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

[To the above I may perhaps be allowed to add that the (dialectal) form chandrawasir is the form generally used in the southern part of Selangor (where the final “r” is still commonly preserved). The regular (Dictionary) form of the word, however, appears to be chandrawasih or chĕndĕrawaseh (the forms chĕndărawangsa, chĕndĕrawasa, and chĕndĕrawangseh being also found). In origin the word is undoubtedly Sanskrit.

It means the Bird of Paradise, but in those Malay countries where the Bird of Paradise is unknown, it is also applied to other birds, such as (in Malay romances) to the golden oriole and even to the ostrich. In the Malay Peninsula, too, it is said to fly feet upwards (which peculiarity it shares, according to Mr. Clifford, with the Berek-berek, Pub. J.R.A.S., S.B., Hik. Raj. Budiman, pt. ii. 35), and its eggs are sometimes said, on falling, to develop into the snake called chintamani. It is always considered lucky, and the “Bird of Paradise Prayer,” (doʿa chĕndrawasi) as it is called, generally takes an important place in the formulas recited at the ceremonies connected with the Rice-soul, q.v. For the confusion between the chĕndrawasi and berek-berek (probably due to the fact that the chĕndrawasi, or Bird of Paradise, is not to be found in the Peninsula) vide note on App. xxx.] ↑