amuletsJimatجيمت

The coin-charms are the part of this class with dates on it. Indonesian collectors call them uang gobog, gobog wayang or koin gobog; in Bali they are pis bolong; Dutch sources called them Indonesische tempelmunten, Indonesian temple coins. The first gobog amulets in Java appeared during the Majapahit Empire. Gobog wayang in copper and brass were produced in the eighteenth century, and evidence for making them at scale runs only from the beginning of the twentieth.

They left the island early. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles took 106 gobog wayang cash coins with him from Java to Britain, and they are in the British Museum. Joe Cribb built the standard catalogue on them: Magic coins of Java, Bali, and the Malay Peninsula, 13th century to 20th century — A Catalogue based on the Raffles Collection of Coin-shaped charms from Java in the British Museum, published in 1999. That subtitle is also the clearest published statement of the span.

What the pieces are held to do is stated type by type. A Yogyakarta numismatist describes the function of gobog amulets as "a complement to the requirements or ritual offerings in Java". In Bali they remain in use in Hindu rites, as tokens of faith and as bringers of good fortune, and individual types carry individual claims — the Pis Anoman is said to give its holder strength and energy like the wind.

The class carries an argument inside it. Indonesian Wikipedia's article on jimat states the Islamic position flatly: "Penggunaan jimat di dalam ajaran Islam adalah perbuatan terlarang. Hal ini dikarenakan perbuatan tersebut merupakan bentuk meminta perlindungan dan penyembuhan kepada selain Allah" — using a jimat is forbidden in Islamic teaching, because it amounts to seeking protection and healing from other than God — and adds that the practice belongs to pre-Islamic society and should not be followed. The same article illustrates the baju rajah as a thing people wear. Both statements sit on the same page. That is where the word stands in Indonesian and Malay now, and this atlas reports it without settling it.

Cast, for the coins: metal of a composition close to Chinese cash, in moulds, with wayang figures on the face. Written, for the rajah: characters inscribed on paper or onto cloth, as in the baju rajah. Then hung — on the body, on a vehicle, on a building — or set out with ritual offerings, which is the use a Yogyakarta numismatist names for the gobog in Java. This project has read no published account of the making rite for either, and prints none.

Still in use in Bali in Hindu rites as of the accounts this project has read, and still argued over in Indonesian-language religious writing, where the class is described as forbidden by Islamic teaching and illustrated at the same time. The Raffles pieces remain in London.