FASCICULI MALATENSES 
63 
1 Dilute alkalies give a brown-coloured extract, turning darker on boiling 
and demonstrating the presence of humous substances. The presence of 
such humous material is also shown by the presence of minute rootlets in the 
earth. Traces of Iron are also present. 
( The results of the examination incline one to believe that the earth is 
nothing more than a silicious river mud, containing nothing of a nutritive 
character/ 
The specimens examined were bought in the Malay market in Pa tan i town. 
Men, and also women who are not pregnant, sometimes eat the earth. 
The birth takes place inside the house, and only the bldan (who may, in 
rare cases, be a man) and her attendants are present, unless the woman 
is moribund, in which case her husband is summoned to bid her farewell. 
A difference appears to exist in the attitude of parturition in Jalor and Perak, 
for though in both states the woman squats on the floor, in the Siamese one 
her hands are held behind her back by an attendant, while in Perak she 
clutches a ring supended from the roof of the house and provided with a 
number of imitation weapons of wood and bamboo, which dangle from it. 
They are believed to scare away evil spirits. There Is a specimen of this con¬ 
trivance in the Perak State Museum, and I am indebted to Mr. Leonard Wray 
for calling my attention to it and explaining its use. As a rule, the 
chief duties of the bldan , in Jalor at any rate, consist in reciting charms to 
scare away the Earth Spirits, and in treating the mother and the baby after 
parturition ; but, should labour be difficult, she applies external pressure to 
the abdomen. After delivery the mother has plasters of various herbs 
applied to her breasts and forehead, to prevent fever or delirium, and a large 
stone, generally of an oblong or oval shape, is wrapped in cloths soaked in 
hot water and pressed against her abdomen just above the pelvis, first on one 
side and then on the other. She is then placed on the kitchen platform of 
the house, in front of a large wood fire, and thus 4 roasted * for a longer or 
shorter period, the process being repeated at intervals during her forty days’ 
seclusion. 
During this period she is not allowed to leave the house, and its 
conclusion is marked by a special ceremony of purification, after which 
she may resume intercourse with her husband and go about the village. 
Three, five, or seven days after its birth the child, which is suckled from 
the beginning, is 4 taught to eat,* a mixture of honey and certain other sub¬ 
stances being smeared on its lips. Suckling very often goes on for some 
years or until the birth of another baby, but in some cases bitter drugs are 
smeared on the breast in order to induce a child which is not shortly followed 
