Note 269 — Chapter V · Magic Rites connected with the Several Departments of Nature (continued 2)

“Gold is believed to be under the care and in the gift of a dewa, or god, and its search is therefore unhallowed, for the miners must conciliate the dewa by prayers and offerings, and carefully abstain from pronouncing the name of God or performing any act of worship. Any acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Allah offends the dewa, who immediately ‘hides the gold,’ or renders it invisible. At some of the great limbongan269 mas or gold-pits in the Malay States of the interior, any allusion to the Deity subjects the unwitting miner to a penalty which is imposed by the Penghûlu. The qualities of the gold vary greatly in the same country. The finest gold brought to market is that of the principality of Pahang, on the eastern side of the Malay Peninsula, which brings a higher price than even that of Australia by better than three per cent. The gold is all obtained by washing, and the metal has never been worked, and scarcely even traced to the original veins. It is mostly in the form of powder or dust—the mas-urai of the Malays, literally ‘loose or disintegrated gold.’”270