2 MALAY POISONS AND CHARM CUBES 



Malaya is richly supplied with medicinal plants and 

 herbs ; they form the stock-in-trade of the homor or 

 " medicine-man," many of their properties, either 

 daadly (rachun) or intoxicant (mabok), are known, as 

 well as their medicinal value, to Malays of most classes. 

 This is especially true of the uncultured folk who live 

 in rural districts, but their knowledge is often re- 

 stricted to the locality, thus explaining the fact of so 

 many various country poisons being used by Malays 

 for felonious pmposes. Familiarity with these drugs 

 and with potent imported poisons, such as cyanide of 

 potassium, white arsenic, strong acids and opium, gives 

 considerable scope for the selection of poisons. It is 

 not surprising that the common datura or thorn-apple, 

 with its power of gi-adually reducing the astutest 

 intellect into a state of drivelhng fatuity, and arsenic, 

 which destroys more speedily with symptoms which 

 the most learned native doctors can liardly distinguish 

 from Asiatic cholera, have been used, as in India, as the 

 closing act of a great pohtical contest, as a means of 

 removing a stubborn minister or an intriguing kinsman 

 (Eef. 6). 



Some of the poisons used in Kelantan are common to 

 India ; for example, Plumbago rosea {cMraka merah), 

 Excoecaria agallocha (bSbuta), Datin*a fastuosa (k^chu- 

 hong hitam), opium (chaTidujf arsenic (warangan or 

 tuba iihis)y the horse-radish tree {merunggai), and glass 

 in powder {sSrbok kacha) combined with bamboo and 

 other fine vegetable hairs. Malays do not hesitate to 

 use well-known poisonous drugs as medicines, espe- 

 cially, perhaps, Datura fastuosa, Alocasia denudata 

 {Miadi chandek), Goniothalamus tapis (kinirak), Gly- 

 cosmis pentaphylla (nirapih), opium and white arsenic. 

 Indeed, as regards poisons derived from the vegetable 

 kingdom, all those mentioned in subsequent chapters, 



