This is an annotated transcription and translation of the Syair Tabut (Poem of the Tomb Effigies) of Encik Ali, a Malay-language, Jawi-script syair account of the Muharram commemorations of 1864 at Singapore. The only known part lithograph and part manuscript of this text, on which this edition is based, is held in the library of Leiden University, shelfmark Kl. 191. For a full discussion of this Syair, see the accompanying article Lunn and Byl (2017). A note on our translation and transcriptionWe have opted to leave several terms untranslated throughout the Syair. These are:

This is the first treatment of a hitherto unknown text, a hybrid lithograph-manuscript from 1864 called the Syair Tabut, or 'Poem of the tomb effigies', by Encik Ali. The only known copy of the Syair, held at Leiden University in the Klinkert collection, and transcribed and translated by Byl, Iskandar, Lunn, and McCallum (2017), describes the Muharram commemorations at Singapore that year. As the poet describes the procession and its consequences, he reveals much about inter-community participation in this ritual event. Significantly, the 1864 Muharram procession ended with an altercation that resulted in the banning of the ritual by the colonial government, and led to two major court cases on native culpability and police corruption. Encik Ali's poem offers an alternative perspective, conditioned by the wide-ranging vocabulary and conventions of Muharram, a vivid description of diverse performances and events, a knowledge of Singapore's urban geography, and the parameters of Malay poetry.

This case study on the Toba Batak of Northern Sumatra focuses on a model 19th-century German missionary, whose success in the almost complete conversion of the Toba was predicated on a politics of selective tolerance, in which certain local codes and practices were encouraged, while others were identified for replacement with Christian practices and emblems. Through a discussion of the musical tensions involved in this process of selective exchange, Byl explores the ways in which the first missionaries negotiated identities that encompassed both their benevolent Christian convictions and their roles as effective agents of colonial power. For their part, Toba responses to the politics of missionization have also been complex and shot through with contradictions: as an institution, the church stood as a structure bolstering their defiant confrontation of Muslim Indonesia, while internally its implementation is remembered in terms of colonial policies and alliances.

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