Part 5 - The Malay Peninsula

All Malays chew betel, and the pagan tribes of the Peninsula have learned the habit to a certain extent from their overlords.

Skeat and Blagden^[1] give several instances of this. Thus the Mantra and Besisi smoke tobacco and chew betel, or, as a substitute, cassia leaves, together with gambier and lime, which they obtain by barter from the Malays of the coast. Betel is only sparingly used, however, among most of the Semang tribes. The Perak Sakai are exceedingly fond of tobacco and betel, the leaf of a wild betel, chambai, being used when the Piper catechu is unobtainable. Ridley^[2] says that several wild pepper leaves are used as substitutes for the betel leaf. He has seen Selangor Sakai near Kuala Lumpur cut off long strips of bark from Piper argenteum, with the object of chewing them. A portion only of the bark was taken in each case, so that the plant might not be killed.^[3]

The Benua-Jakun also chew betel, but not to excess like the Malays.^[4]

Mr Skeat refers me to his remarks on the use of betel leaf in Malay marriages.^[5] The leaf (sirih) is sent to typify the formal proposal of marriage. One of the youth’s representatives, going with others to meet the girl’s parents, takes a betel-leaf tray furnished with the usual betel-chewing appliances, and invites the parents to partake of betel, saying, before witnesses: “This is a pledge of your daughter’s betrothal.”

The passing of betel leaf between the families signifies the formal acceptance. A regular exchange of presents takes place; formerly, the woman would occasionally carve a chain, consisting of three or four links out of a single areca-nut, in which case the prospective bridegroom was supposed to redeem it by the payment of as many dollars as there were links. The areca-nut presented on these occasions would be wrapped up in a gradation of three beautifully worked cloths, not unlike “d’oyleys” in general appearance. Among the articles of ordinary wedding furniture is a betel tray placed inside the bed-curtain. Presentation “betel-leaf trees” were formerly carried in procession at weddings, also the blossom-spikes of the coco-nut and areca-nut palms in vases, along with the many other things.

The great importance of betel as a pledge of courtesy, hospitality and good-fellowship entered so much into the social life of the Malays, that definite fines were enumerated in the Malaya code for any such breach of etiquette:

“Shall the courtesy of offering betel be not returned, it is a great offence to be expiated by the offenders going to ask pardon with an offering of boiled rice and a betel stand; if the neglect be committed towards the headman, it is greatly aggravated, and besides the aforesaid offering, the offender shall do obeisance and be fined ten mas; if previous to a marriage, or other ceremony, the customary offering of betel be not sent, giving notice thereof to headman and elders, the party shall be fined the offering of boiled rice and a betel stand; shall a headman give a feast to his dependents and omit this etiquette, he shall be entitled not to the name of penghulu, but of tuah-tuah only. At circumcisions and ear-boring, too, he who has not received the customary offering of betel cannot be considered to have had a proper invitation.”

R. O. Winstedt, who quotes the above in a paper on Malay life and customs,^[6] says that the betel quid was the Malay valentine,

“and the highest favour that could be bestowed on a subject from a prince’s hand, or rather mouth. But the younger generation no longer admires the red saliva and the teeth-blackening effect, and so has discarded betel for ‘Cycle’ cigarettes and the Burma cheroot: perhaps a more liberal diet and the cultivation of a more sensitive palate has hastened its disuse.”

Mr Ridley, in course of correspondence, has given me many curious bits of information about betel in Malay: when about to descend a stream containing dangerous rapids, it is correct to perform a sacrifice to the spirit of the waters. It is safest to offer a white chicken, but, if one is not handy, a chew of betel is a good substitute.

“I once went down the Perak river rapids on a raft of bamboos,” says Mr Ridley, in a letter to me,

“and it is both exciting and risky. The old Malay who conducted our raft, which went first (we had three rafts), before we started made up a ‘chew’ consisting of lime, gambier,areca-nut, and betel leaf. He then declaimed a long incantation and hurled the ‘chew’ into the water as an offering to the demon of the river.”

Among curious uses to which areca-nut is put may be mentioned that in cases of difficult labour. An old woman fills her mouth with small pieces of broken nut and spits it up the vagina of the expectant mother. The idea seems to be one of suggestion—just as the betel-chew produces an increased flow of saliva, so will the desired result be brought about.

Some further curious customs are given in a recent article, “Notes on Malay Magic,” by R. O. Winstedt.^[7] If a child is taken out in the late afternoon, the lobes of its ears and the crown of its head are smeared with betel-juice, whose redness spirits fear. And at the same hour a Perak woman will walk round a house where young children are and spit out yellow turmeric at seven places. At a Malay burial betel is often put inside the grave for the use of the deceased in the next world. For the uses of betel in Malayan folklore see Overbeck, Malayan Branch Roy. As. Soc. Journ., vol. ii, pt. iii, 1924, pp. 283, 284, and vol. iii, pt. iii, December 1925, pp. 22, 23, 25, 26 and 28.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, vol. i, p. 93.

[2]:

See his important work, The Flora of the Malay Peninsula, 5 vols., London, 1922-1925. The sections on Piper betle and areca catechu will be found in vol. iii, p. 40, and vol. v, p. 4, respectively.

[3]:

Skeat and Blagden, op. cit., vol. i, p. 122,122n².

[4]:

Ibid., pp. 129, 133.

[5]:

Malay Magic, pp. 365-367, 374.

[6]:

Papers on Malay Subjects, part 2, The Circumstances of Malay Life, Kuala Lumpur, 1909, pp. 60 - 6 l.

[7]:

Malayan Branch Roy. As. Soc. Jour., vol. iii, pt. iii, December 1925, p. 11.