CHAPTER IV 



BLACK ART IN MALAY MEDICINE 



The language used by exponents of Kelantan sorcery 

 is a medley made up of many elements ; besides 

 illiterate Malay it includes corrupt- Arabic, broken 

 Siamese, mutilated Javanese, debased Sanskrit, words 

 from the spirit language, and words fi'om a so-called 

 " pre-natal " language. The belief in devils, familiars 

 and ghosts, with its attendant fears, is so common 

 among Malays that it is not very surprising to find 

 certain people stni practising as specialists in the Black 

 Art using his or her knowledge to advantage, and, in the 

 case of the homor hilian, perhaps trading on the family 

 reputation of a bygone age. 



The Malay spirit-raising bomor is a type of the 

 wizard-priest similar to the Shaman of Siberia. Many 

 Malays of this kind, both men and women, still practise 

 in Kelantan : among them are the bomor biliatif the 

 bomor mambang and the 6omor gebiohf the bomor tnoh 

 pek, the homor f utiri (Kelantan, peieri)^ the bornor 

 7ni7idok, and the bomor b^rbagih. In Kelantaji the 

 expression b^rmain peteri is used of any kind of incanta- 

 tion or magic seance. Occasionally the Kelantan bomor 

 peieri travels to Johore and other places. In Perak tlie 

 bomor practises the sorcery of h&rlianiu^ altliough rarely 

 nowadays, while the bomor bStjin and the hormr orang 

 huriiaTij or the wizard of the good fairies in the forest, 

 earn their living in Pahang. 



The homor bilio/n is perhaps the chief of all Malay 

 " medicine-men," and in the villages is generally a 



