Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/128

 has already been published by others, to examine carefully the works of Favre and Klinkert, the compilation of the following pages has involved more labour than their number would suggest. That they have been put together during the very moderate leisure permitted by official occupations will perhaps be an excuse for errors which may be discovered by later students.


 * 1. Enggang lalu, ranting patah.

"The hornbill flies past, and the branch breaks."

A saying often employed when circumstantial evidence seems to encourage suspicion against a person who is really innocent. The hornbill or rhinoceros-bird has a very peculiar flight, and the sound of its wings can be distinctly heard as it flies far overhead.

There are several kinds of hornbills in the Peninsula, and one variety with a very singular note is called by the Malay tebang mentuak, a nickname in justification of which the following story is told. A Malay, in order to be revenged on his mother-in-law, shouldered his axe and made his way to the poor woman's house and began to cut through the posts which supported it. After a few steady chops, the whole edifice came tumbling down, and he greeted its fall with a peal of laughter. To punish him for his unnatural conduct, he was turned into a bird and the tebang mentuah (feller of mother-in-law) may often be heard in the jungle uttering a series of sharp sounds like the chops of an axe on timber, followed by Ha, Ha, Ha.


 * 2. Ada bras, taroh didalam padi.

"If you have rice put it away under the un-husked grain."

An injunction to secrecy. An intention to injure any one should be kept secret, otherwise the person concerned may come to know of it and frustrate it.


 * 3. Ada hujan ada panas
 * Ada hari buleh balas.
 * "Now it is wet and now it is fine,
 * A day will come for retaliation."

A proverb for the consolation of the vanquished. As sunshine and rain alternate, so the loser of to-day may be the conqueror of to-morrow. Quickness at resenting an injury has always been held to be a prevailing characteristic of the Malay nature. Newbold (vol. II, p. 186) says that he had seeu Malay letters in which, in allusion to the desire of avenging an insult,