1! 6 
PAWANGS. 
also to be looked for as contributing much to the claim of 
being Pawang. In the absence of more positive information 
on the subject, I will here quote a passage from Lieutenant 
Newbold.J 
i( The soul of a Pawang after death is supposed to enter 
into the body of a tiger This metempsychosis is presumed 
to take place after the following fashion. The corpse of the 
Pawang is placed erect against the projection near the root of 
a large tree in the depth of the forest, and carefully watched 
and supplied with rice and water for seven days and nights 
by the friends and relations. During this period the trans¬ 
migration (believed to be the result of an ancient compact 
made in olden times by the Pawang*s ancestors with a tiger) 
is imagined to be in active operation. On the seventh day, 
it is incumbent on the deceased Pawang’s son, should he be 
desirous of exercising similar supernatural powers, to take a 
censer and incense of kamunian wood, and to watch near 
the corpse alone, when the deceased will shortly appear in 
the form of a tiger on the point of making the fatal spring 
upon him. At this crisis it is necessary not to betray the 
slighest symptom of alarm but to cast with a bold heart and 
%m hand the incense on the fire; the seeming tiger will then 
disappear. The spectres of two beautiful women will next 
present themselves, and the novice will be cast into a deep 
trance, during which the initiation is presumed to be per¬ 
fected. These aerial ladies thenceforward became his fami¬ 
liar spirits, by whose invisible agency the secrets of nature, 
the hidden treasures of the earth are unfolded to him, 
Should the heir of the Pawang omit to observe this ceremo¬ 
nial, the spirit of the deceased, it is believed, will re-enter for 
ever the body of the tiger, and the mantle of enchantment be 
irrecoverably lost to the tribe/* 
+ Vol, II, page 387 and 388. 
