O. W. Walters' "Miscellaneous Notes On 'Soul Stuff' and 'Prowess'"

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · January 28

This is a transcription of Appendix A of the preeminent historian O. W. Walter's History Culture and Religion in Southeast Asian Perspectives (1982, 1999/2004), covering a very significant principle of his interpretation of early Southeast Asian beliefs. It is for him an essential under-belief which animates meaningful social structures within different SEA cultures, and for the study of the history and meaning of Siam/Thailand's Muay Thai it can be particularly illuminating. It's not a text I could find online, so I put it here. For larger context on how the concept of "Soul Stuff" may be used to illuminate the spiritual nature of Thailand's Muay Thai, read: Toward a Theory of the Spirituality of Thailand's Muay Thai

Miscellaneous Notes On "Soul Stuff" and "Prowess" by O.W. Walter

I became interested in the phenomena of "Soul Stuff" when I was studying the "Hinduism" of seventh-century Cambodia and suspected that Hindu devotionalism (bhakti) made sense to the Khmers by a process of self-Hinduization generated by their own notions of what Thomas A. Kirsch, writing about the hill tribes of mainland Southeast Asia, calls "inequality of souls". Among the hill tribes, a person's "soul stuff" can be distinguished from his personal "fate" and the spirit attached to him at birth. "Both the internal quality and the external forces are evidence of his social status." The notion of inequality of souls seems to be reflected in the way Khmer chiefs equate political status with differing levels of devotional capacity.

I then began to observe that scholars sometimes found it necessary to call attention to cultural elements in different parts of the lowlands of Southeast Asia which seemed to be connected with the belief that personal success was attributable to an abnormal endowment of spiritual quality. For example, Shelly Errington in her forthcoming book, Memory in Luwu, chapter 1, sumange is the primary source for animating health and effective action in the world, and kerre ("effect") is the visible sign of a dense concentration of sumange. Potent humans and also potent rocks, for example, are said to be in "the state of kerre (makerre)". Sumange is associated with descent from the Creator God and signified by white blood, but this is not always so. Individuals with remarkable prowess can suddenly appear from nowhere, and the explanation is that they are makerre. Kerre is not invariably contingent on white blood.

In Bali the Sanskrit word sakti ("spiritual energy") is associated with Vishnu. Vishnu represents sakti engaged in the world, and a well-formed ancestor group is the social form required to actualize sakti. But sakti is Bali is not related to immobile social situations, for Vishnu's preferred vehicle is "an ascendant, expanding ancestor group." Such a group is led by someone of remarkable prowess.

Benedict Anderson in his essay on "The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture," does not refer to "soul stuff"; his focus is on Power, or the divine energy which animates the universe. The quantum of Power is constant, but its distribution may vary. All rule is based on the belief in energetic Power at the center, and a ruler, often for concentrating or preserving cosmic Power by, for example, ascetic practices. His feat would then be accompanied by other visible signs such as a "divine radiance". The Javanese notion of the absorption of cosmic Power by one person presupposes that only a person of innate quality could set in motion the processes for concentrating cosmic Power by personal effort. On the other hand, the Power this person could deploy in his lifetime inevitably tended to become diffused over the generations unless it was renewed and reinvigorated by the personal efforts of a particular descendant.

Anderson's analysis may recall the situation I seemed to detect in seventh-century Cambodia. In both instances ascetic performance distinguished outstanding men from their fellows, and in Luwu as well as in Java visible signs revealed men of prowess and marked them out as leaders of their generation.

Again, according to Vietnamese folklore, the effect of a personal spiritual quality is suggested by the automatic response of local tutelary spirits to a ruler's presence, provided that the ruler had already shown signs of achievement and leadership. A local spirit is expected to recognize and be attracted by a ruler's superior quality and compelled to put himself at such a ruler's disposal.

I have introduced the topics of "soul stuff" and "prowess" in a discussion of the cultural matrix, and we can suppose that these and other indigenous beliefs remained dominant in the protohistoric period in spite of the appearance of "Hindu" features in documentary evidence. I take the view that leadership in the so called "Hinduized" countries continued to depend on the attribution of personalized spiritual prowess. Signs of a spiritual quality would have been a more effective source of leadership than institutional support. The "Hinduized" polities were elaborations or amplifications of the pre- "Hindu' ones.

