SHAMANISM IN PERAK 



y&£&x 



OME acquaintance with the black art is essential to every 

 Malay medical practitioner. Simple remedies for wounds 

 and bruises are generally well understood, and some of 

 the more common diseases — such as fever, small-pox, &c. — 

 are often successfully, if not skilfully, treated with native 

 remedies. Bone-setting, too, is a branch of the healing science in 

 which Malays sometimes shew much expertness. But, if the 

 cause of a disease is not apparent, or if such alarming symptoms 

 as insensibility or delirium set in, it is usually presumed that evil 

 spirits are at the bottom of the mischief, and sorcery, not 

 medicine, has to be resorted to. Arabic works on medicine have 

 been translated into Malay, and there may be read learned disqui- 

 sitions on the parts and functions of the human body, which, in 

 point of scientific accuracy, are of the age of Galen and Aristotle. 

 Demoniacal possession, though it has always been a popular theory 

 among the Arabs ( in common with other Semitic nations ) for 

 explaining various forms of disease, is not an idea which the 

 Malays have imported from the West. Their beliefs regarding 

 the distribution, powers and manner of propitiation of the evil 

 spirits, to whom they often ascribe human disease and suffering, 

 are relics of the days when spirit-worship was the religion of their 

 primitive ancestors. The early rites of the aboriginal inhabitants 

 of Sumatra and the Peninsula must have been modified at some 

 period by Hindu settlers from India, for traces of Brahminical 

 worship are traceable in the rude chants and invocations sung by 

 Malay pawangs, to this day, by Muhammadan sick-beds. Where 

 Muhammadanism is strongest, namely in the sea-ports and European 

 settlements (whence a constant communication with Mecca is kept 

 up), Malay ideas on the influence of devils on disease partake 

 more of the Semitic type. The evil spirits are sheitan or jin, and 

 pious Arabic sentences are used as charms and invocations. But 

 in remoter districts, downright heathenism may be met with. The 



