Charms, Talismans, and Witchcraft
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Skeat, Walter William
It is Gabriel who is burying him.
Do you too grant my prayer and petition, this very day that has appeared,
Grant it by the grace of my petition within the fold of the Creed La ilaha,” etc.
There are, as I have said, several new points to be got from this charm. You must make the image resemble a corpse; you must make it of the length of the footstep (doubtless that of the intended victim); you must pierce the part which you want to affect; if you want to kill your man, you must transfix him from the head downwards with the twig of a gomuti-palm (that is to say, with one of the black splinters used as pens by the Malays257); you must wrap the image in a shroud, and read the burial service over it; and, finally, in order to absolve yourself from blood-guiltiness, you shift the burden of your crime on to the shoulders of the Archangel Gabriel!!!
There are, of course, many slight variations of the actual ceremony. Sometimes the wizard, during the insertion of the pins into the image, exclaims:—
“It is not wax that I slay258
But the liver, heart, and spleen of So-and-so.”
And then, after “waving” the figure in the smoke of the incense, and depositing it in the centre of a sacrificial tray (anchak), he invites the spirits to banquet upon his victim’s body:—
“I do not banquet you upon anything else,259
But on the liver, heart, and spleen of So-and-so.”
When the ceremony is over the image is buried in the usual way in front of the victim’s door-step.
Another method is described as follows:—
“Make the wax figure in the usual way and with the usual ingredients. At sundown take parched rice, with white, black, green, and yellow (saffron) rice, a “chew” of betel-leaf, a wax taper and an egg—this latter as the representative of a fowl (ʿisharat ayam). Burn incense, and recite this charm:—
“Peace be with you, O Earth Genie,
Bull-shaped Earth-spirit, Earth-demon, Bull-shaped World-spirit.
Come hither, come down, I pray you, and accept the banquet I offer.
I have a something that I want you for,
I want to give you an order,
I want to get you to aid me
And assist me in causing the
sickness
(as the case may be), of Somebody.
or madness
or death
If you do not accept the banquet I offer
You shall be a rebel to God,” etc.
This is a charm for sowing dissension between husband and wife (pĕmbĕnchi):—
Make two of the wax figures in the ordinary way, but taking care that one resembles the husband and the other the wife. Sit down with your legs stretched out before you, and hold the figures face to face while you repeat the charm thrice, and at the end of each repetition breathe upon their heads. Then lay the man upon the ground on your right side close to your thigh, but looking away from it; and the woman at the side of the left thigh in a similar position, so that they both look away from each other. Then burn incense and recite the same charm twenty-two times over the man and twenty-two times over the woman. Now put them back to back, and wrap them up in seven thicknesses of the leaves of tukas,260 and tie them round with thread of seven colours wrapped seven times round them, repeat the charm and bury them. Dig them up after seven days and see if they are still there. If you find them the charm has failed, but if not, it will work, and they will assuredly be divorced. The charm runs as follows:—
“’Ndit marangan ’ndit!
Angkau Fatimah kambing,
Si Muhammad harimau Allah;
Kalau Fatimah tĕntangkan Muhammad,
Sapĕrti kambing tĕntang harimau.
Muhammad sabĕnar-bĕnar hulubalang,
Harimau Allah di-atas dunia.
Dĕngan bĕrkat” d. s. b.
Which, so far as it is intelligible, appears to mean:—
. . . . . . . . . .
“Thou, Fatimah, art a goat;
Muhammad is God’s tiger.