Malay magic on the colonial frontier: Ternaten spellcasters and hostages of war in seventeenth-century Manila

Abstract Folk magic practices were common across the early modern Spanish Empire, including in seventeenth-century Manila where dozens of Asian herbalists and other practitioners of magic offered magical solutions in affairs of the heart and matters of fortune and divination to their mostly Spanish clients. At the centre of these folk magic activities were a group of Ternaten captives of war, relatives of the Sultan Saïd Berkat Syah, who was taken hostage by the Spanish during their invasion of Ternate in 1606. While the capture of Sultan Saïd by the Spanish in 1606 is well known within the historiography of the Maluku Islands, the presence of the Ternaten hostages within Manila in the early seventeenth century remains absent from the history of the port city. This article explores the lives of these Ternaten hostages, arguing that their spellcasting activities represent a hidden transcript of politics and power among previously marginalised historical subjects.