115 
PAWANGS * 
By llie Revel. P. Fxvke, Apostodc Missionary, Malacca. 
The Pawangs are a class of men endowed with the power 
of performing the functions of priests,! teachers, physicians 
and sorcerers. Under any of these titles they have not 
much to do amongst the members of their own nation ; many 
of them do not believe that the Pawang have any superna¬ 
tural power as sorcerers or as priests, nor do they attribute 
any efficacy to the acts they perform under these two titles. 
Many others have great doubts on the subject: however some 
of them certainly acknowledge in them some extraordinary 
power, more or less. The Pawangs themselves, at least 
those I have seen, have very little confidence in their own 
ability either in their capacity of sorcerers or physicians. 
Though their knowledge be much circumscribed, they are 
generally more clever than their countrymen, and in every 
kind of sickness they are of course called upon. Their 
prescriptions are always accompanied with some superstitious 
practices, without which they are supposed to be of little 
or no effect. But it is amongst the Malays that their skill 
is much in honour, and their persons objects both of vene¬ 
ration and of fear. The Malays are ridiculously superstiti¬ 
ous on that point; they have a firm faith in the efficacy of 
the supplications of the Pawangs, and an extraordinary 
dread of their supposed supernatural power. The Malays 
imagine that they are endowed with the power of curing 
every kind of sickness, and of killing an enemy however 
distant he may be, by the force of spells j and with the gift 
of discovering mines and hidden treasurers. It is not un¬ 
common to see Malay men and women, at the sight of a 
Binua Pawang throw,themselves on the ground before him. 
I could not ascertain the ordinary way for becoming a 
Pawang, nor discover any ceremony by which the Pawang- 
ship is entered upon: it appears very probable that uncom¬ 
mon natural ability, which is found from time to time in a 
few of the Binuas, gives a sufficient right to exercise the 
functions of such ministry. The right of inheritance seems 
* Although thii ihort notice contains no new information respecting the 
office of Pawing or Poyang, we insert it as confirmatory, so far as it goe*, of 
the account of this, the Malayan Schaman, given in the paper on the Binua and 
Bermun tribe* in our firit volume (p. 275-7, 280,282-3.) —Eo. 
f The functions of Priests amongst them consist only iu performing some 
superstitions practices ; since, as 1 have mentioned in another place, they have 
no true and real worship. 
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