Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/169

Rh being looked up to and revered almost as a tutelary spirit by the travelling players of Penang. The invocations addressed to this tree show that, as in most branches of Malay magic, every part of the tree possessed its appropriate alias. Thus the root was called the "seated Prince," the trunk was called the "standing Prince," the bark the "Prince stretching himself," the leaves the "beckoning Prince," and so on, as in the address to the Fish-trap spirit.

To this I may add that one of the Malay methods of abducting another person's soul was by causing it to enter into a bunch of seven lime-fruits on a single stalk; that limes are used by Malays for ceremonial bathing, &c., &c. I think we have here an instance of the invocation of a vegetation spirit, whose close association with man in the minds of Malay magicians most probably originally arose from the great practical utility of the acrid juice of the lime for cleansing purposes; the divinatory power attributed to it arising out of the generally sacred character which it acquired from its happening to be used in ceremonial purification.

We next come to the Divining-rod and the Divining-sieve, both of which being inanimate as well as inert objects differ from the Divining-lemon (which is always used when fresh and green), but which are nevertheless admittedly used for divination.

Of the Divining-sieve I will say but little, as the charm employed to work it has not yet been recorded, and hence we have no information as to the kind of spirit invoked. In the case of the Divining-rod, however, the spirit invoked is that of the tree (in this case the rattan, a cane-creeper or calamus), from which the living rod was obtained. The reference in the charm is to the long feathery growing shoots of the rattan, which, armed with formidable prickles, are frequently to be seen projecting like lightning conductors or waving about in the wind, above the topmost branches of the loftiest trees in the jungle. The