Besides the above there are not a few linguistic taboos connected with the king’s
person, such as the use of the words santap, to eat; bĕradu, to sleep;
bĕrsĕmaiam, to be seated, or to “reside” in a certain place; bĕrangkat, to
“progress”; siram, to bathe; g’ring, to be sick; and mangkat, to die; all of which
words are specially substituted for the ordinary Malay words when reference is
made to the king.^44 Moreover, when the king dies his name is dropped, and he
receives the title of “Marhum,” the late or “deceased,” with the addition of an
expression alluding to some prominent fact in his life, or occasionally to the
place of his decease. These titles, strange as it may seem, are often the reverse of
complimentary, and occasionally ridiculous.^45
It must not be forgotten, too, in discussing the divine attributes of the Malay
king, that he is firmly believed to possess a personal influence over the works of
nature, such as the growth of the crops and the bearing of fruit-trees. This same
property is supposed to reside in a lesser degree in his delegates, and even in the
persons of Europeans in charge of districts. Thus I have frequently known (in
Selangor) the success or failure of the rice crops attributed to a change of district
officers, and in one case I even heard an outbreak of ferocity which occurred
among man-eating crocodiles laid at the door of a most zealous and able, though
perhaps occasionally somewhat unsympathetic, representative of the
Government. So, too, on one occasion when three deaths occurred during a
District Officer’s temporary absence, the mere fact of his absence was
considered significant. I may add that royal blood is supposed by many Malays
to be white, and this is the pivot on which the plot of not a few Malay folk-tales
is made to turn.^46
Finally, it must be pointed out that the greatest possible importance is attached to
the method of saluting the king.
In the “Sri Rama” (the Malay Ramayana) we read, even of the chiefs, that—
“While yet some way off they bowed to the dust,
When they got near they made obeisance,
Uplifting at each step their fingers ten,
The hands closed together like the rootlets of the bakong palm^47
The fingers one on the other like a pile of sirih^47 leaves.”^48