228 SHAMANISM IN PERAK. 



for a long time. Again and again he strewed the place with berth! 

 and sprinkled the patient with tepong tawar. Once he charmed 

 eight grains of bertih which were put into her mouth. He chanted 

 long invocations, danced wild dances, and beat himself with his 

 bunches of leaves. But all in vain, the dumb langsuyar still held 

 possession of the sufferer. In the intervals of the ceremonies, the 

 pawang conversed occasionally with members of the family, always 

 retaining his assumed voice and using Sakai phrases. He even 

 condescended to accept a Malay cigarette (roko), which he called 

 by the Sakai word nyut. 



At length he pleaded fatigue, and gave place to an old man who 

 dealt with a different class of demons altogether. The spirits which 

 he professed to be able to influence are the liantu sungkei, or the 

 demons of the Sungkei river, a particular district in Perak. 



His method of procedure differed a good deal from that of the 

 pawang of the liantu Mian. Instead of the old woman with a little 

 drum, he had a male bidu with a large round tambourine. A single 

 bunch of pinang leaves replacad in his hands the two large bunches 

 of daun changlun which " Bujang Gelap " had carried. After the 

 preliminary sprinkling of bertih by the new pawang, the bidu com- 

 menced to chant an invocation to the Sungkei spirits, addressing 

 them in turn by name. The symptoms of possession on the part 

 of the pawang were convulsive shaking and shivering, especially in 

 the hand and arm which bore the bunch of pinang leaves. Both 

 tune and metre were quite different from those employed in ad- 

 dressing the liantu blian. The old Sungkei pawang proved a fail- 

 ure, for after endless chanting and after he had been possessed 

 successively b}^ " Panglima Raja," " Anak Janggi," " Hulubalang 

 Raja " and " Mambang Dundang," all powerful Sungkei spirits, he 

 was unable to declare anything, and left us as wise as we were 

 before. 



What a common incident in Eastern tales is the dire illness of 

 some lovely princess, for effecting whose recovery an agonised father 

 offers half of his kingdom and the hand of the lady in marriage ! There 

 is always some favoured hero who applies some magical remedy and 

 restores the princess to health after the medical profession has been 



