Journal of the Federated Malay States museums - Sabrizain.org

26 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums. [Vol. VII.
Should anyone in the house, a child at play for instance,
break off the tail of a lizard, each person cuts a piece of hair
from his. or her, head, burns it in the hie. and then, after
collecting the ashes, blows them through the hands, placed
trumpet iashion before the mouth, saying : " Usah, usah
gelebeh " (don't any more).
would be struck by lightning.
If this were no; done, the house
We will next take some beliefs and customs connected
chiefly with sickness.
If three men have planned to go on a journey or to fell
jungle together, but one man remains at home without saying
anything (i.e. excusing himself from going), and should one of
the two companions fall sick, his illness is at once ascribed to
the man who stopped behind. The two will immediately
return, and the third man must say charms for the recovery
of the patient. If, however, the man who stops at home
makes some excuse for not going, no ill fortune encountered
by his companions can be ascribed to him.
If a man throws away the end of a cigarette or some
scraps of food, and what he throws away falls into a hoie in a
tree-stump, a mortar for pounding padi, the stump of a
bamboo, or any place which holds, or can hold, water, and
should he afterwards fall ill with pains in his stomach, he
thinks that this action is the cause. He will, therefore, go to
the place where he threw away the food fragments and remove
them. If he did not do this, he would not recover from his
illness.
If a man is sleeping in the jungle on the ground (or sometimes
if he is living in his house), and falls sick with itchy
feelings in his body or swellings, he will dig up the ground
under his sleeping place, and if he finds an ants' nest will
destroy it. The ants, so he thinks, have caused him to fall
sick, and the destruction of the nest insures his recovery.
If a man who has been camping in the jungle falls sick,
and should remember that he has left a pole of one of the
shelters he has used standing in the ground, he will return and
pull it up, otherwise he will not recover.
If a man sits down on a spot where the roots of two trees
interlace he will fall sick: for places of this kind are the
abodes of spirits.
If a man leans against a tree which has a creeper twining
about it, he will become ill ; for this tree is the dwelling place
of a spirit.' The sick man will, however, recover if he returns
and cuts through the creeper.
Tabus with regard to mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law
are in force. A man must avoid his mother-in-law as much as
possible, and a woman her father-in-law.
Some very interesting information with regard to customs,
now obsolete or nearly so, came to light during my
conversations with Si Busu. He told me that he had seen