Collecting Honey from Sialang trees

ABSTRACT This article discusses two manuscripts from the Serawai region of Bengkulu province in southern Sumatra, written in Middle Malay in ulu script, concerning the collecting of honey from sialang trees. The nyialang ritual is the process of taking honey from bee hives built in sialang trees (Caesalpiniaceae) in the forest, led by an imam sialang or pawang sialang and assisted by four or five apprentices or anak sialang. The nyialang ritual is performed at certain times and in a specific way, based on the myth of the origin of honey. The two manuscripts, held at the State Museum of Bengkulu, are MNB 07.91 (containing text A) and MNB 07.135 (containing text B). A is entitled Caro ngambiak madu siyalang and B is entitled Caro nyialang, both meaning ‘How to harvest sialang honey’. Each text consists of ‘statement’ elements, describing actions in the nyialang ritual or the revelant part of the myth of the origin of honey, and dunday elements, namely mantras that are uttered when the relevant action is carried out. Both texts were evidently written as a guide or aide-memoire for both the writer and the reader on how to carry out the nyialang ritual. Each was certainly written by a knowledgable person who had mastered all the details of the ritual, namely the imam sialang, with the intention of explaining how the nyialang ritual relates to the myth of the origin of honey in oral tradition.