249 



A Rice -Ceremony, 



By E. 0. Wixstedt. 



In his account of rice-ceremonies in J. B. A. S. Xo. 29, p. 8, 

 1896, Mr. C. 0. Blagclen, writes : — " at planting there are also 

 ceremonies. Sometimes there is a special service known as bapua, 

 consisting of a sort of mock combat, in which the evil spirits are 

 believed to be expelled from the rice-fields by the villagers : this is 

 not done every year, but once in three or four years." He remarks 

 that bapua is the Minangkabau pronunciation of berpuar and that 

 puar is a plant, whose stem is used in the mock-combat. Mr. Skeat 

 quotes this on p. 250 of Malay Magic; in Selangor, he adds, this 

 mock-combat is called singheta. 



Two years ago, I saw this combat take place at Johol. Two 

 parties assembled one on each side of a gully and hurled the puar 

 rods across at one another, till a blow in the face gave one of the 

 combatants a bloody mouth and spoilt the fun. It lasted about 

 half an hour. The rods or darts were about 3| feet long, thin 

 green and straight, and the pared root gave them a flat end like 

 that of a stethoscope : it was this flat end which was thrown fore- 

 most. It has been suggested to me that they are stems of a ginger- 

 plant. A paicang opened the proceedings with an invocation. The 

 purpose was to expel all evil influences from the fields before 

 planting. I was informecl that singheta is a more serious combat 

 with heavier weapons — batang pisang, if I remember rightly. 



Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc, No. 77, 1917. 



