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Badang the Strongman: A Miracle-working Grave, A Folk Tale and a Nation’s Mythology
Manage episode 481457082 series 3476396
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Many people know of the story of Badang the strongman, an aboriginal slave who gains supernatural strength after eating the vomit of a spirit. He throws a stone, which might or might not be the Singapore Stone, and his miracle-working grave is believed to be on Pulau Buru in the Riau Archipelago. However, independent scholar William Gibson tells us the tale of Badang (and the location of his grave) is much more complicated than is generally known.
Dr William L. Gibson is an author and researcher based in Southeast Asia since 2005. A former Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow of the National Library Singapore, he is the author of Keramat, Sacred Relics and Forbidden Idols in Singapore (Routledge, 2024). His articles have appeared in Signal to Noise, PopMatters.com, The Mekong Review, Archipel, History and Anthropology, the Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient and BiblioAsia, among others.
What William Talked About
- 00:00 – What a keramat is
- 01:13 – Legend of Badang the strongman
- 02:20 – William's past research on keramat
- 03:07 – Badang as a national icon and his myth in the Malay Annals
- 04:43 – British interest and early translations of Badang’s story
- 06:26 – The rock-throwing legend and its transformation into a national tale
- 08:26 – Origins of the Singapore Stone and colonial myth-making
- 11:00 – The three different rocks associated with Badang
- 13:02 – The search for the real burial site of Badang
- 18:08 – The shrine’s transformation into a government-designated cultural site
- 20:40 – The Karimun inscription and its link to Badang folklore
- 22:00 – Other stones with footprints and mythical associations
- 24:00 – Theories of Badang’s burial sites
- 26:00 – Other folktales with vomit-eating as a power transfer motif
- 28:00 – Broader meaning and significance of keramat and nature shrines
- 31:05 – Existing keramat in Singapore
- 35:10 – Stories of the keramat Habib Noh
- 39:01 – Challenges of preserving keramat in Singapore
- 42:00 – Fates of kermat in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia
- 44:07 – The heritage value of keramat
- 47:55 – Mythology is…
Transcript and Resources
- Read the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/Badang-the-strongman-a-miracle-working-grave-a-folk-tale-and-a-nations-mythology/transcript
- Read the BiblioAsia article: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-21/issue-1/apr-jun-2025/origins-badang-strongman-singapore-stone/
Subscribe to BiblioAsia for more stories about Singapore.
This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music “Di Tanjong Katong” was composed by Osman Ahmad and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to William for coming on the show.
BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library of Singapore.
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