Nyang Serai

Nyang Serai is the traditional faith of the Rejang, the rice farmers of the Barisan highlands in southwestern Sumatra. It is named for its best-known figure, the goddess of rice and fertility, whom the Rejang saw as their own version of the Javanese goddess Dewi Sri. Her worshippers offered sacrificial animals and incense.

At the great feast, the kedurai agung, the Rejang raised the punjung, a pile of produce that stood for a mountain, Mount Kaba, and prayed on its slopes. Feared spirits called smat lived in particular places, so people asked their leave before entering or taking anything from nature. The tiger was treated as an ancestor.

Islam arrived from Banten, Aceh and the Minangkabau lands from about the sixteenth century. The Rejang converted later than most of their neighbors.