SPELLS AND SOOTHSAYING 101 



devoted to describing how to find out by divination if 

 one will die during the current Muhammadan month. 

 In one, the seeker after knowledge by occult means 

 looks at a bright background ; in another, he shuts his 

 eyes and then looks at the moon ; in another, he looks 

 first at a lighted lamp and then at a bowl of water. 

 Special days and certain hours must be chosen for each 

 month, and special passages from the Koran must be 

 recited, either ten or nine times, as the case may be. 

 If the moon looks red he will die. Looking at the moon 

 is a common practice among native races, who consider 

 it a means of commmiication between two possibly 

 distant lovers (the moon forming, as it were, a looking- 

 glass m which each can see the other). When dealing 

 in " Malay Magic " with the directions for abducting 

 another person's soul Skeat relates that one is told to 

 go out on the fourteenth night of the hmar month and 

 repeat a chai*m of the following sense : — 



When you look up at the moon, remember me, 

 For in that self-same moon I am there. 



The head-cloth lias to lie waved in the direction of the moon 

 seven times every night for three successive nights. 



Eeference is also made by Skeat to the connexion 

 between *' shadow '* and " soul," the shadow being 

 supposed by Malays to embody, or at least represent, 

 the soul. In the Kelautan manuscript the notes on the 

 shadow are rather abbreviated— e.gf,, during a certain 

 month " if you see your shadow you will die." The 

 explanation given by intelligent Malays is that if you 

 see your whole shadow you will not die, but if the 

 shadow leans to the right or to the left you will be ill, 

 more or less seriously. If you see only a certain part 

 of your shadow you will die. It also contains a protec- 

 tive formula against the act of God (loss by hghtning, 



