The “Batak” Malays (a Mid-Sumatran tribe, many of whom have settled in
Kuala Langat) are said to chip the teeth of their children into the desired shape
by the use of a small chisel, the operation causing such exquisite agony that the
sufferer will not unfrequently leap to his feet with a shriek.
Even when the file is used, the work of an unskilful performer (who does not
know how to destroy the “venom” of his instruments) will cause the sufferer’s
face to be completely swollen up (bakup) for a long period subsequent to the
operation. Yet young people of both sexes cheerfully submit to the risk of this
discomfort, and the only remark made by the youth whom I saw undergoing it
was that it “made his mouth feel uncomfortable” (jĕlejeh rasa mulut-nya).
The ear-boring ceremony (bĕrtindek) appears to have already lost much of its
ceremonial character in Selangor, where I was told that it is now usually
performed when the child is quite small, i.e. at the earliest, when the child is
some five or seven months old, and when it is about a year old at the latest,
whereas in Sumatra (according to Marsden) it is not performed until the child is
eight or nine.^47 Still, however, a special kind of round ear-ring, which is of
filagree-work, and is called subang, is as much the emblem of virginity in the
western States as it ever was. The “discarding” of these ear-rings (tanggal
subang), which should take place about seven days after the conclusion of the
marriage rites, is ceremonial in character, and it is even the custom when a
widow (janda) is married for the second time, to provide her with a pair of
subang (which should, however, it is said, be tied on to her ears instead of being
inserted in the ear-holes, as in the case of a girl who has never been married).
The rite of circumcision is of course common to Muhammadans all over the
world. Some analogous practices, however, have also been noticed among the
non-Muhammadan Malayan races of the Eastern Archipelago, and it is at least
doubtful whether circumcision as now practised by Malays is a purely
Muhummadan rite. Among Malays it is performed by a functionary called the
“Mudim,”^48 with a slip of bamboo, at any age (in the case of boys) from about
six or seven up to about sixteen years, the wound being often dressed (at least in
town districts) with fine clay mixed with soot and the yolk of eggs, but when
possible, the clay is mixed with cocoa-nut fibre (rabok niyor), sĕlumur paku
uban, and the young shoots of the k’lat plantain (puchok pisang k’lat), the
compound being called in either case ubat tasak. The ceremony is associated