22 FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 



woman belonging to a house where there are young children w ill 

 ohew up Jcuniet thus (an evil-smelling root, supposed to be much 

 disliked by demons of all kinds) and spit it out at seven different 

 points as she walks round the house. 



The yellow glow which spreads over the western skj-, when it 

 is lighted up with the last rays of the dying sun, is called mambang 

 kuning (" the yellow deity "), a term indicative of the superstitious 

 . dread associated with this particular period. The fact that a Sans- 

 krit phrase senjahala (samdhya kala) is employed in Malay to 

 describe the evening twilight, is not without significance in connec- 

 tion with some of these superstitions. 



Avoidance of Cow-Beef. 



Among the modern Malays, avoidance of the flesh of swine, and 

 of contact with anything connected with the unclean animal is, of 

 course, universal. No tenet of El-Islam is more rigidly enforced 

 than this. It is singular to notice, among a people governed by the 

 ordinances of the Prophet, traces of the observance of another form 

 of abstinence enjoined by a different religion. The universal pre- 

 ference of the flesh of the buffalo to that of the ox, in Malay coun- 

 tries, is evidently a prejudice bequeathed to modern times by a 

 period when cow-beef was as much an abomination to Malays as it 

 is to the Hindus of India at the present day. This is not admitted 

 or suspected by ordinary Malays, who would probably have some 

 reason, based on the relative wholesomeness of buffalo and cow- 

 beef, to allege in defence of their preference of the latter to the 

 former. 



Animals. 



The wild animals which inhabit the forests of the Peninsula have 

 naturally enough an important place in the folklore of the Malays. 

 The tiger is sometimes believed to be a man or demon in the form 

 of a wild beast, and to the numerous aboriginal superstitions which 

 attach to this dreaded animal, Muhammadanism has added the notion 

 which connects the tiger with the Khalif All One of Ali's titles 

 throughout the Moslem world is "the victorious Lion of the Lord," 

 and in Asiatic countries where the lion is unknown, the tiger 

 generally takes the place of the king of beasts. 



