There are several superstitions about the Wild Boar which prove that it was not
always regarded as an unclean animal.
Of these the following recipe, which was given me by a Jugra (Selangor) Malay,
for turning brass into gold is the most remarkable:—
“Kill a wild pig and rip open its paunch. Sew up in this a quantity of old ‘scrap’
brass, pile timber over it, burn it, and then leave it alone until the grass has
grown right over it. Then dig up the gold.” Again, certain wild boars are
believed to carry on their tushes a talisman of extraordinary power, which is
called rantei babi, or “Wild Boar’s Chain.” This chain consists, it is asserted, of
three links of various metals (gold, silver, and amalgam), and is hung up on a
shrub by the wild boar when he is enjoying his wallow, so that it is occasionally
stolen by Malays who know his habits. I may add that, according to a Malay at
Langat, the “were-tiger” (rimau jadi-jadian) occasionally appears in the shape of
a wild boar escaping from a grave, in the centre of which may be afterwards seen
the hole by which the animal has escaped.
“Among the modern Malays avoidance of the flesh of swine and of contact with
anything connected with the unclean animal is, of course, universal. No tenet of
El-Islam is more rigidly enforced than this. It is singular to notice, among a
people governed by the ordinances of the Prophet, traces of the observance of
another form of abstinence enjoined by a different religion. The universal
preference of the flesh of the Buffalo to that of the Ox in Malay countries is
evidently a prejudice bequeathed to modern times by a period when cow-beef
was as much an abomination to Malays as it is to the Hindus of India at the
present day. This is not admitted or suspected by ordinary Malays, who would
probably have some reason, based on the relative wholesomeness of buffalo and
cow-beef, to allege in defence of their preference of the latter to the former.”^124
To the above I may add that it is invariably the flesh of the Buffalo, and not that
of the Ox, which is eaten sacrificially on the occasion of festivities.^125 But the
flesh of the so-called White (albino) Buffalo (kĕrbau balar) is generally avoided
as food, though I have known it to be prescribed medicinally (as in the case of
Raja Kahar, a son of H.H. the Sultan of Selangor, the circumstances of whose
illness will be detailed elsewhere).^126 As might be expected, a story is told by
the Malays to account for this distinction. The general outline of the tale is to the