Jampi.—The incantation of the pawang.
Kapala nasi.—A stake of peeled wood (kayu sungkei) stuck in the ground; the top of this is split into four so as to support a platform similar to that of the genggulang. Offerings are made upon it.[249]
Pantang burok mata.—The period of mourning observed when a death occurs at a mine.
Mourning consists in abstention from work (in the case of a neighbour or comrade) for three days, or, in the case of the death of the pawang, penghulu kelian, or the feudal chief, for seven days. The expression is derived from the supposition that in three days the eyes of a corpse have quite disappeared. Chinese miners have a similar custom; whoever goes to assist in the burial of a corpse must not only abstain from work, but must not go near the mine or smelting furnace for three days.[250]
Perasap.—Half a cocoa-nut shell, a cup, or any other vessel, in which votive offerings of sweet-smelling woods and gums are burnt.
Sangka.—A receptacle in which to burn offerings of sweet woods and gums; it is made of a stick of bamboo about three feet long, one end being split and opened out to receive the charcoal; it is stuck in the ground near races and heaps of tin sand.[251]
Tatin gulang.—The pawang’s fee for the ceremony of erecting a genggulang.[252]
The following notes on tin-mining in Selangor were contributed to the Selangor Journal by Mr. J. C. Pasqual, a well-known local miner:—
“The Malay mining pawang will soon be a thing of the past, and many a pawang has returned to tilling the soil in place of his less legitimate occupation of imposing upon the credulity of the miners. The reason for this is not far to seek, as the Malay miner, as well as the Chinese miner, of the old school, with their thousand-and-one superstitions, has given place to a more modern and matter-of-fact race, who place more reliance for prospecting purposes on boring tools than on the divination and jampi of the pawang. But the profession of the pawang has not altogether died out, as he is sometimes called into requisition for the purpose of casting out evil spirits from the mines; of converting amang[253] (pyrites) into tin-ore, and of invoking the spirits of a mine previous to the breaking of the first sod in a new venture. These ceremonies generally involve the slaying of a buffalo, a goat, or fowls, and the offering of betel-leaf, incense, and rice, according to the means of the towkay lombong.
“The term pawang is now used by the Chinese to indicate the ‘smelter’ (Chinese) of a mine (probably from the fact that this office was formerly the monopoly of the Malay pawang).