"I was now requested to open the proceedings, but at my express desire the Penghulu (Malay headman) did so for me, first scattering several handfuls (of the different sorts of rice) over the bride, and then sprinkling the rice-paste upon the palm of her left hand, which was held out to receive it as described above. The sprinkling over, he took the scissors and with great deliberation severed the end of the first lock, which was made to fall with a little splash, and with the ring attached to it, into the cocoa-nut with the 'dog-tooth' border. "Five other waris (Representatives) and myself followed suit, the seven tresses with the rings attached to them being all received in the cocoa-nut as described. "A child of the age of about two or three years underwent the tonsure at the same time, each of the Representatives, after severing the bride's lock, snipping off a portion of the child's hair. The child was in arms and was not veiled, but wore a shoulder-cloth (bidak) thrown over his shoulder. At the conclusion of the ceremony we left the room, and the Koran-chanting was resumed and continued until the arrival of the bridegroom in procession (at about five P.M.), when the bride and bridegroom went through the ceremony of being 'seated side by side' (bersanding), and the business of the day was concluded. "The cocoa-nut containing the severed tresses and rings is carried to the foot of a barren fruit-tree (e.g. a pomegranate-tree), when the rings are extracted and the water (with the severed locks) poured out at the tree's foot, the belief being that this proceeding will make the tree as luxuriant as the hair of the person shorn, a very clear example of 'sympathetic magic.' If the parents are poor, the cocoa-nut is generally turned upside down and left there; but if they are well-to-do, the locks are usually sent to Mecca in charge of a pilgrim, who casts them on his arrival into the well Zemzem." I will now describe the ceremony of filing or "sharpening" the teeth, from notes taken by myself during the actual ceremony (20th March, 1897). The youth whose teeth I saw filed must have been quite fifteen or sixteen years of age, and had not long before undergone the rite of circumcision. When I arrived I found the house newly swept and clean, and all the accessories of the ceremony already prepared. These latter consisted of a round tray (dulang) containing the usual bowl of rice-paste (tepong tawar), with the brush of leaves, [574] three cups (containing different sorts of rice), an egg, [575] three rings of precious metals (gold, silver, and amalgam), a couple of limes, and two small files (to which a small tooth-saw and two small whetstones should be added). [576]