The bomohs or traditional healers in the Malay society continue to remain indispensable even in the age of modern medicine.

Prof Dr Hashim Awang, from University Malaya's Malay Studies Academy, is certain that they would continue to thrive since modern medicine cannot cure all human ailments.

"The bomoh 's know-how must be seen on a positive note as it is based on a repository of knowledge that had expanded generations after generations.

"A major portion of the Malay medicine can be found in the tib literature that provide the remedies for the ailments," he was quoted as saying in a Bernama report today.

The professor was presenting a lecture on the subject at the university recently.

According to Hasmim, Malay traditional healing methods should not be cast aside but instead be studied.

It should be ascertained if whether these methods could play a complementary role to the modern medication available in the country, he added.

"In the Malay traditional healing literature there are various diseases and remedies. If we return to the content of the tib literature than we can appreciate the many ailments recorded by the Malay traditional healers since the early days," noted the academic.

He said though the traditional healing methods were no longer convincing in the current perspective, it's still deeply embedded in the Malay psyche.

"Whether we like it or not we can't run away from the fact it's our heritage ," he added.

Contraband smokes

In an unrelated development, Bernama also reported that the Customs Department in Perak found contraband cigarettes worth more than RM700,000 hidden in an underground store in Hutan Melintang.

The cigarettes were stacked in a store underneath a wooden garage at Lot 48E, Bagan Parit 4, near a fish landing jetty and the front entrance is closed using blinds.

Following a tip-off, a team headed by Lumut Custom's Ishak Dun began observing the garage the same night and at 9am the following day they raided the place.

A total of 94,800 Gudang Garam 12's packs and Texas 5 (Red and Green) valued at RM152,800 with unpaid duties worth RM600,762 were confiscated.

Three days earlier a customs team from Lumut had intercepted a bounded truck at km 10 Hutan Melintang Road and confiscated 26,000 packs of cigarettes worth RM46,000 with unpaid duties amounting too RM136,956.