Did the appearance of Theraveda Buddhism on mainland Southeast Asia make a difference? Historians and anthropologists with special knowledge must address this question. I shall content myself with noting a piece of evidence brought to my attention by U Tun Aung Chain which refers to the Buddhist concept of "merit". The Burman ruler Alaungmintaya of the second half of the eighteenth century is recorded as having said to the Ayudhya ruler: "My hpon (derived from punna, or "merit") is clearly not on the same level as yours. It would be like comparing a garuda with a dragon-fly, a naga with an earthworm, or the Sun with a fire-fly." Addressing local chiefs he said: "When a man of hpon comes, the man without hpon disappears." [my bold] Here is Buddhist rendering of superior performance in terms of merit-earning in previous lives and the present one, and we are again dealing with the tradition of inequality of spiritual prowess and political status. Are we far removed from other instances of spiritual inequality noted above? The king's accumulated merit had been earned by ascetic performance; the self had to be mastered by steadfastness, mindfulness, and right effort, and only persons of unusual capacity were believed to be able to follow the Path consistently and successfully during their past and present lives. Such a person in Thailand would be hailed for his parami, or possession of the ten transcendent virtues of Buddhism. A Thai friend tells me that parami evokes bhakti ("devotion"), and the linguistic association suggests a rapport comparable with what is indicated in the seventh-century Cambodia and Vietnamese folklore about the tutelary spirits.

In all the instances I have sketched, beliefs associated with an individual's spiritual quality rather than with institutional props seem to be responsible for success. Perhaps de la Loubere sensed that same situation in Ayudhya at the end of the seventeenth century when he remarked: "the scepter of this country soon falls from hands that need a support to sustain it." His observation is similar to that of Francisco Colin in the Philippines in the seventeenth century: "honored parents or relatives" were of no avail to an undistinguished son.

Others may wish to develop or modify the basis I have proposed for studying leadership in early societies of Southeast Asia. Explanations of personal performance, achievement, and leadership are required to reify the cultural background reflected in historical records, and in this turn requires study by historians and anthropologists, working in concert, of the indigenous beliefs behind foreign religious terminology.

pages 93-95

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · January 28

adding my commentary notes:

On pages 17-19 he introduces the concept of "soul stuff", specifically in the context of the "cognatic kinship" of the lowland regions of Mainland Southeast Asia:

This kinship is one in which inheritance and conceptual descent passes equally from males and females. Importantly, powers (rights and otherwise) are not confined by particular gender. These are not family trees of continuous energetic progeny, of men or women, but rather individuals are emphasized by in the genealogy, by their performance. What he is breaking away from is the idea that "power" (however it is conceived, is much less structured by institutional positioning, and not even by lines of familial descent, than by the idea that through performance one can acquire, and also signify personal power..."soul stuff". You didn't get it from your "title" or your father, per se.

If you've been in Thailand long you'll recognize the "big men" of political or social power. He though places this within a larger idea of "prowess", which some sense of martial performance. (In the appendix in the post above emphasis is on spiritual performance, even to the degree of asceticism, in Balinese and Javanese cultures which perhaps DO place more emphasis on direct lineage). The idea he's forwarding though is one of almost spiritual (or even charismatic) social mobility, as endemic to mainland Southeast Asia, achieved through performance, read as "prowess".

You can see this social/spiritual mobility expressed in O. W. Wolter's summation:

Cognatic kinship, an indifference to lineage descent, and a preoccupation with the present that came from the need to identify in one's own generation those with abnormal spiritual qualities are, in my opinion, three widely represented cultural features in many parts of early Southeast Asia. (p. 21)

He views power to be, comparatively, performatively competitive, less restricted by bestowing institution or lineage. "Soul stuff" and the capacity to have it, or more importantly perhaps acquire it and display it, creates an under-logic of a certain mobility through achievement.

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · January 28

This idea of "soul stuff" (from Wolters) is summarized by Michael Charney in his book on Southeast Asian Warfare, woven together with his own thesis from the historical record, that in warfare "soul stuff" could be captured, as expressed in the old cultures of headhunting.