The Malay Medicine

Music of the Shamans

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:16:00 +0000

Music of the Shamans
A shaman without music and sound is one without power.

On the East Coast, main Puteri is a popular trance dance accompanied by a makyong ensemble which consist of a rebab (fiddle), two gendang (double headed drums), and a pair of tetawak.

The chief performer, Tok Puteri, entranced by the music of the rebab, communicates with the spirits.

Aided by his attendant, Tok Minduk, who is also the rebab player, he “sucks out” evil spirits from afflicted patients.

A popular form of folk singing is Ghazal mostly in Johor. Ghazal is the vocal rendition of love poems, known as pantun, to the accompaniment of various musical instruments such as the gambus, table, violin, accordian, guitar, and maracas.

Like Nobat, Ghazal came from the Middle East and became an instant hit with the locals especially so because of its Arabic/Persian melody and the romantic lyrics.
Music of the Shamans

Pokok Cekur Manis

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:17:00 +0000

Pokok Cekur Manis
Botanically name: Sauropus androgynus is a common vegetable food in Malaysia and consumpotion of the raw leaf or its jucie was a lad for losing weigth.

The superb and unique flavor of these leaves is most similar to peanuts, also similar to snow peas. Then tender tips, the leaves, the flowers and the young berries are all used for food. Older leaves can be eaten raw but are commonly cooked. The young leaves and tips are eaten raw in salads. When cooked all parts of the plant have a distinct agreeable odor and flavor and the leaves and stems retain their dark green color. The leaves have about 6-10% protein content.

The leaves and the top 15 cm of stem tips of the Sauropus plant have a pleasant taste, similar to fresh garden peas, and slightly nutty and are normally eaten raw in salads or steamed, to add to stir-fry, rice and egg dishes, soups or casseroles.

The dark-green leaves provide a rich source of chlorophyll which is a valuable blood building element, cell rejuvenator, and beneficial to the circulation, intestinal flora, and for regular bowel elimination.

An infusion made of the leaves, is used as a poultice to treat fevers and ulcers.
Pokok Cekur Manis

Pokok Sambung Nyawa

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:56:00 +0000

Pokok Sambung Nyawa
Gynura procumbens Merr is an herb belonging to the family Compositae. Locally known as Pokok Sambung Nyawa.

Pokok sambung nyawa is herbaceous climber of forest margins and thickets. It is native of South East Asia.

Originating from Myanmar and China, it can live with the height of 1 until 500 meters from the sea levels.

It grows vertically, or sometimes the edge collapse and comes out root, wet stem, branches purplish in color.

The leaves are almost egg-shaped and slightly different shape between each leaf. The size is 3 cm – 10 cm x 0.5 cm – 3 cm. The lower surface is more or less purple.

The leaves serve in Malay peninsular as a flavoring for food, and also widely used for treatment of: kidney diseases, rashes, throat infection and high fever.

In addition, the leaves of the plant have been used in folk medicines and antihypertensive agent.

It has been reported that an ethanolic extract of Gynura Procumbens significantly reduces serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels of diabetic rats.

It can be used to stop bleeding, overcome menstrual cycle problems, improves the kidney function, for animal bite.
Pokok Sambung Nyawa

Music for Storytelling

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:42:00 +0000

Music for Storytelling
Storytelling in Malay culture includes the use of stylized, singing, chanting, instrumental, accompaniment, and sometimes drama.

In past generations, professional storytellers related romances, often accompanying themselves instrumentally.

As late as the mid 1900s, the art of storytelling was widespread in the northern Malay states and as far as Selangor. By 1990s, however, both in rural and urban areas, published texts film television and modern drama had begun to hold interest and many of the storytellers had died, taking their art with them.

Regional genres were known by specific names, derived from the main (or root) story, or from as hero in the most popular story of the genre.

In the northwestern states the genres were selampit and awang batil (also awang belanga).

The selampit involved song and recitation, without instrument accomplishment. The awang batil used an overturned brass bowl (batil), on which the storyteller beat out short, repeated rhythms to accompany and complement his recitation.

Sometimes he would wear a mask, representing the character about whom he was speaking.

Probably the most musically complex of the extant traditions of storytelling was found in Kelantan. The storyteller (tok selampit) was often blind man who sang tales as he accomplished himself in a rebab.

