Mag-igal and Igal-Jin: Dancing the Spirits of the Ancestors ill the rituals of Magduwata of the Bajau Kubang in Bumbum Island, Semporna, East Malaysia

• Main Authors: Md Nor, Mohd Anis, Hussin, Hanafi
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: GT Manners and customs; HT Communities. Classes. Races
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/25076/1/Mag-igal%20and%20Igal-Jin%20Dancing%20the%20Spirits%20of%20the%20Ancestors%20in%20the%20Rituals%20of%20Magduwata%20of%20the%20Baj.pdf; http://eprints.um.edu.my/25076/; http://ictmusic.org/group/ethnochoreology

Mag-igal (dancing) and Igal-Jin (dancing spirit bearer) are the liminal performative components of Magduwata, a healing ritual ceremony of the Bajau Kubang people in Semporna, East Malaysia. This paper will focus on the liminality of Magduwata ceremony of the Bajau Kubang from Bumbum Islands in Semporna through trance dancing (Mag-igal and Igal-Jin) at the conclusion ofthe ancestral-derived healing ceremony. The Magduwata ritual healing represents a classic example of Turner's 'social drama' where unexplained sickness among family members is regarded as a breach in the physical and metaphysical relationship of the living and the ancestral spirits. Hence, crisis that emerges from this breach is moderated through the regressive action of the spirit bearers (Jin) who performs the Igal (dance) with the immediate family members dancing (Mag-igal) to reintegrate spiritual and physical balance. Performativity (where performance is floated freely) in Magduwata as ritual participants perform within the matrix of space and audience, liminalises the constructs of hierarchy within the social structure of the Bajau Kubang's family, altering time and space that is not part of the legal convention (something that is extra legal) that happens outside the familiar. It is both strange and estrange. Hence, dancing (Mag-igal) by participants and dancing-spirit-bearer (Igal-Jin) is both a 'social drama' in the Turnerian sense as well as a liminal event in the performative sense. This paper will be presented in two parts. The first part illustrates the narratives ofritual constructs while the second part discusses the ensemble of 'social drama' and its liminal' structure, which is metamorphosised through dancing or Mag-igal.