FASCICULI MALAYENSES 
81 
themselves by reading an amusing story—all reading in tnis district being 
invariably aloud—because they could not afford to hire a theatrical company 
as rich people would have done. 
At first it was proposed that the mor should preserve the body by art 
magic until the monks could be summoned from Bayu, but, seeing that the 
family was very poor, it was finally decided that cremation should be performed 
on the following day, the mdr officiating. We offered to contribute towards 
the expenses of the funeral on condition that we were permitted to see the 
preliminary ceremony, and the medicine-man told us that we would make great 
merit by so doing. One of the woman’s sons was inclined to object* and we 
were unwilling to offend by pressing our offer ; but the medicine-man explained 
to us and to him that a corpse was a mere Mog of wood,’ and persuaded the young 
man to withdraw his objections. Early on the morning after the death a number 
of men went off into the jungle, returning with a supply oflight bamboos and 
of the leaves of a particular kind of palm which reach a great length, springing 
from a very short stem. Taking these leaves, cutting off the leaflets 
down each side, and stripping off the outer surface above and below, they 
were provided with as many light rods, which could easily be skewered 
together on strips of bamboo but had sufficient consistency, owing to the 
outer surface remaining on the two sides, not to break loose. With such 
materials, and with a few split bamboos to form the bottom, a light coffin was 
soon constructed, narrowing from the head to the foot; during construction 
its shape was kept accurate by means of two pairs of poles (stuck into the 
earth near the head and near the foot respectively), between which it was 
fastened. Finally, an iron nail was driven in, instead of one of the bamboo 
skewers, as it was said that no coffin could be kept together unless iron 
entered into the composition. During the process of manufacture this nail 
was kept in a brass bowl full of water, in which several pieces of tumeric root 
and a few grains of rice had also been placed, and from time to time the workmen 
dipped into the water the few tools they used—simple iron augurs and the 
little, crooked long-handled knives, called pisau rani or * peeling knives ’ by 
the Malays—believing that if they did not do so while making a coffin they 
would be taken 111 of fever. When the coffin was ready it was taken up the 
ladder of the house in which the woman lay dead and left on the platform 
while the ceremony of washing the body, for which women had been bringing 
water in bamboos and earthen jars all the morning, was conducted inside. 
Taking a bowl of water in his hand, and putting in it some leaves and pieces 
of bark, the mdr dashed it on the corpse, the face and loins of which were 
covered with white cloths. Then the different members of the family, including 
M 