The rebab doubles or imitated the vocal part either playing in unison with the voice or repeating the vocal melody.

The part is played on the rebab were melodically dense, with considerable sixteenth, and thirty second not movement.

The melodies were usually ornate, with many grace notes, slides and other embellishments. In both voice and rebab parts, the melodic range was narrow, and microtonal intervals were common.

In many traditions, the music acted as a catalyst to enables the storyteller to develop his story.
Music for Storytelling

Tukang Urut

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:47:00 +0000

Tukang Urut
Many aspects of traditional Malay medicine are known to ordinary persons.

Malay adolescents and adults usually know how to stop the flow from wounds and how to clean and dress minor wounds so that the risk of infection is reduced.

Those who live along the seashore know how to treat the stings of jellyfish by applying a dressing made from crushed fish or crustaceans that are naturally immune to jellyfish stings.

And ordinary Malays know about some plants and parts of plants that cause illness.

Some ordinary individuals know how to set and splint simple fractures, although a bone setter (dukun patah, tukang tulang, tukang urut) is more skillful.

Also, the home setter would have a method for speeding the mending of the bone, for example, by teaching the patient to relate the feeling of the fracture to a rhythmic sound produced by the patient.

Who is tukang urut? The tukang urut was knowledgeable in the practice of traditional Malay medicine and was a popular source of medicinal assistance in the kampung (village). The tukang urut would dispense traditional Malay medicines, treating common ailments using plant or animal-based ingredients.

Tukang uruts were knowledgeable about various conditions of the human body and relied heavily on their knowledge of the human anatomy during massages. In a body massage, the main purpose of a tukang urut is to relax tense and tired muscles and tone up flabby muscles.
Tukang Urut

Bomoh and the illness

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:17:00 +0000

Bomoh and the illness
As a Malay, a devout Muslim and a bomoh, they believes that for every illness there must be an agent responsible for it and that for all these sickness there must be a cure.

Consequently, it is necessary to continuously seek ways and means to free oneself from illness, a process known as ‘ikhtiar’.

In common with other bomoh – which loosely translates as a medicine–man cum magician they believes that everything derives from God, but the human beings are nevertheless responsible for the illnesses that befall them.

People can become sick through irresponsible behavior, for example, which can be avoided by behaving properly.

However, supernatural forces such as evil sprits – locally known as ‘hantu’ or ‘penunggu’ - can process an individual whose soul is weak.

Illness can also be caused by sorcery, which used to be rampant, but rare today.

A bomoh uses various healing technique, the mot popular being his ability to heal fractured bones.

Many Malaysians believe that modern medicine is no match for treating fractures and even those who have undergone western medical treatment often seek further help from a traditional healer.

Bomohs are also well versed in the art of curing with herbal medicines.

If someone is diagnosed to suffer from ‘unusual’ illness, then the service of the bomoh is needed.

Once the bomoh knows the cause of the ‘unusual’ illness, he will advise the sufferer either to take certain herbal medicine or change his or her daily diet.

However, sometimes herbal treatments and dietary changes alone cannot alleviate the symptoms of illness due to a spirit attack.

The basis of the belief that is the excess of angin, tanah, fire and air must be removed and earth and water increased.

Therefore the bomoh counteracts the spirits’ backs, the shaman often advises s that they battle in cold water made still cooler by the addition of lime juice and the chanting of a cooling spell.

The bomoh will further increase water and earth by applying tepung tawar a neutralizing rice paste, to the patient’s forehead.

Simultaneously, destructive spiritual influences may be wept away from the patient’s body with leafy branches.
Bomoh and the illness

Malay ‘semangat’

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:41:00 +0000

Malay ‘semangat’
Fundamental to Malay ideas is the belief in ‘semangat’, or soul force. This the Malay finds present in all things, both living and dead.

He finds it in inanimate thongs like iron, which gives soul-force to the Malay knife.

‘Semangat’ is found in rocks, trees, waterfalls and the natural objects.

Tall isolated trees, the ‘pokok rajah’ king of the jungle are often standing when the forest is cleared because no workmen can be found to risk offending the spirit of the trees by cutting them down.

Soon small spirit shrines will appear at the base of these giants.

Above all, ‘semangat’ is present in rice, the staff of life.

