CHAPTER V 



SPELLS AND SOOTHSAYING 



This chapter is based, for the most part, on notes 

 made from an old Kelantan manuscript on Magie. 

 Although it has no connexion with Malay poisons and 

 their cure by charms, it is given to show the cmious 

 conceptions of the Malay mind when engaged in circum- 

 venting Muhammadan tenets. The old book was lent 

 to me by Nik Ismail, of the Kelantan Medical Depart- 

 ment ; the script was partly translated by the help of 

 Mr. A. F. Worthington, British Adviser, Kelantan, and 

 has been further revised and checked by Br. Winstedt, 

 who discerns that a knowledge of Arabic is show by the 

 copyist* It is incomplete ; some pages are missing and 

 a good deal of it seems to be inexplicable. Nik 

 Ismail told me that it belonged to his father, who is now 

 a very old man. The manuscript appeal's to be not so 

 much a work on soothsaying as notes on Islamic magic 

 made as an aid to memory. It assumes a knowledge of 

 the Koran, and a general acquaintance with the Black 

 Art. Some explanations of the text were given to 

 Mr. Worthington under promise that nothing which 

 might enable an miscrupulous person to profit by its 

 teaching should be pubhshed, because many persons are 

 reputed to have some knowledge of the Black Ai-t, but 

 few have as much as is contained in this work. Many 

 details are omitted in consequence. Dr. Winstedt, 

 however, suggests that probably the real reason for this 

 secrecy is that the manuscript contains an unusually 

 good exposition of the magic charms which made a 

 crude form of Sufic pantheism so popular with the 



