338* 
THE ORANG MUKA KUN1NG* 
For 1000 rattans they receive 4 gantangs of coarse rice ; for 100 
dammar torches, 6 gantangs; and for one basket (l^r feet deep anti 
broad) of agiia wood, 4 gantangs. 
They have derived some obscure and distorted notions of a Creator 
from the Malays, and appear otherwise to have no religion or super¬ 
stitions. Allah Ta’ala (God) is the creator of all living things. Nabi 
Maham&d (the prophet Mahamad) is his wife, who destroys all living 
things. They dwell above the sky, and have two children, a male 
and a female, whose names and functions they do not know. They 
have no idea of the soul as separate from, or surviving, the body. It 
is probable that their belief in a male creating and preserving, and a 
female destroying, god was derived from Hindus or Hindu Malays in 
the antemahomedan era, and that they have merely altered the names; 
a practise which appears to be common in the Archipelago, and one, 
indeed, of which the history of almost every nation furnishes exam¬ 
ples.* 
As soon as the breasts of a girl are of the size of a betelnut, she is 
considered marriageable. When a marriage has been agreed upon, 
the parents of the bridegroom send to those of the bride 3000 rat¬ 
tans, a piece of cloth, a jacket and two silver rings. The marriage 
takes place at the house of the bride, in presence of the Batin and 
several guests, and consists in the bride and bridegroom being placed 
* In the eastern parts of Bengal, which, from their ethnological connec¬ 
tion with the Hindu Chinese peoples, we shall have frequent occasion to re¬ 
fer to instances of this kind occur. The successive changes which the re¬ 
ligion of Europe has undergone were accompanied by a similar confusion of 
names. “ The memory of the pagan [classic] creed was not speedily era¬ 
dicated in the extensive provinces through which it was once universally 
received ■ and in many particulars it continued long to mingle with, and in¬ 
fluence the original superstitions of the Gothic nations. Hence we find 
he elve’s occasionally arrayed in the costume of Greece and Rome, and the 
Fairy Queen and her attendants transformed into Diana and her nymphs, 
and invested with their attributes ahd appropriate insignia (Sii \\. Scott, 
Introduction to the Tale of Tamlanc.) “Christianity never succeeded in 
rooting out the ancient creed ; it only changed many of the subjects, which 
maintained, and do still to this day maintain, their place among us. What 
had been religious observance subsists as popular superstition; the cross of 
the Saviour only replaced the hammer of Thorr ; and the spells which had 
once contained the names of heathen Gods wer© still used as effective, hav¬ 
ing been christened by the addition of a little holy water, and the substitu¬ 
tion of the names of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Tobtt, St. Peter and St, 
Paul” (J. M. Kemble. IntroduQliQn to (/?$ Anglo-Saxon Dialogues of&a, 
tomon and Saturn T j 
