Malay Magic _ Being an introduction to the - Walter William Skeat

So, too, a boat with a large knot in the centre of the bottom is considered good
for catching fish, and in strict conformity with this idea is the belief that the
natural excrescences (or knobs) and deformities of trees are mere external
evidences of an indwelling spirit. So, too, the fruit of the cocoa-nut palm, when
the shell lacks the three “eyes” to which we are accustomed, is believed to serve
in warfare as a most valuable protection (pĕlias) against the bullets of the enemy,
and the same may be said in a minor degree of the joints of “solid” bamboo
(buluh tumpat) which are occasionally found, whilst to a slightly different
category belong the comparatively numerous examples of “Tabasheer” (mineral
concretions in the wood of certain trees), which are so highly valued by the
Malays for talismanic purposes. Such trees as the Mali mali, Rotan jĕr’nang
(Dragon’s-blood rattan), Buluh kasap (rough bamboo), etc., are all said to supply
instances of the concretions referred to, but the most famous of them all is
without doubt the so-called “cocoa-nut pearl,” of which I quote the following
account from Dr. Denys’s Descriptive Dictionary of British Malaya.