Gerda meniumur kepah-nia. ↑
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Another fabulous bird which Maxwell does not mention is the Walimana (which I have more
than once heard called Wilmana in Selangor). On the identity of this bird, my friend Mr.
Wilkinson, of the Straits Civil Service, sends me in a letter the following note:—“The word is
walimana. I have often met it in old MSS. written The ‘wali’ is the same as the
second word in Rajawali. The mana is ‘human’; cp. man, manushya, etc. The walimana in old
Javanese pottery is represented as a bird with a human head, a sort of harpy. In the Hikayat
Sang Samba it is the steed of Maharaja Boma, and repeatedly speaks to its master.” ↑
13
Laksana jintayu menantikan hujan “as the jintayu awaits the rain,” is a proverbial simile for a
state of anxiety and despondency. Jintayu = Jatayu (Sanskrit), a fabulous vulture. ↑
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The chandrawasi, bird of power,
Is closely hidden among the clouds.
Anxiety reigns in my heart,
Each day that I see not my love.[To the above I may perhaps be allowed to add that the (dialectal) form chandrawasir is the
form generally used in the southern part of Selangor (where the final “r” is still commonly
preserved). The regular (Dictionary) form of the word, however, appears to be chandrawasih
or chĕndĕrawaseh (the forms chĕndărawangsa, chĕndĕrawasa, and chĕndĕrawangseh being
also found). In origin the word is undoubtedly Sanskrit.
It means the Bird of Paradise, but in those Malay countries where the Bird of Paradise is
unknown, it is also applied to other birds, such as (in Malay romances) to the golden oriole and
even to the ostrich. In the Malay Peninsula, too, it is said to fly feet upwards (which peculiarity
it shares, according to Mr. Clifford, with the Berek-berek, Pub. J.R.A.S., S.B., Hik. Raj.
Budiman, pt. ii. 35), and its eggs are sometimes said, on falling, to develop into the snake
called chintamani. It is always considered lucky, and the “Bird of Paradise Prayer,” (doʿa
chĕndrawasi) as it is called, generally takes an important place in the formulas recited at the
ceremonies connected with the Rice-soul, q.v. For the confusion between the chĕndrawasi and
berek-berek (probably due to the fact that the chĕndrawasi, or Bird of Paradise, is not to be
found in the Peninsula) vide note on App. XXX.] ↑
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