48 MALAY PROVERBS. 



stand better than any other Malays how to make a comfortable 

 bed. "They pile up mats and mattresses until it hurts you 

 to tumble off them " is the description given to me. 



One more proverb of this class, a local saying in Perak 

 where all the villages named are situated, — 



Kalau jadi gjjaJi ja??gan jadi gajah orang Fadang Asam, 

 kalaujadi kurbau jangan jadi kurbau orang Sayong, kalaujadi 

 ray at jangan jadi ray at Fulo Tig a. " Should you be an 

 elephant don't belong to the people of Padang Asam, should 

 you be a buffalo don't belong to Sayong, should you be a 

 peasant don't belong to Pulo Tiga." The allusions are, as 

 may be guessed, the reverse of complimentary. Padang 

 Asam is on the main-ioad between Ulu Perak and the sea, 

 and in former times before a cart-road was made it was one 

 of the stages at which elephants, the only means of 

 transport, stopped. The people of Padang Asam must in 

 those days have gained an unenviable reputation for overload- 

 ing their elephants. Sayong boasts of extensive paddy fields, 

 which give plenty of occupation for buffaloes, and they are 

 perhaps better cultivated than similar lands in other parts 

 of Perak. I don't know what particular tyrant gave rise, 

 by local oppression, to the notion that to be a ryot of Pulo 

 Tiira was an undesirable lot. 



"Without knowing anything about Malays, it would be easy, 

 after reading their proverbs, to pronounce them to be a 

 people given to a country life. Agriculture, hunting, fish- 

 ing, boating and wood-craft are the occupations or accom- 

 plishments which furnish most of the illustrations, and the 

 number of beasts, birds, fishes and plants named in a collection 

 of Malay proverbs will be found to be considerable. Pro- 

 verbs of this kind are of course of home manufacture. A 

 few, however, which may be met with in books are of foreign 

 origin and may be traced to Hindustani, Persian or Arabic. 

 The proverb Juhari juga yang menjenal manilcam, "It is the 

 jeweller who can tell a precious stone" (Hikayat Abdullah 

 p. 3), is a somewhat clumsy adaptation of the Hindustani 

 Juhari juhar pacliane. Another very common proverb (nearly 

 equivalent in meaning to the phrase " Blood is thicker than 

 water.") Ta'kan-ayer di parang putus, " Water is not to be cut 

 with a knife," is almost exactly identical with the Hin- 

 dustani proverb Lathi-se pani juda nahin nota "Water is not 

 to be diyicled by a stick," 



