Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/422

 after sunset, as the "powers of the air" are supposed to threaten them outside. There are however some diseases which are apt to appear later in the child’s life, and these are regarded as arising from the sakét dròë having been imperfectly exorcised. Such for instance are epileptic attacks, for which the mother resorts to the same peculiar remedy which she employs in the case of the sakét dròë; another is a sort of derangement called pungò buy (pigs' madness), in which the patient, besides exhibiting certain symptoms which recall the movements of wild pigs, shows a strong inclination to jump into the water.

The spirits whose malign influence causes the development of the sakét dròë are known as hantu buru. They inhabit the woods, so that the class of persons best acquainted with the proper incantations for neutralizing their influence are the professional deerhunters (pawang rusa), and those who bring honey-combs from the forests (ureuëng pèt unòë). These hold all wood-craft in fee, and their help is invoked both on the appearance of symptoms of the peunyakét dròë and for sundry other diseases as well.

Another disease of children is thought to be caused by loss of the seumangat or of one or more of the seumangat. The popular psychology is not entirely agreed on the question as to whether man has one or seven of these souls.

When a child is badly frightened at some unwonted occurrence, such as a fire, and subsequently continues nervous, it is regarded as certain that the seumangat has been driven out, and that something must be done to call it back again.

This task is undertaken by a skilled old woman, who receives as her fee some husked and unhusked rice (breuëh padé), two eggs, a piece of white cloth and some keumen. This last is unhusked rice opened by roasting, a form of food which we shall have occasion to refer to later in our description of small-pox. She burns incense and recites pantōns by the hour, varying these occasionally by an appeal to the seumangat to return. Finally she enquires of the assembled women: