He kindly agreed to give a talk on the subject on Monday, 13 February at the Core. It was attended by students, academic and officers from the Housing Development Department and the Bandar Seri Begawan Municipal Department.
According to LeBlanc, Kg Ayer houses sprang up in a manner that mirrors closely the traditional organisation in Brunei Malay society, where the power figure is surrounded, in an outward radial pattern, by persons of varying importance, with the more influential occupying the inner circle.
He also shared some really intriguing info he gathered from orang pandai (wise men) about the houses in Kg Ayer. For instance, the houses are not aligned to ward off evil spirits; the back and front doors are similarly arranged for the same purpose. This indicates a lingering of the old animalistic rituals even after Islam has been introduced.
I'll let him tell you the rest of it, though not immediately. We recorded the talk and I hope to upload the videos here as soon as possible.
Edit: I haven't been able to upload the videos yet as they are quite big, so you will have to wait until I figure out how to reduce their sizes. If anyone out there knows how to do this, please let me know. I'd be so grateful!
No comments:
Post a Comment