Malay Magic / Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula

Chapter 227: [clvi] Circumcision [p. 360.

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About This Book

A compilation of Malay Peninsula folklore, popular religion, and magical practices drawn from manuscripts, published sources, and the author's field notes, presenting creation myths, supernatural beings, charms, incantations, ritual practices, and folk explanations for illness and misfortune. The text emphasizes literal translations of spells and formulæ with originals in an appendix, confines attention to Malay communities of the peninsula, and compares recurring motifs while avoiding non-Malay populations. Methodological notes explain evidence and limits. The volume serves as an introductory survey that organizes material thematically—cosmology, spirit lore, protective and harmful magic, divination, and ritual observances—without claiming exhaustive treatment.

[clvi] Circumcision [p. 360.

A ceremony equivalent to circumcision is performed in the case of girls at between five and seven years of age, a wound “like the sting of a gadfly” (saperti di-gigit pikat), i.e. just sufficient to draw blood, being inflicted by means of scissors wielded by a Bidan (who offers prayers and burns incense). In the case of a boy the skin parted from the wound is received in a cleft stick (sepit), and after being dried is made up into a sort of ring, and used as a charm to secure invulnerability (pelias) in war, or else carried out on a piece of banana leaf and thrown away with ashes from the hearth (abu dapor), which latter are used to stanch the blood. The small bit of skin got from the girl is similarly dealt with.

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