“There are two cycles borrowed from the Arabs, and known only to a few, viz. one of 120 years, the dour[240] besar, and the other of eight, dour kechil. The latter is sometimes seen in dates of letters, and resembles the mode adopted by us of distinguishing by letters the different days of the week, substituting eight years for the seven days. The order of the letters is as follows: Alif-ha-jim-za-dal-ba-wau-dal-Ahajazdabuda. The present year (1251) is the year Toun-za.
“In a Malay MS. history of Patani, in my possession, I find the Siamese mode of designating the different years of the cycle by the names of animals adopted.”[241]
Plate 25.—Fig. 1. Diagrams.
Diagrams used for divinatory purposes—the two on the right being different kinds of “magic squares.” The left-hand top figure has small circles at different points of its anatomy, which are used as the means of divination. The left-hand figure at the bottom is used as a sort of compass—the diviner counting round it from point to point.
Fig. 2. Diagrams.
Other patterns of the preceding diagrams, together with two additional diagrams (those at the top on the right hand), the method of counting from point to point being that used in each case.
Page 555.
Most if not all these systems of reckoning seem to have been treated by the Malays from the astrological point of view as forming a basis for divination, and these crude notions of the lucky or unlucky nature of certain times and seasons are to some extent systematised by or in some degree mixed up with the idea of the mystic influence of numbers and geometrical figures.