Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. I NEGRITOS OF KEDAH 115
ous yams and roots are specially treated by the
Semang to render them fit for food. For this pur-
pose they are rasped against a prickly stick (a sort of
natural "nutmeg grater")/ the raspings being mixed
with a little lime (slaked with water in a coconut-shell)
and worked up with a small spatula of "bertam"^
palm. Finally they are kneaded by hand into a sort
of dough, which is wrapped up in a strip of fresh
banana -leaf, slipped into a cleft stick, and slowly
roasted over the fire. The yams thus treated
are called " kleb " by the Semang, and " ubi kapor
by the Malays. The Semang informed me they
were highly poisonous, unless treated as here de-
scribed.'
I noticed a number of these yams (" ubi kapor ") in
the Semang shelter at Siong in Kedah, where they
were inserted between the slats of the roof. Other
kinds of yams employed by the tribe in question
were the "ubi takob," which is baked; the "ubi
tanjong," which is boiled; and " kense " or tapioca-
root, which was no doubt obtained by barter from
the Malays, as none was grown in the clearing at
Siong.
Perak Semang-. — The Perak Semang render the
roots of the wild yam edible by means of prolonged
fermentation (in the earth ?) and by culinary treatment
extending over six days.
But the roots of the amorphophallus cannot, it
appears, be made edible by any sort of treatment, this
latter plant being regarded as furnishing, when mixed
with Ipoh, the most deadly kind of poison known to
* The prickly stem of a kind of (or "gadong"), ^that requires to be
rattan {Ca/amiis). - Eugeissona tfistis. prepared in this way. The other
^ \i'\son\y Dioscorca dainoiia,Ko\b. species are hannless.— Ridley.
"