Malay Magic / Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula

by Walter William Skeat

Leaves of the foregoing plants and shrubs are made up, as has been said, in small sets or combinations of five, seven, or even perhaps of nine leaves a piece. These combinations are said to differ according to the object to which the rice-water is to be applied. It is extremely unlikely, however, that all magicians should make the same selections even for the same objects—rather would they be likely to make use of such leaves on the list as happen to be most readily available. Still, however, as the only example of such differentiation which I have yet been able to obtain, I will give the details of three separate and distinctive combinations, which were described to me by a Selangor magician:—

(1) For a weddingceremony		sambau dara		tied round with astring of shredded tree-bark.
		sĕlaguri
		pulut-pulut
		sapanggil
		sapĕnoh
(2) For blessingfishing-stakes		gandarusa		tied with the creeperribu-ribu.
		sĕlaguri
		sapanggil
		lĕnjuang merah
		sapĕnoh
(3) For theceremony of taking the rice-soul		lĕnjuang merah		tied withribu-ribu.
		sĕlaguri
		pulut-pulut
		sapanggil
		sapĕnoh

Further inquiry and the collection of additional material will no doubt help to elucidate the general principles on which such selections are made.

Short rhyming charms are very often used as accompaniments of the rite of rice-water, but appear to be seldom if ever repeated aloud. The following is a specimen, and others will be found in the Appendix:[26]—

“Neutralising Rice-paste, true Rice-paste,

And, thirdly, Rice-paste of Kadangsa!

Keep me from sickness, keep me from death,

Keep me from injury and ruin.”

Other not less important developments of the idea of lustration by water are to be found in such ceremonies as the bathing of mother and child after a birth and the washing of the floor (basoh lantei) upon similar occasions, the bathing of the sick, of bride and bridegroom at weddings, of corpses (mĕruang),[27] and the annual bathing expeditions (mandi Safar), which are supposed to purify the persons of the bathers and to protect them from evil (tolak bala).

Fasting, or the performance of religious penance, which is now but seldom practised, would appear to have been only undertaken in former days with a definite object in view, such as the production of the state of mental exaltation which induces ecstatic visions, the acquisition of supernatural powers (sakti), and so forth.