In the "Sri Rama" (the Malay Ramayana) we read, even of the chiefs, that-- "While yet some way off they bowed to the dust, When they got near they made obeisance, Uplifting at each step their fingers ten, The hands closed together like the rootlets of the bakong palm [78] The fingers one on the other like a pile of sirih[2] leaves." [79] Equals in rank when saluting one another touch [80] (though they do not shake) each other's hands, but a person of humble birth must not touch hands in saluting a great chief. "A man, named Imam Bakar, was once slain at Pasir Tambang, at the mouth of the Tembeling river. He incautiously touched hands in greeting with a Chief called To' Gajah, and the latter, seizing him in an iron grip, held him fast, while he was stabbed to death with spears." [81] In saluting a great Chief, like the Dato' Maharaja Perba Jelai, the hands are "lifted up in salutation with the palms pressed together, as in the attitude of Christian prayer, but the tips of the thumbs are not suffered to ascend beyond the base of the chin. In saluting a real Râja, the hands are carried higher and higher, according to the prince's rank, until, for the Sultân, the tips of the thumbs are on a level with the forehead. Little details such as these are of immense importance in the eyes of the Malays, and not without reason, seeing that in an Independent Native State many a man has come by his death for carelessness in their observance." [82] In the king's audience hall the formal salutations are performed in a sitting posture, and in this case, too, the greatest attention is paid to the height to which the hands are raised. The chief twice makes salutation in a sitting posture as he advances, and at the third advance bends over the Sultan's hands, two more salutations being made on his way back to his place. A flagrant infringement of any of the prerogatives of the Sultan, such as those I have described, is certain, it is thought, to prove fatal, more or less immediately.