98 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums. [Vor. IX, 
though they have passed through stages of animism and Brah- 
that of the Minangkabau Malays of NegeriSembilan. Family 
is traced through the mother, and inheritance descends in the 
female line. The woman selects her husband, and the chil- 
dren remain her property in the case of divorce. Marriage is 
concluded by confarreatio, betel however taking the place of 
rice. There obtains also, as with Malays, marriage by cap- 
ture or formal rape, where a girl’s parents have been obdurate. 
Ata a eaaiied ceremony for girls, called Karoh (which Bau- 
dess to have been derived from Isiam), the officiating 
est: places salt on their lips, offers a cup of water and cuts 
a piece of hair from the forehead of the chaste and from the 
nape ofthe wanton At a Perak Malay marriage, the chastity 
of a bride is inferred when the matron waxes seven long hairs 
of the bride and clips them: if the ends of the hair fall 
towards the bride or the stumps move, the girl is not a 
maiden; if the contrary happen, she is virgin. Like the 
Malays, the Chams have a saying that you may as well leave 
an elephant among sugar-canes as a man alone with a girl. 
Cham and Malay mothers smear their children’s faces with a 
yellow cosmetic to appease malignant spirits. 
The form of polite greeting is that observed by Malays. 
“If a man meets a friend of superior station, a due and pro- 
per sign of deference is to adjust his girdle or cross the cloth 
which fulfils the functions of trousers. If he is carrying an 
umbrella, he will hold it forward towards the person he thus 
wishes to rien He will take the greatest care to avoid 
swinging his arms. 
The ais and taboos of searchers for eaglewood very 
The searchers are bound to silence. Unavoidable speech is 
metaphor ical, like that of gee Johore collector: an axe is ‘‘ the 
wood-pecker ”’ ; fire ‘the r he women who remain be- 
hind may not quarrel, fest their husbands be molested by 
— - snakes. 
e Chams have Padjao or prophetesses who become 
an: they are thought to perform functions which 
formerly devolved on royal priestesses. They are celibate, 
chosen after probation, the choice depending on omens drawn 
from the flame of candles. The novitiate ceremony after the 
year’s probation must, like a Malay bérhantu, be attended by 
the identical persons who were present at the novice’s Sitcom 
a ion. he is assisted by a male ‘‘ Mendou On 
the night of initiation she resorts to a ant-heap in the moon- . 
lit forest, severs a cock from head to tail, and dancing naked 
by incantations restores the fowl to life. Clifford. has des- 
cribed a very similar Sakai ceremony. 
The Chamis, like: the epi use c spist-boats, to waft 
away evil from a village. 