Malays like all related Malaysian carefully reap the heads of grain with a special knife, the ‘tuai’, which they hide in the palm of the hand so as not to frighten the soul of the plant.

‘Semangat’ is found also in parts of he body, even in discarded parts such as hair, fingernails, spittle, sweat and placenta.

There is spirit in one’s shadow, in footsteps, in the water in which one has washed even on one’s spoken name.

Thus it is believed that another person can influence your actions by performing rituals over your possessions or traces.

It is thought that one’s spirit can take off in dreams, as well as in death. Belief in ghosts, called ‘hantu’, is widespread even among educated Malays.

Malay ghosts can be good and bad. Among the most dangerous is he ‘pontianak’ the ghost of a woman who has died in childbirth.
Malay ‘semangat’

Primitive Gods

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:39:00 +0000

Primitive Gods
The Mantra, a proto-Malay tribe, claim to be descended from Mertang, the first magician, who was the child of two persons called Drop of Water and Clod of Earth.

In the Moluccas the earth is a female deity, who is the west monsoon is impregnated by Lord Sun-Heaven.

The Torajas in Celebes believed in two supreme powers, the Man and the Maiden, that is, the sun and the earth.

The Dayaks of Borneo hold that the sun and the earth created the world.

The terms, “Father Sky” and Mother Earth,” occur in the Malay ritual of the rice-year, at the opening of mines and of theatrical shows and in the invocations of the Kelantan shaman.

A Kelantan account relate s that the sun and earth once had human form, sun the form of man and earth the form of a woman, whose milk may be traced in the tin-ore of Malay and whose blood is now gold.

Actors in the north of the Malay Peninsula say that “earth spirit, whom actors fear, is the daughter of Seretang Bogoh, who sits in the sun and guides the winds and of Sang Siuh, the mother of the earth, whom sits at the naval of the world.”

Many religions at once unite and dissociate the fruitful earth and the gloomy underworld.

But as Malay drama came from India, this northern tradition may be a corruption of Hindu mythology. By some Malay actors Raja Siu, lord of the surface of the earth, is invoked along with Siva, and the name is perhaps a corruption of Siva.

Anyhow, in time Siva and Sri usurped the place of Father Sky (or Father Water as he is sometimes called) and of Mother Earth in the Malay pantheon, and to-day even the existence of these two primitive gods has been forgotten.

The palace of a sky-god tends later to be taken by gods of the sun, the moon and the stars. So in some ancient layer of Malay beliefs before the introduction of Saivism, the white spirit of the sun the black spirit of the moon, and the yellow spirit of sunset may have been important, and have seeing that they have Indonesian names (mambang), have been incorporated in to the Malay‘s Hindu pantheon, and have survived under Islam as humble genies.

The fisherman along the west of the Peninsula sacrifice to four great spirits (also called mambang) who go by many names but whose scope is always the same.

One of is the spirit o the bays, another that of banks or beaches, another that of headlands and last and fiercest is the sprit of tideways and currents.
Primitive Gods

Medical Practitioners: Bidan

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:39:00 +0000

Medical Practitioners: Bidan
There are four commonly recognized categories of traditional medical practitioners: bidan, bomoh, dukun and pawang.

A bidan is comparable to a “midwife” in cosmopolitan medicine, but she is more.

She helps pregnant women prepare for giving birth attends and directs the birth and deals with postpartum problems of the mother and child.

She treats children’s illness and female health problems.

Any bidan knows a great deal about diet and the humoral qualities of foods.

Most urban and many rural Malay women now give birth in clinics or hospital; but even urban women consult with traditional bidan in such matters as diet, bathing, and positioning the fetus for easier birth or preventing pregnancy after intercourse.

In certain Malay majority area, bidan are often incorporated into national health programs through additional training, licensing and involving in community clinics.
Medical Practitioners: Bidan

Music for Healing

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:15:00 +0000

Music for Healing
Traditional Malay medicine encompasses various kinds of ritual ceremonies intended to communicate with the world of spirits to determine whether the nature of an illness is physical or psychological.

In such ceremonies, the aim is to summon and exorcise the spirits causing illness.

A ritualist serves as a medium, and a small ensemble often provides the musical component.

Known by different name, healing rituals appear in different forms.

The main saba (a curing ceremony, incorporating dance around a saba tree) and main lukah (a fisherman’s curing ritual performed in Pahang) are regional types using song, dance and drumming.

