The Development of Children Attire in Malay Ceremonials in the Context of Malay Socio-Cultural

Abstract

Basically this research is a part of Malay historical research that emphasize on the significance and the beauty of Malay culture. This research is focuses on the Malay children attire in specific ceremonies. Culture is the common way of life of a community or a nationhood that manifest the ideas, custom and social behavior collectively. The cultural activist has divided the human aspect of life into various field. It involves the arts, custom, social habits, economy, language, attires and accessories, courtesy, value system, and neighborhoods. In general culture can be defined as an instruction to the members of a society in a closer way of life (Asmad, 1990). Meanwhile, Zubaidah Sual (2017) has stated that, the annotation of Malay traditional clothe is the style worn by the communal during the specific ceremonies and their daily style. Therefore, this historical research is relatively based on the Mayer Schapiro theory of style in analysing the artefacts. As mentioned by Siti Zainon Ismail (2016), there are two level of Malay cultural manifestation which are; ‘tradisi agung’ and ‘tradisi rakyat’ or the royal and the communal. This research aims to explore on the style and the material use in each of these children attires. Furthermore, it discusses the children customary clothes in three main ceremonies namely head shaving ceremony / cukur jambul, circumcised / berkhatan, and also baby ear piercing / bertindik. In a nutshell, these two different group of Malay tradition maintain the Malay traditional attire style in each of their ceremony. Yet the royals are keen to use Songket and beautiful lavish accessories meanwhile the communal are constantly keep to use the economical materials for their children ceremonial attires. Overall, this study will provide an invaluable source of information about Malay custom and culture. It will be benefited to the Malay royal families, researchers, academicians, scholars, students, cultural archivists, museum curators and public at large in studying and preserving this heritage and tradition.