Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. VI GENERAL REMARKS 265
Even Vaughan-Stevens, who talks of the "real arrow
poison " as if it were a certain definite composition
(instead of a set of compositions), states that indi-
viduals of the same tribe disagree as to the proper
composition of the poison, and that if a man dreams of
killing a beast even with some perfectly harmless
substance, he will in future add this to the ingredients
which make up his own particular " blend " of the
poison in question.^
Miscellaneous Ingredients.
The employment of pepper, tobacco, capsicum,
onion, and other comparatively harmless ingredients
may be due {vide Geiger, p. 18) to the fact of their
pungent qualities being regarded as likely to produce
inflammation. According to Van Hasselt, on the
other hand, they are added to give the poison the
desired consistency, but this does not seem very
probable. Scorpions' stings and snakes' fangs, etc.,
are also added to the mixture, as well as Pangium
edule, Reinw., which contains prussic acid. In this last
case, however, as well as in that of some of the other
ingredients just mentioned, Geiger points out that the
poisonous principle is almost certainly evaporated by
boiling, and it may well be that some of the substances
aforesaid are employed rather for magical than for
pharmacological reasons.
Use of Mineral Poisons.
Geiger further informs us (p. 18) that no single poison
(of all those that he investigated) showed the slightest
but was seized with violent cramps very rapid eft'ect, even when ndminisand
severe vomitings, and so died. In tered in very small doses (J. A'. A. S.,
some experiments that M.
• Maclay 5. A\, No. 2, pp. 213, 214).
made vipon animals the poison had a ' ii. 128. Cp. also ii. loS.