The main puteri (peteri), another form that extensively uses music, is found in Kelantan and Terengganu.

In the main puteri, a medium (tok puteri, tok teri, bomoh) becomes possessed by the spirit causing an illness.

The performance of vocal and instrumental pieces helps him enter a state of trance.

A trance dance (tarian lupa) is a prominent feature of the ceremony.

An assistant, the tok minduk, plays the rebab as he converses and sings in dialogue with the medium.

The orchestra used in Kelantan is larger, perhaps because of the occasional performance of the main puteri with mak yong.

The contemporary main puteri orchestra of Kelantan includes the core mak yong orchestra (a rebab, a pair of gendang and a pair of tetawak), plus two or more canang, a pair of kesi and sometimes an oboe.

The dialogue between the tok minduk and the tok puteri is sung in a slow tempo, with long gong units, long rhythmic patterns in the drum part, and a vocal line featuring a basically syllabic style of singing.

The rebab accompanies the vocal lines of both singers by either playing heterophonically with voice or reiterating, short melodic phrases as ostinatos.

The trance dance sections feature the repetition of brief gong units and short drummed rhythms, a fast tempo and the reiteration and emphasis of the running beat by the small gongs and the hand held cymbals.
Music for Healing

The Malay Charm

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:03:00 +0000

The Malay Charm
There are three words used by Malays for incantation or charm, two of them Sanskrit (jampi, mantra), the other the Arabic word for prayer (do’a).

Charms are employed in agricultural operations, by fisherman, hunters, fowlers and trappers; to abduct or recall the soul; to revive ore in a mine in a patient on a bed of sickness; against cramp, poison snakebite, enemies, vampires, evil spirits; at birth and at teeth, filing; to save men from tigers, and crops from rats and boars and insect; for beauty, virility, love; to weaken a rival in a race or in a fight; to divert a bullet or break a weapon as it is being drawn.

A Malay charm may form part of a primitive ritual, like that of the rice-year, conducted by a skilled magician. It may be merely recited in an appropriate occasion by any layman who has learnt it.

One may buy the words of a love charm for example, from an expert “for three dollars, three yards of white cloth, cotton and thread, limes and salt, areca-nut and betel-vine,” or for “limes and salt, three small coins, five yards of white cloth and a needle.”

The charm may require to be supplemented by contagious and by homoeopathic or mimetic magic.

Sand from the foot-print of the woman loved, earth from the graves of a man and woman, the hair-like filaments of bamboo, black pepper: these are often steamed in a port while a love-charm is being recited.

Another method is to “take a lime, pierce it with the midrib of a fallen coconut palm, leaving one finger’s length sticking out on either side whereby to hang the lime.”

Hang it up with thread of seven colors, leaving the thread also hanging loose an inch below the lime.

Take seven sharpened midribs and stick them into the lime, leaving two fingers’ length projecting.

The sticking of the midribs into the limes is to symbolize piercing the heart and liver and life and soul and gall of the beloved.

Put jasmine on the end of the midrib skewers. Do this first on Monday night, for three nights and then on Friday night. Imagine you pierce the girl’s heart as you pierce the lime.

Recite the accompanying charm three or seven times, swinging the lime each time you recite the words and fumigating it with incense.
The Malay Charm

Mas Cotek

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:56:00 +0000

Mas Cotek
Scientific name for Mas Cotek is Ficus deltoidea from the family of moraceae. Ficus deltoidea is native to Malaysia where it may grow to 6 feet tall. It is well suited to growing indoors and in containers grows to a maximum of 3 feet tall.

This is the only indoor fig that produces fruit on a regular basis. Figs are small and inedible, but ornamental. They are yellowish, pea-size and grow singly form short stems originating in the leaf axils.

In Malaysia there are more than 80 species in Ficus deltoidea family. Plant that is known as are is also one of the species in the Ficus deltoidea family. Ficus deltoidea jack or Mistleteo fig is from the species which is classified scientifically and it is grouped in Moraceae family.

