Home Of Evil
(A Team Of Disaster Rejection Rituals)
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| Infectious Disease |
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| Common Sense |
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| Cloud Of Evil |
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| Faith Healing |
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| God Almighty |
That night after Isha prayer, I had the
opportunity to watch a rarely practised Bangkahulu tradition, by a team of
disaster rejection rituals. They walked in a parade as far as Kampung Hulu.
Kampung Hulu was believed to be the home of evil. So when the infectious
disease began to spread in the village, this team would seem to read sholawat
or zanji and recite a few verses from Al Quran. Though it was illogical to our
common sense, yet our kampung was then cleared from the cloud of evil. This was
really a miracle of faith healing. Sometimes I found it difficult to
understand. Anyway I believed, it was really the Mercy of God Almighty.
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| Couldn't Avoiod |
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| Special License |
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| Bomoh's Work |
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| Abdominal Pain |
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| For Freshness |
So those were the days when Tok Bomoh and Mak
Bidan were respected and trusted, not to mention Tok Mudin who was not popular
amongst the boys. Yet boys couldn’t avoid meeting him. It was said that only
Tok Mudim had the authority to give a special license to find a girl friend.
Tok Bomoh and Mak Bidan eventually replaced the doctors to serve sick people in
the village. Even my mother knew a little bit of bomoh's work. As “a self-made
dukun” in the house, she would rub kunyit on my forehead if I got hedache and
put a few nila on my swollen neck under the chin. To release my abdominal pain
my mother would then give me ginger juice to drink. As well as she showered me
with rice water for freshness, especially hair and skin.
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| Stop Bleeding |
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| Mysterious Herbs |
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| Cure Diseases |
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| Herbal Medicine |
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| History Of Medicine |
As well as my friends, they used chewed
keduduk leaves to stop bleeding from any scratch or wound. Gelanggang leaves
were used to get rid of ringwarm or kurap on our body. Similarly, other leaves
have amazing medicinal properties. What were mysterious herbs in those days? It
really helped to stimulate the body's healing powers. Only then, did I discover
that some herbs have the healing properties to cure diseases. But nowadays
these medical herbs are ignored and gradually forgotten over time. However,
herbal medicine is actually part of the history of medicine itself. Undeniably some herbs can be very effective
in the treatment of many conditions, such as dukung anak, kucing galak, rerama,
ketumpang air, rumput mutiara, putri malu, semanggi gunung, ketumbit jantan, and various others.
