NARRATIVE GENIUS AND THINKING IN TWO MALAY ORAL LITERATURE

Abstract

In Malaysia, oral literature which is conveyed through a storyteller is the most ancient and instinctive art. Through the recording of the oral literature, which is then printed and marketed, the people today can enjoy the heritage of oral literature that narrates the structure of the society as well as various issues and conflicts of its time. In oral literature, it contains the genius of narrative and the genius thought of the nation’s storyteller, especially Pawang Ana through his masterpieces namely Hikayat Malim Dewa and Hikayat Anggun Che Tunggal. Both stories, recorded around 1886, narrate the voyage of a group of Malay warriors to Portugal to counter-attack the western colonists and gain victory. These two works of oral literature not only contain elements of ethnocentrism but are laden with postcolonial thinking, about seven decades ahead of postcolonial discourse by modern scholars that began to emerge around the 1950s.