English: Identifier: paganracesofmala01skea

Title: Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula Year: 1906 (1900s) Authors: Skeat, Walter William, 1866- Blagden, Charles Otto, 1864-1949 Subjects: Ethnology -- Malay Peninsula Malays (Asian people) Malay Peninsula -- Social life and customs Malay Peninsula -- Religion Malay Peninsula -- Aboriginal dialects Publisher: London : Macmillan and Co., limited [etc., etc.] Contributing Library: University of California Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image: invoking the spirits of the mountainsto grant his wishes. He then recommences, andcollecting more smoke in his fist, blows through it asbefore—this time, however, close to the ground. Henext squats on his haunches and leans forward on hishands, turning his head quickly to left and right. Presently (I tell the tale in his own words) hisskin changes, fur grows, and a tail appears.^ Thushe remains from seven to twelve days, during whichtime he raids the neighbouring cattle-pens till hiscraving is fully appeased, when he returns to thespot that he started from, squats down as before,and turns himself back by means of saying simply, I am going home ( Ye wet). Throughout theperiod of his absence, however prolonged, his wife, This claim of the Semang medicine- Customs, p. <j^, ante.man is evidently the foundation of the ^ According to Mr. H. N. Ridley, .itrocious custom attributed by the the tail, in one version of the story, Malays to the Udai ; see IJurial is the first part to appear.

Text Appearing After Image: /. /■. Laidlaiv (Skcat Expedition).Pandak thk Were-Tigek (u.n Tnii Right).(Ulu Kelantaii.) Vol. II. /. 22S. CHAP. VI NEGRITOS OF KEDAH 229 sitting at home, must keep the fire always burningand from time to time burn incense. Otherwise hewould disappear entirely. On regaining his humanform, he is usually extremely sick and vomits upthe still undigested bones that he had swallowedin his tiger-shape. It is, I was told, impossible toshoot him, as would otherwise be done, in this stage,as he invariably disappears before there is time tofire a shot. Medicine. We now come to the subject of medicine andexorcism, which latter forms the most important part ofthe Semang medicine-mans ritual. In the estimationof the Semang, Diseases are not caused by demons,but are demons, and require to be exorcised as such. I will therefore describe an actual case in whichI was by good luck enabled to see one of the Semangmethods of casting out devils from a person believedto be possessed. One of the women in

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