CHABMS AND AMULETS 



4B 



A short time ago the wife of a Chinese dispenser to 

 the State hospital, Kelantan, became deHrloas with 

 fever and refused either to take any English medicine 

 or to be treated by her husband. She was a middle- 

 aged Chinese woman. Li despair, her husband, Eng 

 Siong, called in a male Siamese bornor, who said a 

 f^Udi had got in from outside and was sucking her 

 blood. The bomor declared he could exorcise the 

 pelisit provided the pHesit revealed, through the 

 Chinese woman, the name of its real owner. The 

 bomor commenced by chanting a formula, constantly 

 asking mu 'nak royat tidah ibu bapa-mu (" ^vill you 

 reveal the name of your parent or not ? "). The patient 

 made no reply ; he then threw yellow rice at her, but 

 without effect. He next took an onion and some black 

 pepper which he pounded together, and placed part in 

 one scrap of cloth and part in another. He then tied 

 one of these bits of cloth round the woman's left thumb 

 and the other round the great toe on the same side, at 

 the same time pinclnng the muscles of her thumb and 

 redoubling his question : mu 'nak royat tidak ibu-mu. 

 At last the fiUsit squeaked througli the dispenser's wife 

 lepas'lahf Upas-lah! ("let me go, let me go "), but 

 the bomor squeezed the harder until the climax came, 

 when the woman, again speaking for the pelesit, 

 squeaked aku 'nak royat (" I want to tell and 

 mentioned the name of a certain woman in the town. 



In difficult cases a dry chilli is put over a fire made 

 with charcoal in a brass bowl ; this is held near the 

 patient's face while the bomor blows the pungent fumes 

 into the mouth and nostrils, or, m very obstinate cases, 

 he chews the onion and the black pepper and then spits 

 a mouthful into the face of the sick person. When a 

 piUsit will confess nothing, the sick man is said to rave 

 in anger and then to die. An alternative formula for 



