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XXIII. On the Ipoh or Upas Poison used by the Jacoons and other Aboriginal Tribes of 
the Malay Peninsula. By Lieut. T. J. Newbold, A.D.C. to Brigadier-General 
Wilson, C.B. Communicated by P. M. Roget, M.D. Sec. R.S. 
Received January 26, — Read June 15, 1837. 
To tip the slender arrows propelled from the Sumpitan, or blow-pipe, the aborigines 
of the Malay Peninsula make use of three preparations of the Ipoh or Upas poison, 
distinguished by the names Krohi, Tdnnik or Kennik, and Malldye. 
The Krohi is extracted from the root and bark of the Ipoh tree, the roots of the 
Tuba and Kopah ; red arsenic and the juice of limes. 
The Tdnnik is made in the same manner as the Kr6hi, leaving out the Kopoh root. 
The Malldye poison, which is accounted the most potent of the three, is prepared 
from the roots of the Tuba , the Perachi , the Kopah and the Chdy, and from that of 
the shrub Malldye-, hence its name. 
The process of concocting these preparations is as follows : the roots are carefully 
selected and cut at a particular age of the moon ; I believe about the full. The woody 
fibre is thrown away, and nothing but the succulent bark used. This is put into a 
quali (a sort of pipkin made of earth), with as much soft water as will cover the 
moss, and kneaded well together. This done, more water is added, and the whole is 
submitted to a slow heat over a charcoal fire until half the water has evaporated. 
The decoction is next strained through a cotton cloth, again submitted to slow ebul- 
lition until it attains the consistence of syrup. The red arsenic ( Warangan ) rubbed 
down in the juice of the sour lime, the Limou Assam of the Malays, is then added and 
the mixture poured into small bamboos, which are carefully closed up ready for use. 
Some of the tribes add a little opium, spices and saffron, some the juice of the Lanchar 
and the bones of the Sunggat fish burnt to ashes. 
A number of juggling incantations are performed and spells gibbered over the 
seething caldron by the Poyangs, (a class of men supposed by this superstitious race 
to be in league with the powers of darkness,) by whom the fancied moment of the 
projection of the poisoning principle is as anxiously watched for as that of the philo- 
sopher’s stone, or the elixir vitae by the alchymists and philosophers of more enlight- 
ened races of men. 
When recently prepared the Ipoh poisons are all of a dark liver brown colour, of 
the consistence of syrup, and emit a strong narcotic odour. The deleterious prin- 
ciple appears to be volatile, as the efficacy of the poison diminishes by keeping. 
The arrows are very slight slips of wood, scarcely the thickness of a crow-quill, 
3 K 
MDCCCXXXVII, 
