SUPERSTITION AND MAGIC IN CAMBODIA. 529 



person represented by the statuette is supposed to be wounded in 

 the same way. Others, having made and named the statuette, put it 

 where the sun will shine upon it, and as it wastes away in the heat 

 the person represented by it declines, until, when it has all melted 

 away, the person dies — very much like a "Western form of enchant- 

 ment. 



Another form of sorcery is beating a buffalo hide with an en- 

 chanted stick, pronouncing a magic formula the while, to cause the 

 hide to shrink till it is invisible. It is then ordered to enter the 

 stomach of the victim of the spell, and obeys, when it swells out 

 again till the victim is killed. Yet, if the stomach is examined after 

 death, nothing will be found in it, because the hide has shrunk 

 again to nothing. 



These sorcerers pretend to cure diseases. When they are called 

 for this purpose, the first thing looked after is the day when the 

 malady developed itself, for each of the spirits has its special day 

 for appearing, and it is important to know which of them is to be 

 driven away. The " doctor " hardly looks at the patient, for he is of 

 no account in the affair, and the spirit is all. He molds three rude 

 statuettes with rice dough, and puts them in a small box made of a 

 single piece of banana bark, and by the side of it ten leaf packages 

 containing food. A wax candle is attached to one side of the box, 

 and a fragrant stick to each corner. The exorcist then takes an 

 areca knife, and with it touches the forehead at the root of the hairs 

 three times, saying in Cambodian : " One, two, three (me heo, me 

 hot, me chart, or me si). Come out of this body, go back to your 

 country, so that this sick man may be no longer ill." He lays the 

 knife by the side of the patient, takes the banana-bark box, goes out 

 of the house toward the south, crosses the yard, and throws the box 

 over the fence or the hedge. He returns, declaring that the evil 

 spirits have gone home and the man is cured, and recites a prayer in 

 Pali. If the patient fails to recover, they say the spirit has refused to 

 obey, and begin the performance again after two days. 



The sorcerers are also fortune tellers. In one of their methods 

 they use a tablet containing twelve figures arranged around a square. 

 The figures are the tower, the silver parasol, the royal dragon, the 

 silver house, the golden house, the dragon that causes eclipses, the 

 golden parasol, the angel, the man with his head cut off, the doctor, 

 the witch, and the man's head without a body. When consulted, 

 the honorable prophet sets his tablet before him, so as to have the 

 numbers 1, 2, 3, and 12 at the bottom. Having ascertained the 

 sex and age of his consultant, he counts up and refers to the figure 

 on the tablet supposed to correspond to them. If he does not know 

 by heart the prophecies which he is to draw from each figure, he 



%'OL. LIII. — 37 



