Gamat The Traditional Healer From The Sea

One of the local products worth looking is the healing ointment called gamat.

Gamat potion is made from golden sea cucumber juice.

It is a Malay traditional medicine and has been used to cure various ailments for over 300 years.

Gamat is also believed to give skin a soft and smooth texture.

Malays boil and drink air gamat (gamat water) to treat cuts, sores and inflammation, peptic ulcers or to revitalise the body. Mothers who had recently given birth also take gamat for quick healing.

Air gamat is also used as a vitality tonic when mixed with other traditional herbs like tongkat ali - the famous rainforest root.

How The Healing Power of Gamat Was Discovered

A very long time ago - a fisherman stepped on one of these sea cucumbers (gamat) and had his legs glued with the sticky white secretion from these slimy sea creatures.

Feeling angry, he took an axe and hacked up all the sea cucumbers around him.

The next morning, he found that all the hacked-up sea cucumbers are all healed and whole again.

Gamat (Sea Cucumber)

If the sea cucumbers could heal themselves, then it should also be able to heal people’s wounds.

From then, the islanders became using gamat to cure various ailments and thus, the gamat industry began.

Gamat can be found in distant, isolated islands where the water is cool and clean. They thrive from 0.6m to 3m under the sea.

These spectacular sea creatures are active during the night and are very sensitive to sunlight.

When they are exposed to the sun - they will 'melt' and die.

Prof Hassan Yaacob, a local gamat researcher and entrepreneur has carried aresearch on how gamat can activate cell proliferation at the Research Institute for Traditional Medicine in Toyama, Japan.

Besides its proven efficacy in enhancing the bodys resistance towards various diseases, gamat is also known to contain a cell-growth factor that has the ability to accelerate the regeneration of biological cells, bone, collagen and rejuvenate skin.

Believe It Or Not.

In Japan, gamat has saved a life. A Japanese professor decided to test oral gamat on a 24-year-old girl who was in a coma due to the degeneration of her right lung at the University of Kyoto Hospital.

Investigations showed that the girls lungs had collapsed and she had a slim chance of survival. She was given antibiotics and steroids but did not respond to the treatment.

After giving her gamat through intranasal drip, the girl blinked her eyes in less than 24 hours. After five days, she showed signs of recovery. Three weeks later, she was discharged and new X-rays showed that her lung had rejuvenated.

One is to get the pure fluid and the other is mixed with coconut oil and plant extracts.

In both processes, the sea cucumber is dumped into a huge barrel called rojamwhich is placed over a slow burning fire for three days.

In the first process, no ingredients are added.Thus, you have the pure form of fluid which is called air gamat.

In the second process, the coconut oil and secret plant ingredients are periodically added in throughout the three days. After the third day, you have an oily based substance called minyak gamat.

The amazing thing about the whole cooking process is that you can dip your hand inside the fluid or oil and not be burnt!

The processed sea cucumber or gamat is marketed in bottles.

The pure type or ayer gamat is to be consumed orally. It is used to cure all internal ailments such as peptic ulcer, duodenal ulcer, bleeding piles and stomach aches.

The mixed kind or minyak gamat is for external application. It is used to quicken the healing process of cuts and wounds.