[54] I was told that these dangerous genii or spirits resided in the naubat or Big State Drum, the two gĕndang or Small State Drums, the two langkara or State Kettle Drums, the lĕmpiri or State Trumpet, the sĕrunei or State Flute, and the k’ris or State Dagger, called (in Selangor) b’rok bĕrayun, or the “Swaying Baboon,” which latter is said to have slain “a hundred men less one” since it was first used. [I learnt this from H.H. the late Sultan himself, and here record it, because it has sometimes been asserted that H.H. the Sultan claimed to have slain these ninety-nine men with his own hand, which H.H. assured me was not the case.] The sanctity of the remaining pieces of the regalia appears to be less marked. They are the payong ubor-ubor or State Umbrella, the State Trident, and the State Lances or tombak bandangan. Of the Selangor State Trumpet I was told that any one who “brushed hastily past it” (siapa-siapa mĕlintas-nya) would be fined one dollar, even if he were the Sultan himself (walo’ Sultan-pun kĕna juga). [↑]
[55] But in Malay Sketches (p. 215) we read that in Perak the royal instruments accompany the royal water-parties, and that “the royal bugler sits on the extreme end of the prow, and from time to time blows a call on the antique silver trumpet of the regalia.” [↑]
[56] The Malay headman (Haji Brahim), the priest of the local mosque, the Bilal (an inferior attendant at the mosque), and some thirty Malays belonging to the village, took part in this ceremony. A goat had been killed for the occasion, and the party who were paying the vow brought its flesh with them, together with a great heap of rice stained with saffron (turmeric). The men assembled at the tomb, incense was burned, and Arabic prayers read, after which a white cloth, five cubits long, was laid on the saint’s grave. A banquet followed, in which we all took part. [↑]
[57] Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. i. p. 189. [↑]
[58] For the ideas referred to in this and the preceding paragraph, cp. Frazer, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 187–207. Cp. also for the abstention from hair-cutting at childbirth, Clifford’s Studies in Brown Humanity, p. 48. The idea of long hair is found even in animistic conceptions of natural objects. Thus the wind (Angin) is begged in a wind-charm “to let down its long and flowing locks.” [↑]
[59] Raja Bĕrma, son of Raja Jaman of Bandar (Wan Bong). Cp. also Clifford, In Court and Kampong, p. 114, “He wore his fine black hair long, so that it hung about his waist.”
The old custom in Selangor is said to have been for men to wear their hair down to the shoulders (rambut panjang jijak bahu), but they would frequently wear it below the waist (rambut sa-pĕrhĕmpasan), in which case it appears to have been commonly shorn at puberty or marriage. When worn full length by men it was usually, for convenience, coiled up inside the head-cloth or turban (saputangan or tanjak), or was made up into rolls or chignons (sanggul dan siput) like that of the women. It was not infrequently used as a place of concealment for one of the small Malay poniards called “Pepper-crushers” (tumbok lada), not only by men but by women. [↑]
[60] Frazer, op. cit. vol. i. p. 193. [↑]