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
Occasionally the ceremony of shaving the child's head takes place on
the 44th day after birth, the ceremony being called balik juru. A
small sum, such as $2.00 or $3.00, is also sometimes presented to
a pilgrim to carry clippings of the child's locks to Mecca and cast
them into the well Zemzem, such payment being called 'kêkah (`akêkah)
in the case of a boy, and kerban in the case of a girl. [564]
To return to the mother. She is bathed in hot water at 8 o'clock each
morning for three days, and from the day of birth (after ablution)
she has to undergo the strangest ceremony of all, "ascending the
roasting-place" (naik saleian). A kind of rough couch is prepared
upon a small platform (saleian), which is about six feet in length,
and slopes downwards towards the foot, where it is about two feet
above the floor. Beneath this platform a fireplace or hearth (dapor)
[565] is constructed, and a "roaring fire" lighted, which is intended
to warm the patient to a degree consistent with Malay ideas of what is
beneficial! Custom, which is stronger than law, forces the patient to
recline upon this couch two or three times in the course of the day,
and to remain upon it each time for an hour or two. To such extremes
is this practice carried, that "on one occasion a poor woman was
brought to the point of death ... and would have died if she had not
been rescued by the kind interposition of the Civil Assistant-Surgeon;
the excessive excitement caused by the heat was so overpowering that
aberration of mind ensued which continued for several months." [566]
As if this were not enough, one of the heated hearth-stones (batu
tungku) is frequently wrapped up in a piece of flannel or old rags,
applied to the patient's stomach so as to "roast" her still more
effectually. This "roasting" custom is said to continue for the whole
of the forty-four days of uncleanness. During this period there are
many birth-taboos (pantang beranak) applying to food, the following
articles being usually forbidden: (1) things which have (from the
Malay point of view) a lowering effect on the constitution (sagala
yang sejuk-sejuk), e.g. fruits, with some exceptions, and vegetables;
(2) things which have a heating effect on the blood (sagala yang
bisa-bisa), e.g. the fish called pari (skate), the Prickly Fish (ikan
duri), and the sembilang (a kind of mudfish with poisonous spines on
both sides and back), and all fresh-water fish; (3) all things which
have an irritating effect on the skin (sagala yang gatal-gatal),
e.g. the fish called tenggiri, and terubok, shell-fish, and the
egg-plant or Brinjal, while the fish called kurau, g'lama, senahong,
parang-parang may be eaten, so long as they are well salted; (4) things
which are supposed to cause faintness (sagala yang bentan-bentan), or
swooning (pengsan), such, for instance, as uncooked cocoa-nut pulp,
gourds and cucumbers; (5) sugar (with the exception of cocoa-nut
sugar), cocoa-nuts, and chillies. [567]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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