Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/412

 the attacks of the burōng by means of a strip of rattan (awé) slung round the steps on one side; this is first consecrated by a tangkay or incantation. Sometimes an arèn-rope (talòë jōʾ) to which the burōng is equally averse, is used in place of this. Seven or thrice that number of filaments of the arèn-bark (puréh jōʾ), charmed in a similar way, are also placed under the pillows or sleeping-mat of the mother, or else fixed in the ground beneath the stairs.

The burōng (like the kunti of the Sundanese) is generally believed to be much afraid of palm-leaf fibres (Mal. lidi) and old fishing-nets, yet these are not used in Acheh as charms.

Under the stairs and also under the guha (the hole in the floor of the back verandah, which serves as a latrine for sick people and young children) some thorny twigs of pandan (duròë seukè) are laid on the ground to scare away burōng.

The burōng of Achehnese superstition has much in common with the kunti or kuntianak of the Sundanese and the sunděl bolong which is an object of dread in certain parts of Java. Like the latter the burōng is conceived of as having the form of a woman with a great hole in her back, showing the vital organs. It is supposed that many of them are the spirits of women who have led an unchaste life and come to an unhappy end in consequence. It is also believed that the number of this malignant race of spirits is added to by the ghosts of women slain by a burōng in childbed, and who then become burōngs themselves.

The means resorted to for protection against the burōng are also to a great extent the same as those employed to drive away the kunti. The incantations used to exorcise the burōng are essentially identical with the jampe or japa customary in Java. Recourse is also had to abuse of the burōng, and she is driven away by being shown that her