Malay Magic: Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay PeninsulaSkeat, Walter William
Religion
Malay Magic: Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula
Skeat, Walter William
Magic -- Malay Peninsula; Malays (Asian people) -- Folklore; Malays (Asian people) -- Social life and customs
Next she took the contents of the soul-basket (the egg and stone,
candle-nut and shell as before), and after anointing them with oil and
fumigating them, replaced them in the basket; then taking the penuwei
sulong ("Eldest Rice-cutter"), anointed the blade with the oil of
frankincense, and inserting the thumb of the right hand into her mouth,
pressed it for several moments against the roof of her palate. On
withdrawing it she proceeded to cut the first seven "heads" of rice,
repeating "the Ten Prayers" as she did so. Then she put the seven
"heads" together, and kissed them; turned up the whites of her eyes
thrice, and thrice contracting the muscles of her throat with a sort
of "click," swallowed the water in her mouth. [425] Next she drew the
small white cloth which she took from the soul-basket for the purpose
across her lap, and laying the little bundle of seven ears in it,
anointed them with oil and tied them round with parti-coloured thread
(benang panchawarna), after which she fumigated them with the incense,
and strewing rice of each kind over them, folded the ends of the cloth
over them, and deposited them as before in the basket, which was handed
to the first bearer. Then standing up, she strewed more rice over the
sheaf, and tossing some backwards over her head, threw the remainder
over the rest of the party, saying "tabek" ("pardon") as she did so,
and exclaiming "kur semangat, kur semangat, kur semangat!" ("cluck,
cluck, soul!") in a loud voice. Next she pushed the cocoa-nut shell
(which had contained the tepong tawar) into the middle of the sheaf,
and removed all traces of the lane which had been trodden round the
sheaf (to make it accessible) by bending down the surrounding ears
of rice until the gap was concealed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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