Jong Jong Inai

jong jong inai

mak ipong raja wali

tersepak tunggul inai

berdarah ibu kaki

Literal translation

jong jong inai - lets go, lets go henna

mak ipong raja wali- mother of ipong is the king of the pious

tersepak tunggul inai- if accidentally kicked a henna stump

berdarah ibu kaki- your foot will bleed

Interpretation

It is important to note that that a pantun usually consists of four lines. the first and second lines are usually meaningless, it is called pembayang which is intended to prepare for the real message. This is to make the pantun rhymes and sounds nice. But this is not always true... old folks have their own way of conveying their real message. We might want to interpret the pembayang because the Malay have this concept of kias, meaning to say something indirectly ( a way of being polite)

On the first line, I still do not understand why anybody would want to invite henna. with the saying 'lets go, lets go henna, we could say that most malays back then practice animisme. Maybe they believed that plants could understand what humans are saying.

I do not know what or who is Ipong. so lets just say that Ipong is someone's name. mak ipong raja wali probably means that Ipong's mother is the king of the pious. This clearly shows that women played a major role in politics and religion in the Malay society back then. This can be seen by the existence of minang culture which is more matriach than other culture in the Malay region.

The third and fourth line could be interpreted as cause and effect. with the kicking of henna stump, there might be a probable chance of our foot to be injured or bleed. This clearly shows that Malays back then are already thinking logically. The foot would not bleed if there is no cause for it to bleed. Maybe this pantun is meant for all of us to understand that for something to happen, there must be a reason or cause for it.

Maybe that is why when something unwanted happen to Malay people, they usually say.. takpe, mesti ada hikmah sebalik kejadian nie ( its ok, there must be a reason why things happen).