102 MALAY POISONS AND CHAEM CUBES 



shipwreck, etc.), with the sound, ii terrifymg, advice 

 that, unless eveiy word is accurately remembered, it 

 should not be used, as a single mistake will involve an 

 immediate and very unpleasant death. The words are : 

 TehaU Tohati, Tobat, Tohat, Tohati ToUdak, Tehat, 

 Tohati, Tomazat ; Tehat and Tohat might equally well 

 be read as Tehata and Tohaia, These words may be 

 mere abracadabra, or perhaps a perversion of some 

 religious formula in Arabic. As Skeats suggests, 

 Tobati might be Tmibat-i (" my repentance ") and 

 Tohidak possibly Tauliid-ak (*' thy faith If Tebat 

 stands for Tohat, the latter word (for " repentance ") 

 would have occuned seven times. They are certainly 

 not Malay words, and are either corrupt Arabic or just 

 the gibberish every charm-book proffers. 



Among methods given for divination, one is to be 

 used by chiefs before going into battle to foretell 

 victory or disaster : " Take wax, and weigh it mto equal 

 portions ; take threads of different colours and make 

 them into t\vo wicks, of seven or nine threads, but each 

 ahke, and make two candles. Hold them over the 

 smoke of biu-ning benzoin and read the following words 

 over them, ak safon rangkajak. Raise them above the 

 head, and call upon Allah, the Ai'chaugels, and the 

 Sheikhs, to declare the future. Name one candle for 

 oneself, and one for the enemy ; stand them on the edge 

 of a white cup and hght them. The candle of the 

 destined winner will burn brightly and outlast the 

 other." Apart fi^om the consultation of crude books 

 on necromancy, Marsden gives another mode of divining 

 used by the Bataks of Sumatra (1811) : " Before going 

 to war they kill a buffalo or a fowl that is perfectly 

 white, and by observing the motion of the intestines, 

 judge of the good or ill fortune likely to attend them ; 

 and the priest who performs this ceremony had need 



