba lep bo. The left hand held another twig of a plant called sarim bangun. A twig of the same plant was also fastened by a red string to the back of the figure.

A photograph of this image, or patung, which is now in my collection, is included here (photo 1). As far as I know, this is the first published photo or reference to such images used by the Basap for ritual healing.

I took some fresh twigs of these two plants to the Herbarium Bogoriense, Bogor, where I had them botanically identified. I found out that both are medicinal plants widely used throughout Southeast Asia.

Sarim bangun is the shrub Gendarussa vulgaris Nees (use: Justitia gendarussa Burm.f.), Fam. Acanthaceae. Interestingly, in China a drug is made from the root to treat arthritis, rheumatism and other diseases. In Vietnam, the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, and the Philippines, it is used both for magic and medicine. Mostly the leaves are used externally to treat rheumatism, swellings, lumbago, and other ailments like gonorrhoea and malaria. The whole plant contains alkaloids. (Perry, L.M. et al.: 3-4; Plant Resources of South-East Asia No.12: 330). In the Mentawai Island of Siberut, shamans (kerey) call this plant pangasele. Sele means "to chase away," and may be extended, in pangasele, to mean, "may sickness and evil spirits get lost and misfortunes be averted."

Ba lep bo is also a shrub and has the botanic name Coleus atropurpureus Benth. (use: Plectranthus scutellaroides (L.) R.Br.), Fam. Labiatae. From Indo-China, the Malay Penisula, the Philippines, Indonesia, through to New Guinea, mostly the crushed leaves are used to treat all kinds of inflammations, hemorrhoids, and to relieve muscular pain. It is used as an active medicine. Some women swallow the sap of the leaves as a contraceptive (Perry, L.M. et al.: 185; Plant Resources of South-East Asia No. 12: 408f). In Siberut the plant is called laggek ta belet logau. Bele means "to fall" and logau means "blood." Ta belet logau therefore means "blood that doesn't flow." The red leaves are crushed and the red sap is massaged onto the belly to stimulate menstruation. The whole plant contains alkaloids (Medicinal Plants of Siberut: 76). The Basap patients are not supposed to use those plants internally.

REFERENCES:

Ave, W. and S. Sunito 1990 Medicinal Plants of Siberut. Gland, Switzerland: WWF International. Perry, L.M. & Metzger, J. 1980 Medicinal Plants of East and Southeast Asia: Attributed Properties and Uses. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press.

de Padua, L., Bunyaprahphatsara, N., and R.H.M.J. Lemmers, eds. 1999 Plant Resources of South-East Asia 12, (1) Medicinal and poisonous plants 1. Bogor, Indonesia: Prosea.

Zahorka, H. 2001 The last Basap cave dwellers in the Mangkalihat Karst Mountains, East Kalimantan-a brief report. Borneo Research Bulletin, 32: 240-247.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

NEW JOURNAL

Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies

Published under the aegis of the Asia-Pacific Research Unit (APRU) of the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, JAPS, will launch its inaugural issue in 2003. Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies (JAPS) is an internationally referred, scholarly biennial publication (May and November) focusing primarily on Asia (South, Southeast and East), Australiasia and the Pacific Rim regions of the Americas (North, Central and South). The disciplines of interest encompass politics, history, indigenous languages and literature, religions, man and the environment, ethnohistory, anthropology, cultural heritage, socio-economic development, war and conflict resolution, pre-history and archaeology, and the arts. JAPS shall undertake to publish articles based on original research or fieldwork of the highest scholarship.

As editor of JAPS, I cordially invite contributions.

Keat Gin Ooi

The Editor

Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies

School of Humanities

Universiti Sains Malaysia

11800 Penang

Malaysia

Fax: [phone]; email: [e-mail]

Herwig Zahorka

[e-mail]