118 A CUEIOUS KELANTAN CHARM. 



near a jungle pig's wallow, when the beast has taken it off for the 

 purpose of bathing. It is not necessarily searched for by bad people 

 and worn only by criminals. I have recently had an opportunity 

 of examining two of the chemara babi charms in Kota Baharu; 

 they are identical in appearance and consist of small bundles of 

 stiff, dark fibres, apparently obtained from a palm such as the 

 palmyra or perhaps the coco-nut tree. About thirty fibres were 

 tied together with cotton in one instance, forming a bundle about 

 fifteen inches in length; this was enclosed in a small red bag made 

 of cloth and valued at more than fifty dollars. It is essential that 

 the chemara babi be obtained from a live boar and kept alive. It 

 is kept alive by first washing it with beluru, the stem of a very 

 large, local liane used by Kelantan men and women for washing 

 their hair, (Entada scandens, Linn., Leguminosae), and the juice 

 of the lime fruit, (Citrus acida, Eoxb., Eutaceae) ; then oiling with 

 coco-nut oil and smoking for a few minutes with hemennyan or 

 benzoin, (Sty rax benzoin). This is to be 'done every Thursday 

 evening about the time of the hour of prayer; it should have the 

 effect of making the chemara elastic and curly. 



The tuft of hair hidden in the robber's belt and described by 

 the police at the time as chemara babi is of quite a different charac- 

 ter to the fibres described above. Even on casual inspection it 

 appears from its black colour with reddish tinge, its fineness and 

 lustre to be human hair. On dissection it was found to be a 

 ball of hair, about two inches in diameter, very tightly rolled and 

 sewn round a small circle of cord by means of twine passed through 

 a piece of scalp. Further examination shows that the microscopical 

 structure is identical with that of human hair with a similar breadth 

 of 75 microns; this measurement is three and four times smaller 

 than the breadth of the coarse vegetable fibres of the two true 

 chemara babi which are 300 and 225 microns respectively. Various 

 suggestions have been offered by Kelantan Malays as to the 

 source of this tuft of hair. It is said that it may have come 

 from the corpse of the first born child of first born parents, dug 

 up by night from the grave; that it is rambut di-jalin hantu, or 

 hair that has been tangled by ghosts on the head of a dying woman, 

 or perhaps a trophy from some woman who had been scalped. 



Chow Kiew, the high priest of the Siamese community in 

 Kelantan (To' Cha), has given me some information about the 

 Siamese letters and drawings. With good humoured contempt he 

 said the design was not a reliable amulet such as an old man like 

 he himself could have made, but a spurious charm made by a 

 Siamese " witch doctor " for a few dollars. He explained that the 

 central figure of Buddha is surrounded by an ornamental frame, 

 and that the numerals and letters are taken from the sacred books 

 of Siam apparently at haphazard. All the other figures are sup- 

 posed to represent a child in various stages of uterine development 

 as Well as at birth. He drew particular attention to the wild boar's 

 tusk which he declared to be solid throughout and that another 

 like it could not be found among a thousand pigs. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