In Malay community Ficus deltoidea is traditionally used for: regulate blood pressure, reducing blood sugar level, increasing sexual desire, reducing nerves and joints pain, and remove toxin form the body.
Mas Cotek

Malay beliefs and Forest

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:08:00 +0000

Malay beliefs and Forest
To the Malays the great enveloping forest is full of supernatural powers. There are the wonderful; Jin Tanah, and Earth Spirits: Gergasi, the great tusked giants; Orang Bunyi, the invisible Voice Folk.

There are individual; creatures – such as Hantu Pemburu, the Spectral Hunter; mountain-top and river pool have their local; spirits; and there are classes innumerable of ghosts, goblins and demons.

They are known as Hantu Hutan – the Spirits of the Forest, - and as real to the Malays and as much dreaded as the tigers and other wild animals of the forest.

Men, such as rattan-cutters or gutta-hunters, whose vocations take them into the forest, repeat a short charm to avert the wrath or displeasure of these spirits; and the farther they go from home the more careful are they to make use of due ceremony and incantation.

The forest envelope their homes and their lives; but, as with the fisherfolk and the sea, the more they explore it, the more they know that it is a world apart. That it is so near and extends so far adds to it majesty and terror.

The charms which have been handed down from generation to generation, and which the Malays repeat to this day when they enter the forest, one may have some perception of the sentiment that inspires them.

A rattan cutter, though he may find plenty of canes within easy call of his home, repeats this invocation to see the spirits of the forest:

Peace unto you all!
I come as a friend, not as enemy
I come to seek my living, not to make war
May no harm come to me or mine
To my wife, my children, or my home
Because I intend no harm, no evil
I ask that I may come, and go, in peace

Malay beliefs and Forest

Betel Nut

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 03:55:00 +0000

Betel Nut
The areca palm, first described by Theophrastus (374 – 287 B.C) in about 340 B.C, is cultivated in Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Its unbranched trunks can reach fifty feet but is only about one and a half feet around, with a cluster of up to a dozen palm fronds sprouting from the top.

The fruit, about the size of an egg, has a tough rind that contains a hard seed or nut. The fruit is picked in the fall, before it is fully ripen and is husked, boiled and finally sun-dried until it turn dark brown or black.

The seed of betel nuts is used for medicinal purpose. The seed when it chewed is intoxicating. However, it can be used for urinary bleeding or to treat intestinal worms. It also can treat, fever and diarrhea too. The nuts are chewed which was dried and broken down into smaller, usually in wrapped with betel leaves, along with some lime and spices for flavoring. Chewing the nut releases brightly yellow colored keratin.

The stimulating ingredient in betel nuts is the alkaloid arecoline a drug used by veterinarians as a worming agent. For more than two thousand years the natives of the regions where the betel palm have used this drug. Betel chewing was recorded in China by the fourth century, where the nut then as now, was known under its Malay name “pinang.”

Those who enjoy betel prepare to chew the dried pieces of the nut of the areca palm, by wrapping it in the fresh leaf of the ‘daun sirih’ smeared with a lime paste and perhaps flavored with cloves, tamarind or other spices such as ‘gambir’. The used of the ‘daun sirih’ and lime increases salivation and help to bring out the active alkaloids of areca nut. When the betel nuts and leaves are chewed a large amount of red saliva is produced, which temporarily colors the gums and lips.
Betel Nut

Main Puteri for Healing Illness

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Main Puteri for Healing Illness
Traditional Malay Medicine encompasses various kinds of ritual ceremonies intended to communicate with the world of spirit to determine whether the nature of an illness is physical or psychological. In such ceremonies, the aim is to summon and exorcise the spirits causing the illness. A ritualist serves as a medium, and a small ensemble often provides the musical component. Known by different names, healing rituals appear in different forms. The main saba (a curing ceremony, incorporating dance around a saba tree) and main lukah (a fishermen’s curing ritual performed in Pahang) are regional types using song, dance and drumming. The main puteri (peteri), another form that extensively uses music, is found in Kelantan and Terengganu.

In the main puteri, a medium (tok puteri, tok teri, bomoh) becomes possessed by the spirit causing an illness. The performance of vocal and instrumental pieces helps him enter a state of trance. A trance-dance (tarian lupa) is a prominent feature of the ceremony. An assistant, the tok minduk, plays the rebab as he converses and sings in dialogue with the medium. The orchestra used in Kelantan is larger, perhaps because of the occasional performance of the main puteri with the mak yong (resulting in a hybrid form, main puteri-mak yong). The contemporary main puteri orchestra of Kelantan includes the core mak yong orchestra (a rebab, a pair of gendang, and a pair of tetawak), plus or more canang, a pair of kesi and sometimes an oboe.

