No other metals, so far as I am aware, are worked to any extent in the Peninsula, yet there is the clearest possible evidence of animistic ideas about Iron. Thus for the Sacred Lump of Iron which forms part of the regalia of more than one of the petty Sultans in the Peninsula, the Malays entertain the most extraordinary reverence, not unmingled with superstitious terror. [481] It is upon this "Lump of Iron," when placed in water, that the most solemn and binding oath known to those who make use of it is sworn; and it is to this "Lump of Iron" that the Malay wizard refers when he recites his category of the most terrible denunciations that Malay magic has been able to invent. [482] It is possible that there may be, in the Malay mind at all events, some connection between the supernatural powers ascribed to this portion of the regalia and the more general use of iron as a charm against evil spirits. For the various forms of iron which play so conspicuous a part in Malay magic, from the long iron nail which equally protects the new-born infant and the Rice-Soul from the powers of evil, to the betel-nut scissors which are believed to scare the evil spirits from the dead, are alike called the representatives (symbols or emblems) of Iron (tanda besi). So, too, is the blade of the wood-knife, or cutlass, which a jungle Malay will sometimes plant in the bed of a stream (with its edge towards the source) before he will venture to drink of the water. So, too, is the blade of the same knife, upon the side of which he will occasionally seat himself when he is eating alone in the forest; both of these precautions being taken, however, as I have more than once been told, not only to drive away evil spirits, but to "confirm" the speaker's own soul (menetapkan semangat). Even Stone appears to be regarded as distinctly connected with ideas of animism. Thus the stone deposited in the basket with the Rice-soul, the stone deposited in the child's swinging cot by way of a substitute when the child is temporarily taken out of it, and above all the various concretions to be found from time to time both in the bodies of animals ("Bezoar" stones) and in the stems or fruit of trees (as tabasheer), are examples of this. Examples of tabasheer have already been quoted (under Vegetation Charms), but a few remarks about Bezoar stones may be of interest. The Bezoar stones known to the Peninsular Malays are usually obtained either from monkeys or porcupines. Extraordinary magical virtues are attached to these stones, the gratings of which are mixed with water and administered to the sick. [483]