Note 130 — Chapter V · MAGIC RITES CONNECTED WITH THE SEVERAL DEPARTMENTS OF NATURE

Kalangan darah: it is difficult to see the exact meaning of this phrase; at first sight it looks like “the curse of the barring of the blood,” but my Malay authority insisted that it meant the “blood-bars,” and that it was an allusion to the bones, which were supposed to “bar off” blood from blood, and that the real significance of the phrase was “choked to death with bones.” It looks to me, however, much more like a mistake for, or variation of, the phrase mengklan darah, of which there are plenty of examples; but until more instances are collected the explanation must be considered doubtful. ↑