What is susuk? Indonesia's charm-needle tradition explained
The charm needles slipped under the skin for beauty and charisma: the taboos that come with them, and why folklore says they must be removed before death.
9 min read · Published 28 August 2026
The answer
Susuk are charm needles or tiny objects (often gold, sometimes diamond) said to be inserted just under the skin by a dukun to grant the wearer beauty, charisma, luck or protection. The charisma is often described as aura or seri, an inner glow. A susuk has pantangan: taboos or abstentions the wearer must observe for it to keep its power. Folklore also holds that a susuk must be removed before its wearer dies, or the dying will be prolonged and difficult. Accounts of the practice vary widely across Indonesia and the wider Malay world.
What susuk is
Susuk is the practice of placing a charm needle (or another tiny object, most often a sliver of gold, sometimes a fragment of diamond) just beneath the skin, where it stays unseen. The insertion is said to be done by a dukun, a traditional ritual specialist, and the object is understood to carry a charm that works on the wearer from within, quietly, for as long as it remains in place.
It is found across Indonesia and the broader Malay-speaking world, and the details differ from teller to teller. The needle is commonly placed in the face, the brow, the cheek or the chin (near where its effect is wanted) and it leaves no mark that an onlooker would notice. That invisibility is part of the idea: the charm's work is meant to be felt by others as an impression, never traced to its source.
What a susuk is said to grant
People are said to seek susuk for a handful of related ends, most of them turning on how one is seen by others. The most common aim is a kind of magnetism, an appeal that draws people in.
Susuk is a beauty story more than a magic one, and I'd read the taboos as the interesting part.
| Aim | How it is described in folklore |
|---|---|
| Beauty | A face that reads as more striking or radiant than before, without any visible change. |
| Charisma | The pull often called aura or seri. An inner glow that makes the wearer magnetic in company. |
| Luck and success | A smoother path in trade, work or dealings, as doors are felt to open more easily. |
| Protection | A guard against harm, ill will, or rival magic directed at the wearer. |
The word seri (also *sri*) has the sense of an inner light or graciousness, and aura is used much as it's in English. The atmosphere a person gives off. In the telling, susuk doesn't so much change the face as change the charge around it.
The pantangan: taboos the wearer must keep
A susuk isn't held to be free. It comes with pantangan: taboos or abstentions the wearer must observe for the charm to keep its power and for no harm to rebound. The specifics differ by dukun and by the charm, but certain kinds of restriction recur.
- Foods to avoid. Particular foods are commonly forbidden (certain gourds, greens or dishes named by the dukun) and eating them is said to weaken or spoil the charm.
- Conduct to keep. The wearer may be told to avoid arrogance, cruelty or specific behaviours, on the belief that misusing the charm's pull can turn it against them.
- Secrecy. Many accounts hold that a susuk works best kept quiet; to boast of it, or to reveal it, is to blunt it.
- Ritual upkeep. Some charms are said to need periodic tending (a returning to the dukun, an observance kept on set days) to stay strong.
Break the pantangan and the folklore turns sharp: the charm may fade, or its effect may sour, the very beauty or luck it granted curdling into its opposite. The pantangan is the price and the discipline of susuk, not an afterthought to it.
Removal before death
The most striking belief attached to susuk concerns the end of life. Folklore widely holds that a susuk must be removed before its wearer dies: and that if it is not, the dying will be drawn out, restless and difficult, the person unable to pass easily while the charm still holds them to the world.
For this reason accounts describe susuk being taken out in old age or in final illness, whether by the dukun who placed it or by another who knows the way of it. In some tellings the wearer must pass on the knowledge that a susuk is even present, so that those around them can act when the time comes; a charm kept wholly secret can become a charm no one knows to remove. As with the rest of the practice, the particulars vary, and this is best held as a widely shared strand of the folklore rather than a single fixed rule.
What the X-ray shows
Susuk is one of the few folk practices that leaves physical evidence, and the evidence turns up in dentists' and radiologists' offices. Panoramic dental X-rays and facial radiographs in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore sometimes show small, dense, needle-shaped objects in the soft tissue of the cheeks, chin, lips and brow, a few millimetres long, usually gold. Case reports in the dental and radiology literature describe patients who did not mention them, either because they did not know they were there or because the pantangan forbade saying so.
The clinical notes are practical. The needles are inert, rarely cause trouble, and are usually left alone unless they sit in the path of surgery. The reports exist so that a radiologist in Kuala Lumpur does not mistake a charm for a fragment of shrapnel. That is the whole of the medical interest, and it is also a quiet confirmation that the practice is real in the sense that people do it, whatever it does.
Materials and placements
| Material | Where it is placed | Said to be for |
|---|---|---|
| Gold needle | Cheeks, chin, between the brows | Beauty and seri, the inner glow |
| Diamond or gem chip | Forehead or cheekbone | Radiance and status; the costliest form |
| Silver or other metal | Arms, chest | Protection and strength |
| Pearl | Lips | Sweetness of speech, persuasion |
| Mercury, in some accounts | Under the skin of the hands or arms | Invulnerability; also a poisoning risk the folklore does not mention |
The mercury version is the one a doctor would want to know about, since metallic mercury under the skin can cause local tissue damage and, over years, systemic poisoning. Everything else in the table is inert. The folklore treats them all the same; medicine does not.
Who is said to wear it
The rumour follows the spotlight. Actresses, singers, television presenters, market traders with an unusually loyal clientele, and politicians with an unusually loyal electorate are all said, by people who cannot know, to be wearing susuk. The accusation is a way of explaining charisma without granting the person credit for it, which is the same social function the evil eye serves in reverse. Where the evil eye says your good fortune has drawn envy, the susuk rumour says your good fortune was bought.
Malaysian tabloids run a susuk story about a celebrity every few years, and the celebrity denies it every time. The denial is expected, since secrecy is one of the pantangan. The rumour is unfalsifiable by design, which is part of why it lasts.
Susuk in the wider world of Indonesian magic
Susuk belongs to the same broad landscape as Indonesia's other folk beliefs. A world where a dukun may be sought for healing, for protection, for luck, or, in the case of santet, for harm. Where santet is magic aimed outward at an enemy, susuk is magic worn inward, turned on the self and how the self is met by others. Both run on the conviction that unseen forces can be shaped by ritual and specialist knowledge.
It is a living practice, discreet by its nature and rarely advertised, and it has no single doctrine. Some hold it lightly, some seriously, some not at all. The register to keep is the one the whole tradition asks for: this is heritage and worldview, held by real people, and it deserves describing with care instead of mockery.
Salimah Ibrahim