Is this the sultry-voiced 18-year-old folksinger I met so many years ago? (reprise)

Anna Salleh belts it out at No Black Tie (September 2002)

Portrait of a torch singer

Anna used to be in a Sydney-based a cappella group

Jazz is her passion now (photos by Antares)

I was introduced to Anna Salleh in 1983 by her proud father, the larger-than-life bilingual poet, columnist, actor and playwright Salleh Ben Joned (pictured left). Having just bought myself a guitar a couple of years earlier, I was bowled over when Anna picked up hers and played me a couple of her own songs.

You could say I was immediately smitten by her uninhibited spirit, her strong melodious voice, and her Eurasian good looks (her mother Ariel is Australian, married her father while he was doing his Masters in English literature in Tasmania).

Lat's classic portrait of Salleh Ben Joned as a bohemian poet

But, dammit, she had just turned 18. I was only 33 then but it did seem like a huge age gap (how silly of me to even think it!). At the time I was still part of a nuclear family with two lovely daughters aged 14 and 12; and, besides, the thought of having Salleh Ben Joned as a father-in-law lent the whole prospect a somewhat surreal, if not entirely absurd, dimension, much as I love the man. Anna mentioned, as if in telepathic response to an unspoken question, that she was dating a muso named Peter, who was into folk.

Anna and I kept in sporadic contact over the years. Peter and she were part of a commune called Magic Mountain, mostly populated by artists, musicians, organic farmers, assorted oddballs, maverick scientists, and visionaries. Perhaps it was Anna's description of life at Magic Mountain that inspired my establishing the Magick River community nine years later.

My first trip to Australia was in 1991 as a guest of the Department of Foreign Affairs who sponsored a 23-day tour of five cities. I had a fantastic time meeting musicians, filmmakers, theatre activists. mystics and high-tech shamans. During my brief stay in Sydney, Anna dropped in at my tiny hotel and we had a long, leisurely natter. At the time she was part of a professional a cappella group. She was also struggling to obtain her degree in some esoteric branch of biology, while holding down a rather mundane day job, I forget what. And she was still mesmerizingly beautiful. Indeed, I thought Anna had improved with age. Take a look at these videos recorded a few weeks ago at No Black Tie...



Black Orpheus (Luiz Bonfá and Antonio Maria) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).



Semalam di Malaya (Saiful Bahri) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's, 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).



Summer Samba/So Nice (Marcos Valle/Norman Gimbel) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's, 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).

What a smashing diva, don't you think? Anna's back in Sydney at her day job writing and producing features for ABC Science Online - but she says she plans to spend a lot more time in Malaysia exploring her roots. I think that's an absolutely fabulous idea, Anna!

Say, how about one more number from the delectable Anna Salleh, folks? And if you still haven't had enough, check out her YouTube channel.




So Danco Samba (Vinícius de Moraes/Antonio Carlos Jobim) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar (R) and Toninho (L) on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's, 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).

[First posted 31 October 2009]

Lessons for the modern world from Temuan creation myths... (repost)

Aboriginal rock art (from Aroundtheworld.org)

Origins of Manusia

Temuan ceremonial singer Minah Angong,
better known as Mak Minah

THERE ARE NUMEROUS STORIES of how Manusia (Humanity) came to be, but none can be regarded as definitive. Mak Minah’s version is so similar to the one recounted in Genesis that my first thought was to discount it as an authentic Temuan creation myth. Perhaps Mak Minah’s grandmother had heard the tale from a Christian or Muslim missionary and subsequently incorporated it into her repertoire of bedtime stories.

But wasn’t it equally possible that Mak Minah’s version was true to the spirit of a universal creation myth that eventually made its way into Judaeo-Christian and Islamic belief systems via Mesopotamia?

Creation of Manusia (Version 1: Mak Minah) Tuhan (God) made Manusia out of tanah liat (clay). Then he breathed his Spirit into the clay figure and it came to life. When Tuhan saw that the first Man was lonely, he decided to make him a companion. So Tuhan put a deep sleep upon his creature and removed a rib from the lower part of his rib cage. Out of this Tuhan fashioned Woman.

Sibin Aus, shaman of Pertak 

Creation of Manusia (Version 2: Sibin Aus) Tuhan came upon two punai (pink-collared green pigeon) eggs in a nest and mistook them for unripe fruits. Every day he looked in on the nest to see if the “fruits” were ripening. Finally the day came when the eggs hatched and he was delighted to see two baby pigeons cheeping in their nest.

“Ha! These are very special fruits indeed!” Tuhan exclaimed, inspired by the apparent miracle. “Perhaps that’s the way to create children of my own: I need to implant my own seed in an egg and incubate it till it hatches!”

Tuhan’s first experiment produced a male offspring, which he called Manusia, or Human. Then he remembered there were two baby pigeons in the nest and they had seemed so happy together. Tuhan tried out the “eggs-periment” again and an identical being was hatched.

“Hmm,” Tuhan mused, “We might have to introduce the concept of gender at this point if my project is to evolve beyond the embryonic stage.”

He decided to give each Human an egg to swallow. The first one gagged on the egg, which got stuck halfway down his throat. The second one swallowed the egg without difficulty and it came to rest in his abdomen, just below the belly button. Immediately he grew breasts and was ready to be impregnated.

“Oh, oh,” Tuhan said, “We’d better call this one a She!” (Sibin chuckled and added that some people believe the first woman was actually created out of one of the first man’s ribs. He then rolled up his singlet and pointed at the missing rib in his rib cage. “And there’s the proof!” he quipped.)

Creation Story by Wayne Rector

Tuhan & Iblis (God & Devil): Creation & Design

ACCORDING TO SIBIN AUS, the first humans which Tuhan made were like patong (dolls) with no discernible facial or bodily features. They were, if truth be told, extremely crude and primitive. Iblis (or Hablis, as Sibin pronounces it) came along and shook his head. “Not bad,” he said, “but I have a few suggestions, if you don’t mind my interfering.”

Tuhan raised an eyebrow and stroked his chin. “Well, show me what you have in mind.” Iblis set to work and soon the human was endowed with eyes and ears and nose and mouth and fingers and toes... and genitals.

Tuhan had to concede that Iblis had truly succeeded in making a good thing even better. “Great stuff,” Tuhan said, patting Iblis on the back. “From now on, let’s work as a team. I’ll handle the Creation, you take care of the Design!”

And this is why Manusia, while essentially godly, is also always somewhat diabolical.


Sibin's account resonates with the universal myth of the Hero Twins, who appear in Mesopotamian lore as Enki and Enlil (Enuma Elish); in Mayan cosmomythology (Popol Vuh) as Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The Hero Twins manifest as Gilgamesh and Enkidu in Mesopotamia; Castor and Pollux in Greece; and as Romulus and Remus in Italy. Norse legends have Loki and Thor in the rôle of the Hero Twins. Leonardo da Vinci’s famous twin paintings, Virgin of the Rocks, mysteriously depict the Holy Infants as a pair of royal twins; and, closer to home, the Jah Hut tribe of Peninsular Malaysia attribute the creation of Adamic man to the rival deities, Ebrahil and Peruman.

But why twins? Is there a long-forgotten truth to be gleaned about bi-polarity as the basis of creation? Does our Sun have an invisible twin? Does the Milky Way galaxy have a twin in Andromeda? Is this why everyone seems to be in perpetual search of a Twin Flame?

[From TANAH TUJUH ~ Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos by Antares (Silverfish Books, 2007). First posted 17 January 2013, reposted 12 January 2014 & 3 August 2017]