Charms, Talismans, and Witchcraft
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Skeat, Walter William
If Fatimah is face to face with Muhammad,
She will be as a goat facing a tiger.
Muhammad in very truth is the Chief,
The Tiger of God upon earth.
By the grace of,” etc.
The following is a clear example of soul abduction without contact:—
The simplest way, perhaps, of abducting another person’s soul is to go out, when the sun clears (matahari mĕncharak, at sunrise?), or when the newly-risen moon looks red, and standing with the big toe of the right foot resting on the big toe of the left, to make a trumpet of your right hand and recite the appropriate charm through this improvised speaking-trumpet thrice. At the end of each recital you blow through the hollowed fist. The charm runs as follows:—
“‘OM.’ I loose my shaft, I loose it and the moon clouds over,
I loose it, and the sun is extinguished,
I loose it, and the stars burn dim.
But it is not the sun, moon, and stars that I shoot at,
It is the stalk of the heart of that child of the congregation, So-and-so.
Cluck! cluck! soul of So-and-so, come and walk with me,
Come and sit with me,
Come and sleep and share my pillow.
Cluck! cluck! soul,” etc.
A second method is to beat your own shadow,261 ceremonially; according to this method you take a cane (of rattan or rotan sĕga), in length as long as your body, fumigate it with incense and recite a charm over it seven times, striking your own shadow with the cane once after each recital. Repeat this at sundown, midnight, and early morning, and sleep under a coverlet made of five cubits of white cloth, and the soul you wish for will assuredly come to you. The following is the charm, a very curious one:—
“Ho! Irupi, Shadowy One,
Let the Queen come to me.
Do you, if Somebody is awake,
Stir her and shake her, and make her rise,
And take her breath and her soul and bring them here,
And deposit them in my left side.
But if she sleep,
Do you take hold of the great toe of her right foot
Until you can make her get up,
And use your utmost endeavours to bring them to me.
If you do not, you shall be a rebel to God,” etc.
Another method of abducting another person’s soul is as follows:—
“Take a lime branch which has seven limes on a single stalk, and suspend it from the top of your mosquito-curtain on three successive nights. When you suspend it recite the charm already given262 (beginning ‘Om! shout it again and again!’).”
The following ceremony is one in which the soul of another person is abducted without any direct contact between the soul-receptacle, which in this case is a head-cloth, and the soul-owner. The directions are as follows:—
“Go out on the fourteenth night of the lunar month (full moon) and two successive nights; seat yourself on a male ant-hill (busut jantan) facing the moon, burn incense, and repeat the charm:—
“I bring you a (betel-) leaf to chew,
Dab the lime on to it, Prince Ferocious,
For Somebody, Prince Distraction’s daughter, to chew.
Somebody at sunrise be distraught for love of me,
Somebody at sunset be distraught for love of me.
As you remember your parents, remember me,
As you remember your house and house-ladder, remember me.
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