Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and...

While by divination and by inferences from omens and dreams, Malays attempt to ascertain the course of fate, so by charms of the nature of amulets and talismans they sometimes endeavour to influence its direction or modify its force. Charms of the nature of invocations have been dealt with already under different headings in connection with a variety of matters, and it will only be necessary to refer here to a few miscellaneous ones of a less elaborate character. It should be observed that some charms are directly effective or protective, like amulets or talismans, while others are supposed to work only by influencing the volition of another mind. Under the latter head come the great mass of love-charms, charms for securing conjugal fidelity, or for compelling the revelation by another person of his or her secret thoughts, and the like, of which Malay books of magic are full; while under the former come sundry recipes of a more or less medicinal nature for the purpose of curing various diseases, of increasing physical power or virility, or of protecting the person against evil influences, natural or supernatural. In most of these cases the modus operandi is of the simplest character; the charm consists usually of a short Arabic prayer or a few letters and figures, sometimes quite meaningless and conventional, sometimes making up one or more of the sacred names (Allah, Muhammad, ʿAli, etc.).

These charms are written on paper or cloth and worn on the person; sometimes they are written on the body itself, especially on the part to be affected; occasionally they are written on a cup which is then used for drinking purposes. Such prescriptions are infinite in number, and are to be found in Malay charm-books, wedged in amongst matter of a more strictly medical kind; in fact, it would be quite correct to say that letter-charms (rajah, ʿazimat) and sacred names have their place in the Malay Pharmacopœia side by side with spices, herbs, roots, and the like. But such charms are also used for many other purposes: “to ward off demons (sheitan), to make children feed at the breast properly, to prevent them from crying and from going into convulsions, to prevent the rice-crops from being devoured by pigs, rats, and maggots,” are consecutive instances of the charms contained in a page of one of the numerous Malay treatises on these matters. It would, from the nature of the case, be utterly impossible to exhaust this endless subject, and it is not necessary to dwell upon it at greater length, as the details of the charms used (of which a few are quoted in the Appendix) do not as a rule offer any features of general interest.251

Far more interesting is that form of the Black Art which attempts to “abduct,” or in some way “get at” another person’s soul, whether (as in the case of the ordinary love-charm), in order to influence it in the operator’s favour, or, on the other hand, with a view to doing the victim some harm, which may take the form of madness, disease, or even death.

These results can be arrived at by a variety of methods: in some of them the influence works entirely without contact, in others there is some sort of contact between the victim and the receptacle into which his soul is to be enticed. A few specimens of the methods employed will conclude this part of the subject; they are necessarily somewhat of a miscellaneous character; but it will be seen that they are really only different applications of the same general principle, the nature of which has already been indicated in the section on the Soul.252

“The ‘ceremonial treatment’ consists in wrapping it up in pieces of red, black, and yellow cloth253 (the yellow being outside), and hanging it from the centre of your mosquito-curtain with parti-coloured thread (pĕnggantong-nya bĕnang pancharona). It will then become (the domicile of) your victim’s soul (jadi sĕmangat). You must, however, to complete the ceremony, switch it with a birch of seven leaf-ribs taken from a ‘green’ cocoa-nut (pĕnyembat-nya lidi niyor hijau tujoh ’lei) seven times at sundown, seven times at midnight, and seven times at sunrise, continuing this for three days, and saying as you do so:—

“Then bury it in the middle of a path where your victim is sure to step over it (supaya buleh di-langkah-nya), and he will certainly become distraught. The only taboo in connection with it is that you should let no one share your sleeping-mat.” The soul-receptacle in this case is the lump of earth taken from the centre of the victim’s footprint. It is said to actually “become (the victim’s) soul,” but no doubt this is merely figurative, though it completely proves the identification of the soul with its receptacle in the Malay mind. The object of the birching is not self-evident, but may be intended to dispel evil influences, and so purify it for the incoming soul.

Another way of obtaining the required result is to scrape off some of the wood of the floor from the place where your intended victim has been sitting. Having secured this, take some of the soil from his or her footprint and mix them both together with wax from a deserted bees’ comb, moulding the figure into his or her likeness. Fumigate it with incense, and “beckon” to the soul by waving a cloth (lambei sĕmangat) every night for three nights successively, reciting this charm:—

Take parings of nails, hair, eyebrows, saliva, etc. of your intended victim (sufficient to represent every part of his person), and make them up into his likeness with wax from a deserted bees’ comb. Scorch the figure slowly by holding it over a lamp every night for seven nights, and say:—

The description of the next ceremony is taken word for word from a charm-book which I obtained from a Langat Malay (named ’Che Indut), and which is still in my possession. As it illustrates several new points about these wax figures, and as such charms are exceedingly rare and all but impossible to obtain, I here give a word for word translation of the whole text, the original Malay version of which will be found in the Appendix:254—

“This refers to making images to harm people. You make an image to resemble a corpse out of wax from an empty bees’ comb,255 and of the length of a footstep. If you want to cause sickness, you pierce the eye and blindness results; or you pierce the waist and the stomach (lit. the waist) gets sick, or you pierce the head and the head gets sick, or you pierce the breast and the breast gets sick. If you want to cause death, you transfix it from the head right through to the buttocks, the ‘transfixer’ being a gomuti-palm256 twig; then you enshroud the image as you would a corpse, and you pray over it as if you were praying over the dead; then you bury it in the middle of the path (which goes to) the place of the person whom you wish to charm, so that he may step across it. This refers to when you want to bury the image—