Note 81 — Chapter V · Magic Rites connected with the Several Departments of Nature (continued 2)

Also called ’tas. The tiger is still supposed to be mortally afraid of los or ’tas wood. In fact, I was more than once told of a trapped tiger who on being shown a piece of ’tas wood “became quite silent,” though it had previously been savagely growling, and shrank into a corner of the trap. A single inch of this wood is thought an adequate protection against any tiger. I do not know what species of tree it belongs to, but a gorse stick (which I had bought some years before in Ireland) was taken to be a piece of los wood, and was begged from me by a local Malay headman, who cut it up into inches for distribution among his following. ↑