points out the luckiest place in the house for the child to be born. Such a spot
must not be under the ends of the slats of the palm-thatch, but between them, the
exact spot being discovered by repeatedly dropping the blade of a hatchet or
cutlass haft downwards into the ground below the raised floor of the house, until
a spot is found wherein it sticks and remains upright. A rattan loop (tali anggas)
to enable the patient to raise herself to a sitting posture, is suspended from the
rafters over the spot selected,^20 while just exactly beneath it under the floor of
the house (which is raised on piles like the old Swiss lake-dwellings) are
fastened a bunch of leaves of the prickly pandanus, the “acid” egg-plant,^21 and a
lĕkar jantan, which is a kind of rattan stand used for Malay cooking-pots. The
leaves of these plants are used because it is thought that their thorns will prick
any evil spirit^22 which tries to get at the child from below, whilst the circular
cooking-pot stand will act as a noose or snare. Over the patient’s head, and just
under the rafters, is spread a casting-net (jala), together with a bunch of leaves of
the red dracæna (jĕnjuang or lĕnjuang merah) and the “acid” egg-plant.^23
A big tray (talam) is now filled with a measure of uncooked husked rice (b’ras
sa-gantang), and covered over with a small mat of screw-palm leaves (tikar
mĕngkuang). This mat is in turn covered with from three to seven thicknesses of
fine Malay sarongs (a sort of broad plaid worn as a skirt), and these latter again
are surmounted by a second mat upon which the newly-born infant is to be
deposited.
The next process is the purification of mother and child by a ceremony which
consists of bathing both in warm water just not hot enough to scald the skin
(ayer pĕsam-pĕsam jangan mĕlochak kulit), and in which are leaves of lĕngkuas,
halia, kunyit t’rus, kunyit, pandan bau, areca-palm blossom, and the dried leaves
(kĕronsong or kĕresek) of the pisang k’lat. This has to be repeated (every?)
morning and evening. In most places the new-born infant is, as has been said,
laid upon a mat and formally adopted by the father, who breathes into the child’s
ear^24 a sort of Muhammadan prayer or formula, which is called bang in the case
of a boy, and kamat in the case of a girl. After purification the child is swaddled
in a sort of papoose; an inner bandage (barut) is swathed round the child’s waist,
and a broad cloth band (kain lampin) is wound round its body from the knees to
the breast, after which the outer bandage (kain bĕdong) is wound round the
child’s body from the feet to the shoulder, and is worn continually until the child
is three or four months old, or, in Malay parlance, until he has learned to crawl