The dialogue between the tok minduk and the tok puteri is sung in a slow tempo. With long gong units, long rhythmic patterns in the drum part, and vocal line featuring a basically syllabic style of singing. The rebab accompanies the vocal lines of both singers by either playing heterophonically with the voice or reiterating short melodic phrases as ostinatos. The trance-dance sections feature the repetition of brief going units and short drummed rhythms, a fast tempo, and the reiteration and emphasis of the running beat by the small gongs and the hand held cymbals.
Main Puteri for Healing Illness

Acquiring the Knowledge

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Acquiring the Knowledge
Most healers, such as the bomoh or Tok Dukun, pawang, do not attend any special or formal medical training schools in acquiring knowledge and skill as compared to modern Western medicine. To become qualified and be known as a Bomoh, Tok Dukun or Pawang, either in Malaysia or in Indonesia, each individual has to go through various methods of acquisition of the ability to heal by traditional methods.

One of them is through meditation and suffering whereby the person who wish to become a healer isolates himself in a holy place, at a shrine or in a cave. While in those places, he will perform things like fasting and meditating in an attempt to establish contact with the spirit of the holy place and then ask the spirit to grant him the ability to cure the sick.

Learning under master is another method of becoming a traditional healer. This practice of serving an assisting and established bomoh/Tok Dukun or pawang occurs in the hope of one day being permitted to take the place of the master, and inherit his knowledge and skill.

Such attitude to acquire knowledge and skills is no longer practiced in modern times. Nowadays, a Tok guru or master passes the knowledge and skills to his or her students and ‘siswa’ through proper classes or learning processes. Some of the religious or mystical movements in Malaysia and Indonesia consider that propagating the skill or healing of their follower is a part of their overall mission.
Acquiring the Knowledge

Health and Illness in Malay Culture

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Health and Illness in Malay Culture
Basic concepts of health and illness in Malay culture have many origins. Some are clearly aboriginal and ancient. The concept of ‘semangat’ (soul substance), for example, is clearly related to other Malayo-Polynesia languages of South East Asia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. In these cultures, absences or loss of soul substance and intrusion of soul substance of another being are believed to be major causes of illness, especially mental illness.

Humor and sensual concepts relevant to health have native Malay terms (‘angin’, air or wind; ‘panas’, heat; ‘sejuk’ cool; ‘kotor’, dirty; ‘bersih’, clean). These conceptual foci have been reinforced through early and continuous contact with other societies participating in the ancient long distance sea trade involving China, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West.

Major themes in Malay culture are reflected in traditional medicine. These themes include profound enjoyment of details of
1. Food and drink
2. Register (vocabulary and grammatical levels) and dialects of Malay and related languages
3. Systems and levels of courtesy in their own and other social systems
4. One’s own social rank compared to others

Health and Illness in Malay Culture

Durian Fruit

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:17:00 +0000

Durian Fruit
Durian (Durio zibethinus) is one of many tropical fruits native to South East Asia. The capsule fruit is usually large (up to 4 kg) and is characterized by a green to brownish skin fully covered by numerous thick spikes.

Its edible aril is soft and creamy with white or yellowish color. The aril has a sweet taste and strong dominated by fruity (estery) and unique sulfury notes. Due to its unique and highly characteristic flavor, durian is deemed as a delicacy and even regarded as the King of Fruits by local people.

This fruit can reduce lethality of alcohol. Leaves and roots used for fever. Leaves also used in medicinal bath during fever and jaundice. For fruit walls used externally for skin disease.

Vitamin E and antioxidant in general relates to durian. This turn out to be fairly rich in vitamin E among fruits. This is very interesting, since to the public while E is anti-sterility vitamin, then the durian is the anti-sterility fruit.

At any rate, it is thought to have aphrodisiac qualities. Indeed the lore surrounding the durian as a whole is quite remarkable.
Durian Fruit

Medicinally use of tamarind (Asam Jawa)

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Medicinally use of tamarind (Asam Jawa)
Botanically name Tamarindus indica. The fruit has been used medicinally for at least 3000 years. The ripe pulp is widely used as a laxative, diuretic, antiscorbutic and to treat fevers. Other folk uses include the treatment of indigestion, bile disorders, sore throat, sunstroke, alcohol intoxication and the restoration of sensation after paralysis. The high vitamin C content of the pulp makes it an effective treatment for scurvy.

