IN SUMATRA. 1D7 



sort of invocation to all their pagan pantheon, among whom 

 one is invoked as dwelling within the Nine Mists, to bestow 

 their blessing on the union. 



Another of their curious customs I saw performed during 

 my stay in the village. It happened that a young girl had 

 fallen clandestinely with child (an offence of great magni- 

 tude among them) whose father it was incumbent on the 

 chief of the village to discover and report to the chief of his 

 marga. A court, consisting of these two officials with the 

 chiefs of the two neighbouring villages, was consequently 

 called together in the Balai in which I was staying. The 

 girl w^aB, summoned to appear, and, accompanied by her 

 mother, she took her place on a mat before the chiefs. 

 The head of her village, having seated himself on the ground, 

 prostrated himself before a little incense-holder of burning 

 benzoin, and chanted an invocation to various of their deities, 

 concluding with— "Ye Beings who regulate the universe, 

 make it clear whose is the iawli.''^ Then, in the midst of dead 

 silence, he. scattered over ihe girl some handfuls of yellowed 

 rice-grains, and demanded the name of the partner of her 

 crime. She replied, giving the name of f^ome one in a 

 distant village, and, being warned to speak the truth, she 

 declared : " Banish me if you will, hang me if you will, kill 



me if you will, I can say no other— that is the truth. Thi 

 finished the inquisition. Next morning a commission consist- 

 ing of the chiefs who had formed the court with several armed 

 villagers, set out, accompanied by the girl, to bring her 

 charge against the village whose member had brought dis- 

 grace on theirs. If the person named by the girl should on 

 his oath deny the charge, the case nowadays is carried before 

 the magistrate of the district. In other days it wag referred 

 to the arbitrament of war or of the Dewa, who would certainly 

 afflict the perjurer or his (or her) village; but, for the purifi- 

 cation of the disgraced Kampong, the deity had to be invoked 

 over a sacrificed buffalo. The woman would secretly as her 

 time approached disappear from the village; and when, after a 

 space, she returned she would come alone. If the person 

 named by the girl accepted the charge, as he did in this 

 case, and was willing by either of the modes of marriage 

 practised among them to make her his wife, both villages, 



