Worshipping the Other: a literary anthropological study of the Datuk Gong cult in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

In Malaysia, Malays and Chinese are considered to be two distinct ethnic groups. Therefore, the popular cult of Malay-Muslim Datuk Gong among Chinese religious believers – a worship of ‘the Other’ – is a fascinating ethno-religious phenomenon. Adopting the approach of literary anthropology to examine discrete writings on Datuk Gong produced by different individuals over a century, this article explores the multiple meanings of ‘worshipping the Other’ to Malay(si)an Chinese. Such worship reflects a dual respect and fear of nature and ethnic strangers, an imagination to integrate ethnic differences with the natives into a virtual kinship, a sense of harmonious community among diverse neighbours, a deep anxiety of diaspora identity and a feeling of powerlessness in ethnic conflicts with the dominant groups. Applying Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on ‘habitus’ and ‘fields’, the article argues that instead of passively participating in the Datuk Gong worship, Chinese believers actively interpret it to construct diverse ‘Selves and Others’ based on the different habitus and fields they occupy.

KEYWORDS:

• Datuk gong
• the Other
• literary anthropology
• Malaysian Chinese
• Sino-Malay ethnic relations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Malay or Indonesian dagger with a wavy-edged blade.

2 Sycee or yuanbao 元宝: a type of silver or gold ingot currency used in imperial China; a sycee remains a symbol of wealth and prosperity for ethnic Chinese.

3 Keramat, once widely embraced among the Malays, centres around the veneration of spirits and supernatural forces associated with individuals, places, animals, and objects. This belief system amalgamates pre-Islamic spirit worship, which includes reverence for nature and ancestors, along with the veneration of Sufi saints within the context of Islam.

4 Bo Gong 伯公, a general term for Tudi Gong 土地公 the ‘Earth God’, holds immense popularity in China. His formal title is Fude Zhengshen 福德正神 [the God of Blessing and Virtues]. In Malaysia, he is commonly referred to as Da Bo Gong 大伯公 (or Tua Pek Kong in Hokkien, Thai Pak Koong in Hakka dialect).

5 Chinese popular/folk religion: the complex of Chinese indigenous beliefs and practices involving the worship of ancestors, deities and ghosts that most ordinary Chinese observe in their daily and festive life, in contrast to Buddhism and Taoism (Tan 2018, 2–4).

6 Cambodian Chinese venerate the local ancestral or tutelary deity “Neak Ta”; in West Kalimantan of Indonesia where the Dayak is the majority group, the Chinese venerate the Dayak deity Latok Kong portrayed as tutelary guardians in specific locations (Chai 2018); in Thailand, the Chinese worship lak-mueang, the ‘pillar of the state’ or ‘pillar of the city’, which was derived from the Siva-linga of India, via Cambodia, and was assimilated to the animistic phi or spirits and came to be regarded as the supreme phi of the city or state in the popular Thai religion (Skinner 1957, 130–131).

7 For Chinese pioneers, the main desire was to bless them to develop smoothly on the strange land.

8 The Malay caretakers of the keramat on Kusu Island even allowed the Chinese to burn joss sticks and joss paper around the shrines (Sit 1948).

9 The kris held by Datuk Gong is a symbol of power and authority in Malay culture.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Huaqiao University's Academic Project Supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities: [Grant Number HQHRZX-202205]; Huaqiao University's High-Level Talents Scientific Research Initiation Project: [Grant Number 22SKBS022].