Malay customs which centre specially round the birth of children.
Before the child is born the father has to be more than usually circumspect with
regard to what he does, as any untoward act on his part would assuredly have a
prejudicial effect on the child, and cause a birth-mark or even actual deformity,
any such affection being called kĕnan. In a case which came to my notice the son
was born with only a thumb, forefinger, and little finger on the left hand, and a
great toe on the left foot, the rest of the fingers and toes on the left side being
wanting. This, I was told, was due to the fact that the father violated this taboo
by going to the fishing-stakes one day and killing a crab by chopping at it with a
cutlass.
In former days during this period it was “taboo” (pantang) for the father to cut
the throat of a buffalo or even of a fowl; or, in fact, to take the life of any animal
whatever—a trace no doubt of Indian influences. A Malay told me once that his
son, soon after birth, was afflicted with a great obstruction of breathing, but that
when the medicine-man (Pawang) declared (after “diagnosing” the case) that the
child was suffering from a “fish-affection” (kĕnan ikan), he remembered that he
had knocked on the head an extraordinary number of fish which he had caught
on the very day that his son was born. He therefore, by the advice of the
medicine-man, gave the child a potion made from pounded fish bones, and an
immediate and permanent recovery was the result.
Such affections as those described are classified by the Malays according to the
kind of influence which is supposed to have produced them. Thus the
unoffending victim may be either fish-struck (kĕnan ikan), as described above,
ape-struck (kĕnan b’rok), dog-struck (kĕnan anjing), crab-struck (kĕnan kĕtam),
and so forth, it being maintained that in every case the child either displays some
physical deformity, causing a resemblance to the animal by which it was
affected, or else (and more commonly) unconsciously imitates its actions or its
“voice.”
Another interesting custom was that the father was stringently forbidden to cut
his hair until after the birth of the child.
The following passage bearing on the subject is taken from Sir W. E. Maxwell’s
article on the “Folklore of the Malays”:^35 —