1920.] I. H. N. Evans: Tribes of Pahang. 19 
mat. Noises must not be made in the house for three days 
for fear of frightening: the rice-souls away, and, in order to 
prevent their escaping, thorny stems of the brinjal-plant are 
placed on the threshold of the house for three days. Rice is 
left in the cooking-pots for their benefit, and the necks of the 
pots are tied up with cord made from the bark of the /8rap- 
tree ee Kunstlert). 
oyang is supposed to call seven rice-souls from the 
lower wid, one to take possession of each ear of rice. 
At the time of the next sowing the rice-souls are pounded 
to flour and sprinkled over the crop in the fields. 
The following information is fragmentary, but is interest- 
ing for purposes of comparison with evidence regarding be- 
liefs and customs from other parts of the country. 
At rice-sowing the fourth day from that on which the 
operation is started is a rest-da 
In making a new clearing the people work for three days 
at cutting away the undergrowth, and then rest for a day for 
the ‘‘knife-blade tabu’’ (pantang mot wet). Similarly after 
three days spent in felling the large trees there is another rest- 
day for the ‘‘adze-blade tabu’’ (pantang mot béliong). 
_ Magical performances among the Bera people, are, I am 
told, kept up until the fowls leave their perches in the early 
morning. 
The Bera people practise circumcision, and sometimes 
call in a Malay to perform the operation. 
The Kemaman Sakai-Jakun. 
At the time of my visit these people were living in some 
wretched little huts in the jungle close to their clearing. Some 
of them had been persuaded by their Malay master to build 
houses in the open, but they had mostly deserted these for 
quarters in the shade, declaring that they could not bear the 
heat of the sun. They told me that their clearing was not 
held as common property, but that each man had his own 
plot, which was marked off by posts. One man of the settle- 
ment, the Pénghulu, was lying sick in a hut built on rather 
tall poles. He was suffering from fever, though he had, I 
believe, some other, and more serious, complaint. I was not 
allowed to go up into the hut to examine him as he had been 
undergoing treatment by the Poyang—my old acquaintance 
from the Tekai River—and nobody who had been absent from 
the séances was allowed to enter for seven days from the date 
on which they had been held. 
These had taken place ina wall-less hut close by, the 
Poyang sitting on a mat while chanting his spells. A musical 
accompaniment was played ona most primitive kind of stringed 
! This, I imagine, is also intended to prevent the rice-soul escaping. 
