90 MALAY POISONS AND CHABM CUBES 



sidered that all those whom Jesus healed had been 

 ' oppressed of the devil ' " {Ref. 5). The constant 

 gi'ouping of seven hi Malay demonology is noteworthy, 

 also the Malay idea that evil spirits may account for the 

 frailty of womankind. 



In Kelantan, as in other Mala.y States, the highest 

 circles affect the practice of Black Art, and to please the 

 people in accordance with ancient custom the late 

 Sultan gave a public performance of pSrmainan peteri, 

 lasting for seven nights, during the cholera epidemic of 

 1920 in order to remove the calamity {tolak hala). The 

 idea was to exorcise the demons that were causing the 

 epidemic and so cause its abatement. Wlien the per- 

 formance is given by royalty, or commanded by a 

 reigning Sultan, the final ceremony is a very elabo- 

 rate affair. A white buffalo is slaughtered for the 

 occasion. The Kelantan ceremony is, however, much 

 less costly than the berhantu carried out, on rare occa- 

 sions, in the far richer State of Perak. In Kelantan a 

 special shed is built and the model of a forty-pillared hall 

 takes the place of the four-post platform of the village 

 performance. This forty-pillared hall is a model built 

 of wood, bamboo, and branches of the sago palm, and is 

 adorned with plaited coco-nut palm leaves so aii'anged 

 with trailers (made by cutting diagonally to the mid- 

 rib) as to bear a fanciful resemblance to a long-legged 

 centipede. Pieces of tongue, hver, heart, and stomach 

 of the wiiite buffalo are added to the miscellaneous 

 collection of food already mentioned as part of the 

 sacrificial offering in the village performance : one 

 doUai' is placed on the first floor, two on the second, and 

 so on until seven on the top floor makes a total of twenty- 

 eight dollars. In addition to the arrangements made in 

 the shed for the ordinary performance a young green 

 coco-nut is put on the ground at each comer of the 



