Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

154 MUSIC, SONGS, AND FEASTS part rii
The Crocodile.
IVak, wak, wak ! there bellows the Crocodile !
The * bay ' Crocodile to her mate of the reaches,
The Crocodile whose head is knobbed and lumpy,
The Crocodile whose tail is like a sword-blade.
The Crocodile whose teeth are clenched together.
In ever}' river-pool there dwells the Crocodile,
The Crocodile that's fierce, the Crocodile that's savage,
That climbs up to bask on the bank of the river.
And enters the waters to search for sustenance.
The Crocodile that ' gazes ' ^ at our reflections.
If our head is gone, he will get him sustenance,
If our head is there, he will get no sustenance.
There sits a monkey upon the timber,
The Crocodile s\\ eeps him ofi" into the water ;
The Crocodile smothers him within the river-mud.
And when he is dead, it bears him shore-wards,
And batters him on timber, to kill him thoroughly,
And swallows him whole, when dead completely.
The Lace-Lizard or Monitor.
The Lace-Lizard's head is knobbed and knotty.
The Lace- Lizard's eyes are small and narrow,
The Lace- Lizard's snout is sharp and pointed.
The Lace-Lizard's bell}' sways and swaggers,
The Lace-Lizard's footprints are spreaded widely.
The scales of its back are like the sting-ray's,
The Lace-Lizard's tail is like a sword-blade,
The Lace-Lizard's teeth are thorns of the screw-pine.
The Lace- Lizard's tongue is a tongue that's double,
Like to the man's that speakelh falsehoods.
The Lace-Lizard's chief is now the crocodile.
He was once the crocodile's younger brother.
The land crocodile, with the salt-sea crocodile,
One upon land, and one in the water.
Watch very warily, and slay the Lace-Lizard.
The Pvjhon.
Seng, seno-, sett,:;! there calls the Python !
The Python coiled in the tops of forest-trees,
The Python coiled on the topmost brushwood.
The Python coiled in the tangled grasses.
The Python that enters the hollow tree-trunk.
The spotted Python that men call ' Sawa,'
The Python whose tail is like a peg-top, '-
The P)thon whose tongue resembles garlic,
The Python whose teeth are thorns of the screw-pine,
' ' Gazes,' in allusion to the belief he can safely attack the person thas
that the crocodile ascertains the designated.
identity of the human beings destined - /.(•. "gasing."' But 'gasing-
to become his prey by 'gazing' or gz.^mg,'' = Cissampelos Parura, L., also
divination. Whenever this process re- Pericampylus incanus, Miers {Meni
veals to liim the figure of his prospective spennaceic). Slender climbing plants,
victim without the head, he knows used medicinally.