AFFINITY WITH DEVIC WORLD: SUPERNATURAL WOMEN TALES OF INDONESIA, BORNEO

AFFINITY WITH DEVIC WORLD: SUPERNATURAL WOMEN TALES OF INDONESIA, BORNEO

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

The tale contained herein is among the standard lores that depict women of supernatural origin who supposedly provided beneficence to persons in need. Broadly, such tales signify humanity’s affinity with the devic world—of devas (architect of forms) & elementals (materializers of forms)—during antiquity.

Theos Sophia or divine wisdom declares that nothing is above nature or ‘super-natural’, for even the Spirit-Force from which we came from is well meshed with ‘mother nature’ which is the Almighty’s ‘outer garment’. Even the devic world forms a part of the totality of emanations in the nature world and not apart from or above it.

One truly enthralling tale concerns a lady who came from the bumble bee world. She shape-shifted to human in order to help a man in need, then married the man but with caution to the latter to observe a caveat, bore a child with him, and so on. The ‘bumble bee’ seems to signify those devas and elementals who in fact embodied as humans as part of their own evolutionary programs, and many are those ‘merman’ and ‘mermaids’ among us today.

Such an affinity has been lost with time, save for the folks and psychic sensitive humans who retain the faculties for sensing and relating to them. At the commencement of the 6^th root-race of this present Evolutionary Round—properly called the devic-man round—that affinity and mutual respect between humans and devas/elementals will return.

[Philippines, 30 June 2011]

Source: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles29/mythology-14.shtml

Widely disseminated in Indonesia, and also occurring far outside its limits, are stories based on a theme involving the miraculous providing of food by women of supernatural origin. A Bornean version may serve as an example of this type. One day a man named Rakian was out hunting for honey, when in the top of a mangis-tree he saw a number of bees' nests. The bees belonging to one of these were white, and as this was a curiosity, he selected this nest, removed it carefully, and carried it home. He spent the next day working in his garden and did not return to his house until evening; but when he entered, he found rice and fish already cooked and standing on his food-shelf above the fire. "Who can have cooked for me?" he thought, "for I live here alone. This fish is not mine, although the rice is. The rice is cold, and must have been cooked some time. Perhaps someone has come and cooked for me and then taken away my bees' nest." On going to look, however, he found his bees' nest still where he had left it; so he sat down and ate, saying, "Well, if someone is going to cook for me, so much the better." In the morning he went off again to his garden, and when he came back at night, there was his food already cooked as before; and this continued for some time until one day he resolved to return early to see if he could not solve the mystery. Accordingly he set off as if to go to his garden and then quietly came back and hid himself where he could watch. By and by the door of the house creaked, and a beautiful woman came out and went to the river to get water; but while she was gone, Rakian entered the house and looking at his bees' nest found that there were no bees in it. So taking the nest and hiding it, he secreted himself in the house; and after a while the woman re-turned and went to the place where the nest had been. "Oh," said she, weeping, "who has taken my box? It cannot be Rakian, for he has gone to his garden. I am afraid he will come back and find me." When it was evening, Rakian came out as if he had just returned from his garden, but the woman sat there silent. "Why are you here?" said he; "perhaps you want to steal my bees?" but the woman answered, "I don't know anything about your bees." Rakian went to look for his bees' nest, but of course could not find it, for he had hidden it away; whereupon he again accused her of taking his honey, while she denied all knowledge of it. "Well, never mind," said he; "will you cook for me, for I am hungry?" She, how-ever, replied that she did not wish to cook, for she was vexed; and then she taxed Rakian with having taken her box, which, she said, contained all her clothes; but he replied that he would not give it to her because he was afraid that she would get into it again. "I will not get into it," said she. "If you like me, you can take me for your wife. My mother wished to give me to you in this way, for you have no wife here, and I have no husband in my country." Accordingly Rakian gave her the bees' nest, and the woman then said, "If you take me as your wife, you must never call me a bee-woman, for if you do I shall be ashamed." Rakian promised, and so they were married; and by and by his wife bore him a child. Now one day there was a feast at a neighbour's, to which Rakian went as a guest; but when the people asked him where his wife had come from, as they had never before seen so beautiful a woman, he replied evasively. After a while, however, all the men got drunk, and then, when they kept asking him where his wife had come from, he forgot his promise and said, "The truth is my wife was at first a bee."
When Rakian got home, his wife was silent and would not speak to him, but after a while she said, "What did I tell you long ago? I think you have been saying things to make me ashamed." Her husband denied that he had said anything wrong, but she insisted, declaring, "You are lying, for though you were far away, I heard what you said," whereupon Rakian was silent in his turn. "I shall now go to my home," said she, "but the child I will leave with you. In seven days my father will pass by here, and I shall go with him." Rakian wept, but could not move her, and seven days later he saw a white bee flying by, whereupon his wife came out of the house, and saying, "There is my father," she turned into a bee once more and flew away, while Rakian hurried into the house, seized the child, and hastened off in pursuit. For seven days he followed the bees, and then losing sight of them, found himself on the banks of a stream where he lay down with the child and slept. By and by a woman came from a house near by, woke him, and said, "Rakian, why don't you go to your wife's house, and sleep there? The house is not far off." "When I have bathed, you must show me the way," said he, and she replied, "Very well"; so they went, and the woman pointed his wife's house out to him. "Her room is right in the middle. There are eleven rooms in the house. If you enter, you must not be afraid, for the roof-beams are full of bees, but they do not attack men." Accordingly Rakian climbed up into the house and found it full of bees, but in the middle room there were none. The child began to cry, whereupon a voice from the middle room asked, "Why do you not come out? Have you no pity on your child, that is weeping here?" Then, after a time, Rakian's wife appeared, and the child ran to her, and Rakian's heart was glad; but his wife said to him, "What did I tell you at first, that you were not to tell whence I came? If you had not been able to follow me here, certainly there would have been distress for you." When she finished speaking, all the bees dropped down from the roof-beams to the floor and became men; while as for Rakian and his child, they stayed in the bees' village and did not go back any more.

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PROF. ERLE FRAYNE ARGONZA WEBSITE: http://erleargonza.com