A tea prepared from the leaves has been used to treat worms, dysentery, diabetes, coughs as a diuretic and as an eyewash for infected or inflamed eyes. Strips of young bark have been pounded, cooked and eaten to cure diarrhea. A tea from roots has been uses to treat constipation and leprosy. The seed cut in two and rubbed on a scorpion sting is said to be a certain cure. Modern medicine has determined that the ripe fruit has antibiotic activity against gram positive and negative bacteria, yeast and fungi.
Medicinally use of tamarind (Asam Jawa)

Centella asiatica - Pokok Pegaga

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 01:45:00 +0000

Centella asiatica - Pokok Pegaga
Pegaga botanical name Centella asiatica is a tender creeping perennial herb of South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is also found in Madagascar and the southeastern United States. Centella asiatica has been utilized as a medicine since prehistoric times in India. Fresh extracts of the plant seem to have been used for medicinal purposes by the people of Malay Peninsular for many years as both typical and internal agents for healing of wounds and relief from leprosy.

Other name for Pegaga is gotu kola. Gotu kola contains a variety of organic acids, triterpenes and flavonoids. It also contains and essential oil with an unidentified terpene acetate.

Centella asiatica is employed in many cultures in Asia. Malay beliefs and use for healing many skin afflictions, including burns, wounds and ulcers. It too reduces the formation of scar tissue and prevents cellulite from forming.

It also helps to prevent varicose veins and reduce high blood pressure. The clinical studies show that Centella asiatica strengthens the veins and capillaries and improves the flow of blood. Malay is also belief that Centella asiatica can give longevity.
Centella asiatica - Pokok Daun Pegaga

Malay Bomoh

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:36:00 +0000

Malay Bomoh
A bomoh uses various healing techniques, the most popular being his ability to heal fracture bones. Many Malays believe that modern medicine is no match for treating fractures, and even those who have undergone western medical treatment often seek further help from a traditional healer. Bomohs are also well versed in the art of curing with the herbal medicines.

Only Malay who has received the calling can become a real bomoh. And he usually learns his art by serving as an apprentice to a well known master. An individual can also become a bomoh through inheritance, and often the master will choose one of his siblings to learn his art. The chosen one can be any of his children, but to be eligible and individual must have certain physical and mental characteristics.

One specific requirement is the ability to remember and recite long incantations. This is extremely important because in every form of healing there are various mantras that need to be recited. Even medicine has its own incantations so as to ensure its effectiveness. If bomoh forgets his words this would ruin the healing process.

Incantations can be magical words or verses chosen from Al-Quran. However, most mantras begin with the name of God and end with the mention of the holy prophet Mohammad. This is to ensure that what is being done is always accomplished with the help of God.

Some bomoh treat a wide range of ailments, others specialize in healing certain illness and some, like pawang don’t even involve themselves in healing. The pawang hujan, performs ritual to prevent rain and the pawang buaya is called upon to catch crocodiles. Besides these, there is also the bidan – female bomoh whose specialty is childbirth.
Malay Bomoh

Momordica charantia L. or ‘peria’

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:58:00 +0000

Momordica charantia L. or ‘peria’
It comes from family Cucurbitaceae and genus of Momordica.

In Malay they call it ‘buah peria’. It has herbal properties which is anti microbial, anti tumor and anti virus. It can treat skin disease and stomach ache. The plant is widely used in the treatment of diabetes and diarrhea. The leaves can be used for skin disease and inflammation. Some place in Malay peninsular use the plant as an abortifacient.

It is also used as an anthelmintic for worms, to treat fevers (especially malaria) and gastric ulcers, and to relieve itching and for snake bites.

The fruit is eaten as a vegetable; the leaf may be made into a tea called ‘cerassie’. Both the fruit and leaf have hypoglycemic affects. The extract causes hypoglycemia in animals and human diabetics patients.

It also has toxic effects. Contraceptive and teratogenic effects have been described in animals, so care should be taken in pregnant women, although cooking the vegetable may well destroy many of the toxins.

