160 MALAY POISONS AND CHABM CUBES 



p£d£ndang gagak 



A bitter inedible gourd {^idMndang, or men-iimun 

 dendang; Trichosanthes Wallichiana, Wight — Cucurbi- 

 taceae) is used as a poison in Kelantan by pounding the 

 very bitter ripe fruit and mixing it with opium (cliaTidu) 

 and the bile of the porcupine {empedu kmdak). It is a 

 strong jungle vine with deep crimson fruits, about the 

 size of billiard balls, that look so attractive on the banks 

 of Mala}'- rivers ; but these " apples of Sodom " have 

 been found poisonous by Greshoff, while the fruit of 

 T, palmata, an allied Far Eastern variety, was reckoned 

 poisonous by Roxburgh. A person with bloodshot eyes 

 " like a ripe pedendang fruit " is referred to in an old 

 Malay romance, the 'Hikayat Indera Mengindira, The 

 name of the plant, pedendang gagak, is intimately con- 

 nected with the crow, which is called d^rulang in Kedah, 

 but more generally gagak in the other Malay States. 

 The Malay synonym men-twmm dSndang actually means 

 the " crow*s cucumber," while the fruit of the plant is 

 always referred to as htuih pSdendang, Le., " crow's 

 fruit." The cheiTy-red fruit does not appear to be very 

 deadly ; crows feed upon it, but are said to be the only 

 birds that will do so. 



RfiNGAS 



Gluta Beaghas, the well-known Ei^igas tree of Malaya, 

 is now accepted by botanists as Stagmaria verniciflua, 

 Jack— Anacardiaceae ; but the name rengas is given by 

 Malays to several large jungle trees belonging to this 

 natural order, such as Melanorrhcea Cuitisii, Oliv., 

 M, Wallichii^ Hook. fiL, and others of this genus, as well 

 as those belonging to the genus Gluta, which have 

 been mentioned under section Jitong. The botany 

 of the rSngas trees has been described by A. M. Burn- 



