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 (?) 



