Journal of the Federated Malay States museums - Sabrizain.org

XXIII. ETHNOLOGICAL MISCELLANEA.
/:, [vok H. N. Evans, Assistant Curatoi and Ethnographical
Assistant. Federated Malay States Museums.
Setting up ihi Posts of a Malay House.
While staying at Pianggu on the Endau River in kjij I
was lucky enough to be present at the ceremony of setting up
the posts of a Malay house. When I arrived on the site of the
new dwelling the holes for receiving the posts had been already
dug and the posts themselves, conveniently disposed, were
lying in pairs, with cross-beams attached, ready to be set up.
The proceedings were begun by a broken fragment of a small
silver coin, wrapped in white cloth, and a large piece of kundor
—a kind of gourd—being thrown into each hole.
Ceremonial bands of plaited coconut (?) leaves— called
jari lipan (centipedes' feet) from their shape—to which were
attached little square closed-in plaited boxes of the same
material (ketnpat) filled with rice, were then bound round each
post in about the middle.
After an orthodox Mohamadan prayer had been said by a
Li'bai, and incense burnt, the men who had come to help in
erecting the house partook of a meal of glutinous rice dyed with
turmeric (pulut kunyet), parched rice (bertis), bananas, and pulut
(Oriza glutinosa) wrapped in leaves, which was served to them
on the recumbent posts. When they had finished eating, a man,
who had been chosen by the Pawang as his assistant, brought
water and poured it along each of the posts, walking clockwise
round the house-site. After him came the Pawang with a
sprinkler made of the leaves of several kinds of plants 1 in his
right hand, and a brass bowl of cerenvmial rice-flour mixed
with water (tepong taicar) in his left. He, having murmured a
charm at the post from which he started, sprinkled the tepong
taicar along the posts, and into the holes which were to receive
them.
After the Pawang had performed tins rite the workmen
gathered together to raise the first pair of posts with their
connecting cross-bar, this being done with loud shouts of
Mohamad ratal' Allah, the officiating lebai reciting a prayer
meanwhile. The rest of the posts wen- then similarly erected,
and the ceremony was at an end.
On meeting the Pawang subsequentl) . I asked him to tell
me the charm that he had said over the first post, when about
to sprinkle it with tepong tawa) ; and he gave me the two
Ribu ribu (Lygoiium scandeiis), gantlariisa (fnsticin gandarusa), ilnjuang ("I
and safiilelt (?)