27 h 13 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 27 h 13 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does daily life look like when birth, marriage, work and death each call for a ritual?
In Malay Magic, Walter William Skeat explores the beliefs and customs of the Malay Peninsula. Drawing on villagers, magicians and earlier writers, he records ideas about souls, spirits and the rites that shape ordinary life. Trees, hills and rivers appear as places inhabited by spirits, according to the beliefs he describes.
Skeat follows ceremonies from the protection of mother and child to the planting and harvesting of rice. He introduces the magician and traces how older beliefs sit beside Islamic and Hindu ideas. Published in 1900, this detailed study also carries a British colonial outlook: it offers much to explore, but asks to be read with care.
What you’ll discover
- The wandering soul Explore semangat, the life spirit believed to wander or be frightened away from a person.
- Rites at life's thresholds Follow the customs surrounding birth, marriage and death, where family life meets beliefs about spirits.
- Rice and ritual Discover the careful ceremonies addressed to the rice spirit at planting and harvest.
- Magicians and their roles Meet the pawang and bomoh through Skeat's accounts of charms, cures and dealings with spirits.
- Layers of belief See how Skeat describes older traditions alongside Islamic and Hindu ideas in village life.
Who will love it
Readers who love folklore, spirits and old rituals, and anyone curious about how Islam, Hindu myth and village tradition mix in Southeast Asia.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- The world rests on a strange cosmic map
- Old beliefs sit under a thin Muslim cover
- Heroes grow in bamboo and Adam comes from earth
- The king is a divine man with deadly power
- The soul is a small movable double
- The village magician rules by custom and place
- Spirits have names, origins and weak points
- Hunters and builders ask the land for permission
- Rice, tin and fish are won by bargain with spirits
- Life rites, divination and the record Skeat leaves
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La magia malese
by Walter William Skeat · 1900
Malay villagers bang gongs to scare a dragon off the moon, and a rice crop has a soul to be carried home.
Challenging10–20 hours to read2 languages
Impara una lingua con i classici di livello challengingSpagnoloFranceseTedescoItalianoGiapponesePortogheseIngleseCome misuriamo i livelli
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In short
What does a village do when a monster starts to swallow the moon? In the Malay Peninsula of the 1890s, the answer was noise.
La magia malese in breve
- Tempo di lettura
- Circa 15 h 40 min12 h 25 min fast, 18 h 40 min slow
- Durata
- 223.700 parole
- Livello nella biblioteca
- Impegnativo long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- Prima pubblicazione
- 1900by Walter William Skeat
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo ci vuole per leggere i classici · Aggiornato
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
The world rests on a strange cosmic map
Malay accounts of creation mix several sources. In one, light spreads over chaos and becomes a vast ocean. Earth and sea form in seven layers each, and mountains called Kaf ring the world like a wall.
A magician named Abdul Razzak of Klang let Skeat copy another version. In it God is the Eldest Magician, and a huge serpent is cut apart so that its parts become the rainbow, grass, trees, rain and dew. A great buffalo carries the earth on its horns, and earthquakes come when it tosses the world from one horn to the other. Tides come from a giant crab in a hole called the Navel of the Seas.
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Hai guardato
Quale edizione fa per me
- 15-minute summary
- Le idee principali dell’intero libro in circa 13 minuti. Per un primo sguardo o per rinfrescare la memoria.
Dettagli
- First published
- 1900
- Language
- Italiano
- Level
- Challenging
Cita questa edizione
Skeat, Walter William. Malay Magic. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/malay-magic.
Skeat, W. W. (2026). Malay magic. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/malay-magic (Original work published 1900)
Skeat, Walter William. Malay Magic. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/malay-magic.
@book{skeat2026malay,
author = {Skeat, Walter William},
title = {Malay Magic},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/malay-magic},
note = {First published 1900}
}
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What is Malay Magic by Walter William Skeat about?
It is a survey of the folklore and popular religion of the Malays of the Peninsula, covering creation myths, kings, souls, spirits, charms for farming and fishing, and rites of birth, marriage, sickness and death.
Who was Walter William Skeat?
Skeat was a British civil servant in the Federated Malay States who lived in Selangor in the 1890s. He recorded what he saw and heard, and he gathered charms from Malay magicians and their handwritten charm books.
What does pawang mean in Malay Magic?
A pawang is a village magician and medicine-man. He leads rites for sowing, reaping, fishing, mining and healing, enforces taboos called pantang, and is often thought to keep an inherited spirit helper.
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