'Engku'

'Engku' is the great being of the underworld waters, conceived as a dragon or serpent dwelling beneath the earth. In the paired cosmology best described for the Temiar, it forms a complementary opposite to Karey: where the thunderer strikes from the sky, 'Engku' answers a broken prohibition from below, dissolving solid ground into mud and raising the waters that can drown and overturn the world. The downward portion of the blood sacrifice - blood mixed with water and poured toward the earth - is its share. Its identity is genuinely unsettled in the literature. Some Semai use the name Ngkuu' or Enku for the thunderer himself, collapsing the two powers into one; others keep them distinct as an above-and-below pair; and 'Engku' is regularly identified with the world-bearing serpent whose movements cause earthquakes.

Domains

• underworld waters
• flood earthquake

Powers

• raises the dissolving floodwaters

Relations

• ally: KareyCounterpart to the thunderer above; the downward half of the blood sacrifice is directed to it.Benjamin, Geoffrey (2014), Temiar Religion, 1964-2012, on the paired sky and underground deities. (secondary)
• companion: Naga'Frequently identified with the world-bearing serpent; the two are often spoken of as a single subterranean being.Skeat, W. W. & Blagden, C. O. (1906), Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, vol. 2. (primary)

Sources

• The subterranean water-dragon 'Engku' is the below-deity of Senoi cosmology, counterpart to the thunderer and sender of the world-dissolving flood.: Benjamin, Geoffrey (2014), Temiar Religion, 1964-2012 (Singapore: NUS Press). (secondary); Dentan, Robert Knox (1968), The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya, pp. 21-24. (secondary)