Yak Kalcheng

Yak Kalcheng ('Grandmother Kalcheng') is one of the chthonic grandmother goddesses of the northern Semang. With Yak Takel and Yak Manoid she keeps guard at the roots of Batu Herem, the stone pillar upholding the heavens, and the three together can send the waters surging up from beneath the earth against those who break the divine prohibitions. Evans records of Kalcheng in particular that she made the four boards in the heavens over which the thunder-stone rolls, a mythic image accounting for the rumble of the thunder that the Semang so greatly fear.

Domains

• underworld

Powers

• to guard the roots of the pillar that supports the heavens
• to make the waters rise from beneath the earth against transgressors
• to fashion the four boards in the heavens over which the thunder-stone rolls

Relations

• companion: Yak TakelKalcheng and Takel are named together, with Yak Manoid, as the grandmother guardians of the roots of the heaven-pillar who jointly raise the waters from beneath the earth.'Yak Manoid', Encyclopedia Mythica (pantheon.org, ed. M. F. Lindemans, 1997-2004), digest of Evans (1937). (secondary); Evans, Ivor H. N. (1937). The Negritos of Malaya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ch. XIV, 'The Negrito Deities'. (secondary)

Sources

• Yak Kalcheng is a subterranean 'grandmother' deity of the Semang who guards the roots of the heaven-supporting pillar Batu Herem and who made the four boards in the heavens over which the thunder-stone rolls.: Evans, Ivor H. N. (1937). The Negritos of Malaya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ch. XIV, 'The Negrito Deities'. (secondary); 'Yak Kalcheng', Encyclopedia Mythica (pantheon.org, ed. M. F. Lindemans, 1997-2004), digest of Evans (1937). (secondary)