Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/151

Rh exhibit, though we do not as yet possess any clue as to the real purpose of such performances.

A second class of automatisms, allied in form to these dances, includes a large number of ways of divining by means of the apparently intelligent movements of inanimate objects in contact with the magician.

A third class, which requires to be distinguished to some extent from automatic phenomena, consists mainly of ceremonies by which certain demons, animals, or even inert objects, are made to act upon persons at a distance. This kind of ceremony corresponds to what is usually known as a "sending."

The fourth and last class of ceremonies to which I shall refer includes such rites as are intended to induce possession either for divinatory purposes or for that of exorcism. These four classes will now be taken in the order in which I have mentioned them.

I. In the first class of motor-automatisms I place those ceremonies of which the purpose does not lie on the surface, and can only be inferred by the European observer.

The Palm-blossom Dance is a very curious exhibition, which I once saw performed in the Langat District of Selangor. Two freshly-gathered sprays of areca-blossom, each about four feet in length, were deposited upon a new mat near a tray containing a censer and three special kinds of sacrificial rice. No particular season was specified. The magician ("Che Ganti" by name) commenced the performance by playing a prelude on his violin, and a few minutes later Che Ganti's wife (an aged Selangor woman) took some of the sacrificial rice in her hand and began to chaunt a weird sort of invocation, addressed to the seven sister spirits, probably the souls of the palm. She was almost immediately joined in the chaunt by a younger woman. The invocation consists of four separate sets of seven stanzas, each stanza containing four short lines,