The 13th of October. There are many legends as to the origins of the Nine Emperor Gods as diverse as representing the stars of the Big Dipper, being the Nine Human Sovereigns who lived in pre-history China, and supporters of the last Emperor of the Ming Dynasty to being local pirates who landed in Penang and helped establish the Chinese community in Malaysia. For more detail of the stories, and a description of the rituals performed by one temple in Malaysia (every temple has different variations of the rituals), see ‘The festival of the Nine Emperor Gods in Malaysia: Myth, ritual and symbol’ by Cheu Hock Tong (Asian Folk Lore Studies, Volume 55, 1999, 49-72).
Back to the yew keng. There was a convoy of trucks (many of which were brightly decorated) carrying the palanquins which are used to carry the deities as well as tourist busses to carry devotees. I was lucky enough to have missed the buses taking devotees to the two locations, and was invited to climb on the back of a truck with temple volunteers who ranged from traffic controllers to direct non-temple traffic at the two sacred locations to a photographer called Tan who later introduced me and helped to conduct interviews with both the Taoist priest who officiated the ceremony, and the spirt medium (tang-ki) who tranced the 1st Brother or senior of Nine Emperor Gods.
There were only two stops on route. First, the original location of their temple which was several miles north west of their present location in an area which is now countryside, I think on Sungel Tengah Road, and second, at the pier at the northermost point of Lim Chu Kang Road with a view looking over to Malaysia.
At the site of their original temple, an altar was prepared on a small table, and a ritual was performed by a Taoist Priest called Huang Zhen Quan 黃貞泉. In attendance were all Nine Emperor Gods, each tranced through a different medium. It seems that last year it had been decided that the Nine Emperor Gods wanted to revisit the original site of their temple this year. The Taoist priest chanted a liturgical scripture, the Qing Shen Zhou 請神咒 (a scripture inviting to deities to be present) while offerings of burning money and incense were made. The horn blown by the priest symbolizes inviting the Heavenly armies to be present at the, and the spraying of the water is to purify the sacred space surrounding the altar.
The yew keng then continued to the second location where two tables had been prepared, one for the Taoist ritual and a second as an altar for several deities to whom both the Nine Emperor Gods and the public paid respects (bai bai). The palanquins went quite wild at this location, and there was a deep sense and air of respect, power and spirituality surrounding the entire event there. The tang-ki channelling the Nine Emperor Gods remained in trance, and after the Taoist ceremony had been completed, each of the Nine Emperor Gods took turns to pay respects to the deities at the altar, each being given a cup containing what I assumed to be tea which they blessed by waving their flag over it.
The yew keng then returned to the temple where the palanquins and the tang-ki trancing the Nine Emperor Gods were given a loud and rapturous welcome. The event concluded dramatically around 11PM as each of the Nine Emperor Gods individually came out of trance in a ‘dragon chair’ placed in the courtyard facing the hall where the Nine Emperor Gods anthropomorphized images are worshipped.
On interviewing the spirit medium who tranced the First Brother - the most senior of the Nine Emperor Gods, he explained that during the entire periiod of trance which lasted some 3 hours, he was completely unaware of anything in the material world, and had no recollections of the event.
