Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and...

56 The Malay headman (Haji Brahim), the priest of the local mosque, the Bilal (an inferior attendant at the mosque), and some thirty Malays belonging to the village, took part in this ceremony. A goat had been killed for the occasion, and the party who were paying the vow brought its flesh with them, together with a great heap of rice stained with saffron (turmeric). The men assembled at the tomb, incense was burned, and Arabic prayers read, after which a white cloth, five cubits long, was laid on the saint’s grave. A banquet followed, in which we all took part. ↑

57 Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. i. p. 189. ↑

58 For the ideas referred to in this and the preceding paragraph, cp. Frazer, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 187–207. Cp. also for the abstention from hair-cutting at childbirth, Clifford’s Studies in Brown Humanity, p. 48. The idea of long hair is found even in animistic conceptions of natural objects. Thus the wind (Angin) is begged in a wind-charm “to let down its long and flowing locks.” ↑

59 Raja Bĕrma, son of Raja Jaman of Bandar (Wan Bong). Cp. also Clifford, In Court and Kampong, p. 114, “He wore his fine black hair long, so that it hung about his waist.”

The old custom in Selangor is said to have been for men to wear their hair down to the shoulders (rambut panjang jijak bahu), but they would frequently wear it below the waist (rambut sa-pĕrhĕmpasan), in which case it appears to have been commonly shorn at puberty or marriage. When worn full length by men it was usually, for convenience, coiled up inside the head-cloth or turban (saputangan or tanjak), or was made up into rolls or chignons (sanggul dan siput) like that of the women. It was not infrequently used as a place of concealment for one of the small Malay poniards called “Pepper-crushers” (tumbok lada), not only by men but by women. ↑

60 Frazer, op. cit. vol. i. p. 193. ↑

61Vide infra, Chap. VI. p. 569, seqq., etc. ↑

62Vide infra, Chap. VI. pp. 353–355, Adolescence. ↑

63 “Ces danseurs et ces danseuses ont tous des ongles faux, et fort longs, de cuivre jaune.”—La Loubère, Royaume de Siam, tome i. pp. 148–150 (quoted by Crawf., Hist. Indian Arch. i. p. 131). Cp. “They have a custom to wear their thumb-nails very long, especially that on their left thumb, for they do never cut it, but scrape it often.”—Dampier’s Voyages, vol. i. pp. 325, 326. ↑

64Vide infra, Chap. VI. pp. 355–360. ↑

65 Or Sumangat. The derivation of the word is unknown: possibly it may be connected with sangat, “excessive,” or bangat, “sudden, quick.” The meaning covers both “soul“and “life” (i.e. not the state of being alive, but the cause thereof or “vital principle”). ↑

66 In calling the soul, a clucking sound, represented in Malay by the word kur or kĕrr, by which fowls are called, is almost always used; in fact, “kur sĕmangat” (“cluck! cluck! soul!”) is such a common expression of astonishment among the Malays that its force is little more than “good gracious me!” (vide infra, p. 534, note). ↑

67Vide App. vi. ↑

68 In another charm we find the sick man’s body compared to a weather-beaten barque at sea. ↑

69Vide App. cclxxi. ↑

70 The entire conception of the soul among the Malays agrees word for word with Professor Tylor’s classical definition in Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 387, and hence I have not hesitated to use his exact words in so far as they were applicable. ↑

71 Cp. Tylor, Prim. Cult. vol. i. p. 422. ↑

72 What these seven souls were it is impossible without more evidence to determine. All that can be said is that they were most probably seven different manifestations of the same soul. Such might be the Shadow-soul, the Reflection-soul, the Puppet-soul, the Bird-soul (?), the Life-soul, etc, but as yet no evidence is forthcoming.—Cp. Tylor, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 391, 392. ↑

73 Professor Tylor calls this “a combination of several kinds of spirit, soul, or image, to which different functions belong” (op. cit. vol. i. pp. 391, 392). ↑

74Infra, Chap. VI. p. 569. ↑

75Infra, Chap. V. p. 241. ↑

76Infra, Chap. VI. p. 575. ↑

77Infra, Chap. VI. p. 568. ↑

78Infra, Chap. VI. p. 431. ↑

79 We might then expect to get some such table as the following:—

Colours of Cloths (used to enwrap the lump of earth from the footprint).

Colours of Cosmetics (used by the sick man).

Colours of Rice (such as may be used by medicine-men).

...

white

white

Highest

Color.

yellow

...

yellow

Medium

Color.

,,

...