Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

48o DECORATIVE ART part ii
approaching. The Sakai believe that the hollow sound
of the bamboo, together with the vibration of the
tloor-timbers struck by the instrument, will drive
away the insects.^
Fig". 11.—Original drawings of a " "
tuang-tuang "
intended for protecting the person against two forms
of skin-disease, one of which produces white leprous-
like ulcers, and the other hard knobs on and under
the skin. To take the bottom of the picture first
— at A are shown a number of frog -holes in the
banks of a river. The dots and lines represent
these holes as they appear in the soft mud, some
(the open end of the bamboo being uppermost)
(at A) being under water, others (at B) above it.
Above this figure, from which it is separated by a
ring-line, are portrayed (at B) a number of frogs'
legs, which are introduced as an abbreviated
symbol of the frogs themselves, completely con-
ventionalised. Above these frogs (at C) are a
number of elliptical figures, said to represent rows
of ant-heaps.
Other objects represented by these figures are (i)
a Disease ^ whose effect is compared to the biting of
ants, and (2) the torso of a victim of the Disease
referred to.
Out of the ground (at D) grow creepers, which are
represented (by means of interlaced lines) as climbing
round the stems of trees, the short horizontal strokes
between the interlacing figures symbolising the stems
of the lianas. The still shorter strokes on the outer
side of the interlaced creepers show if they are
prickles and thorns, or (when they are mere dots)
1 Z.f.E. xxvi. 2
176.
lb, pp. 177-179.
3 Probably Mai. " scmut-semutan," or "cramp," lit. the "creeping of ants."