220 SHAMANISM IN PEBAK. 



tion of a wild animal. He was now on all fours, and became as 

 violent as the necessity of keeping to the circumscribed limits of 

 his mat would permit. He growled and roared and worried invi- 

 sible objects on the mat. Presently he sat up again, striking his 

 chest and shoulders with the bunches of leaves, and soon after- 

 wards the music stopped. We had now before us, not Che Johan, 

 but simply his body possessed for the time being by the tiger- 

 demon — bujang gelap or the dark dragon. Henceforth, as long as 

 the seance lasted, he spoke in a feigned voice, pronouncing Malay 

 words with the peculiar intonation of the Sakai aborigines and 

 introducing frequently Sakai words and phrases unintelligible to 

 most of the Malays present. Every one who spoke to him 

 addressed him. as " Bujang Gelap." The master of the house was 

 the first to do so. Pointing to the insensible form of the poor girl 

 on the couch beside him, he explained that she was grievously 

 attacked by some power of evil, and asked "Bujang Gelap" to put 

 forth his supernatural power to expel the demon that was afflict- 

 ing her. The latter asked a few questions, said the case was 

 a difficult one, and then commenced some fresh incantations. 



Returning to his mat, which he had temporarily quitted to look 

 at the patient and to converse with the family, he took up a hand- 

 ful of bertili ( rice parched in the husk ) and scattered it broad- 

 cast around him. Then, after much growling and muttering, he 

 rose to his feet and performed a singular dance to the accompani- 

 ment of the shrill chant and monotonous tom-tom of the pengindin. 

 Presently he danced forward past the lamps close to the bedside 

 of the insensible girl, and then himself chanted a long incantation 



commencing " Hei i i i i jin " ( ! 



spirit ) the first word being enormously lengthened out. Then he 

 sprinkled the couch and the patient with bertih (parched rice) and 

 sprinkled her with tepong fawar, a fluid held in a brass bowl and 

 showered about liberally by means of an aspergium composed of a 

 bunch of fresh leaves. Then once more he returned to his mat, 

 and the wild chorus of the pengindin, which had been momentarily 

 stilled during the ceremonies by the bedside, burst out once more. 

 After this the pawang was again seized with the violent symptoms 

 which had attended his first possession by " Bujang Gelap." He 



