Among the Batek of Malaysia, the moon embodies renewal, rebirth, and transformation. This paper shows how moon myths and sun–moon oppositions form part of a deep, universal pattern of myth and ritual, evidence of an ancient culture-forming event inscribed in human consciousness since prehistory.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the role of the moon in the cosmologies of the Batek Dè’ and Batek Maia, neighbouring gender-egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups of Peninsular Malaysia. While often overlooked, the moon occupies a central place in their myth and ritual life, serving as a key metaphor for renewal, rebirth, and transformation. Drawing on Batek Dè’ origin myths, practices of health and well-being, ritual prohibitions, and the thermic and olfactory codes linked to celestial bodies, I trace the structural oppositions between sun and moon. These are then compared with Batek Maia narratives of bidan don (Old Man Moon). To interpret this ethnographic material, gathered during long-term fieldwork in Malaysia over a twenty year period, I engage with structural approaches to myth and ritual developed by Knight (1991), Cardigos (1991, 1996), Vaz da Silva (2002, 2023), and Belaunde (2006). I argue that Batek moon myths form part of a time-resistant syntax of myth and ritual which is ubiquitous across human cultures worldwide, offering evidence of an ancient culture-forming event inscribed in human consciousness since prehistory.