Menjaya Raja Manang

Menjaya Raja Manang, the 'King of Shamans', is the divine founder of the manang, the Iban curing shaman. In the origin myth sickness first entered the world when the wife of his brother Sengalang Burong fell ill; called on to heal her, Menjaya became the first manang, discovering the rites of soul-recovery on which all later shamanic practice rests. Iban tradition further holds that in the course of taking up this calling he underwent a transformation of sex, becoming the archetype of the manang bali, the shaman who crosses gender. Every manang thereafter traced the authority of his craft to Menjaya, whose myth grounds both the shaman's power to retrieve the strayed soul of the sick and the ritually liminal status of the manang bali.

Domains

• shamanism
• healing

Powers

• founded the office of the manang
• recovers strayed and captured souls

Epithets

• Raja Manang — King of ShamansPerham, John (1887), 'Manangism in Borneo', JSBRAS no. 19. (primary)

Relations

• sibling: Sengalang BurongSather, Clifford (2001), Seeds of Play, Words of Power (Kuching: Tun Jugah Foundation), on Menjaya as brother of Sengalang Burong. (secondary)

Sources

• Menjaya Raja Manang is the first shaman and divine patron of the manang, brother of Sengalang Burong.: Sather, Clifford (2001), Seeds of Play, Words of Power (Kuching: Tun Jugah Foundation). (secondary); Jensen, Erik (1974), The Iban and their Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press). (secondary)
• He became the first manang when illness first appeared, and in the course of his calling underwent a change of sex, becoming the prototype of the manang bali.: Sather, Clifford (2001), Seeds of Play, Words of Power (Kuching: Tun Jugah Foundation). (secondary)