64 NOTES ON MALAYAN FOLK-LORE. 
employed to drive away the demons first. The pawang hung pieces of 
white and red cloth on sticks round the tree, burned incense in the little 
contrivances made of the split leaf-stalks of the bertam palm used by 
the Malays for that purpose, cut off the heads of two white fowls, sprinkled 
the blood over the trunk, and in the midst of many incantations the tree 
was felled without any mishap ; but, strange to say, the pawang, who was 
a haji and a slave-debtor of the Toh Puan Halimah, died ‘about nine 
months afterwards. 
