Note 297 — Chapter V · Magic Rites connected with the Several Departments of Nature (continued 2)

This and the preceding lines clearly refer to the fable quoted by Sir W. E. Maxwell. There are, however, many differences in minor details, one version asserting that the head of the first crocodile was made from the central shoot or cabbage of a cocoa-nut (umbi niyor), its blood of saffron, and its eyes from the star of the east; another asserting that its dorsal ridge was manufactured (by Siti Fatimah) from the eaves of the thatch. ↑