Momordica charantia is in the gourd family, which has many species that are grown as crops. Fruits of this family are among the largest in the plant kingdom. Momordica charantia is native to the old world tropics but is now a weed on the tropical and subtropical regions in most of Latin America, all of Asia and parts of Africa.
Momordica charantia L. or ‘peria’

Gajus (Anacardium occidentale)

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:44:00 +0000

Gajus (Anacardium occidentale)
Gajus or cashew or Anacardium occidentale is a tree in the flowering plant family of Anacardiaceae. The English name derives from Portuguese name for the fruit of the cashew tree, “caju”. The tree native to Brazil, in the area between the Atlantic rain forest and the Amazon rainforest, and was domesticated long before the arrival of European at the end of the fifteenth century. It was discovered by European traders and explorers. Later, it was planted in India initially to reduce erosion.

The leaves are spirally arranged, leathery textured, 4 to 22 cm long with a smooth margin. Younger leaves can be eaten fresh and the people said that it can prevent and control diabetes.
What appears to be the fruit of the cashew tree is an oval or pear-shaped accessory fruit or false fruit that develops from the receptacle of the cashew flower. The fruit can be eaten raw, or preserved as jam or sweetmeat.

Bark of the tree can be used after boiled with water as antidiarrheal.
The seeds are ground can be used as antivenom for snake bites. The seed oil is believed to be alexeritic and amebicidal; used to treat gingivitis, malaria and syphilitic ulcers.
Gajus (anacardium occidentale)

Malays Healers

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:26:00 +0000

Malays Healers
Dukuns are the Malay healer. Dukuns attribute most illness to wind and ghosts, but they do not favor any particular explanation of illness. Many Dukuns are adept at diagnosing and countering spells and charms, and most are also proficient at using herbal remedies for treating illnesses not attributed to any external intentional agent, spirit or human.

The dukun not only cures illness but divines fortunes and can solve problems by either casting or breaking a spell. If property has been lost, the dukun may cause it to return, or he may use his proficiency to identify and punish the thief. A dukun’s services may be solicited to make a protective amulet containing a Quran verse for a newborn baby. Malay healing also focuses on sexual problems. While issues of male potency and female frigidity are address, charms and therapies concentrate at least as much on such matters as jealousy, fidelity, and compatibility. A dukun’s spell can make a person love or hate another person.

Most of the dukuns claimed that the basis of their practice was inherited tradition and divine scripture, their methods of healing varied substantially. They all used some combination of spells, charms, and herbal medicaments, but the basis of their practice was ilmu. Ilmu is an Arabic derived Malay-Indonesian word, the standard meaning of knowledge or science, however, in the context of Malay medicine it refers to mystical knowledge.

The source and authority of knowledge in Malay medicine is attributed to the Quran. Spoken and written charms and blessings from this and other sacred writings are used in Malay healing. Blessings are intoned over medicines, and blessed water is also thought to possess curative power.
Malays Healers

Spinach or spinacia oleracea

noreply@blogger.com (A.Hart) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:23:00 +0000

Spinach or spinacia oleracea
Spinach is an Asian herb of the goosefoot family cultivated for its edible leaves. In Malaysia people called it bayam. Spinach is native to central and southwestern Asia. It is a flowering plant in the family of Amaranthaceae.

According to history, spinach might have been originated from ancient Persia and it made its way to China in 7th of century. In 11th century Muslim people introduced the spinach to Andalusian people.

Spinach or Spinacia oleracea is a good source of iron. Spinach has a high content of calcium. Apart from that it also rich with vitamin A. vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, magnesium and antioxidants.

Malay community normally relates the spinach with healthy eyes. This might due to spinach rich with vitamin A. However, it will be surprised to learn that spinach may also have been protecting people who eating it from osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, arthritis and other disease at the same time.

Latest research shows that there are 13 different flavonoids in spinach that function as antioxidants and as anti-cancer. In one research said that spinach is relatively rich in nitrogenous substances, in hydrocarbon. It is thus more nourishing than other green vegetables. It is valuable part of the diet in anemia, not only on account of its iron, but also for its chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is known to have a chemical formula remarkably similar to that of hemoglobin, and it is stated that the ingestion of chlorophyll will raise the hemoglobin of the blood without increasing the formed elements.
Spinach or spinacia oleracea