Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/177

Rh ductive" rite. The introduction of any given subject into the songs, although it might be essential to the proper stimulation of the object thus treated, was not essential to the rite itself, and might be omitted or inserted at will, the effect of such chaunting upon the object itself being analogous to the declared effect of what is called the laying-on of hands by a priest or bishop.

In discussing the ceremony of the dancing palm-blossom, I should, perhaps, explain that the Malays believe strongly in a seven-fold soul, which is not confined to human beings or animals, but is extended to embrace all other departments of nature, including vegetation, whether live or dead. The influence of this belief may be clearly seen in the ceremonies performed by the Malay collectors of jungle produce (such as eagle-wood, camphor, malacca cane, and rubber), in the ceremonies used for taking home the soul of the rice-plant at harvest-time, and in many other cases too numerous to mention, the object in every case being to increase the yield of some vegetable product. For example, in the ceremonies employed for making fruit-trees more productive, the magician delivers several shrewd blows upon the trunk of a tree with an axe saying:

To which the soul of the tree is supposed to reply, through the mouth of a man perched in the lower branches:

It is unfortunately impossible to compare the ceremony of the dancing palm-blossom with any such ceremony among the Jakuns, as the latter do not plant palms and have no ceremonies connected with them. We have, however, a parallel in the charm used by the Malay manufacturers of palm-wine, who, in collecting the sap of the cocoa-nut palm, repeat the words:

Peace be with your Highnesses, Princesses of the shorn hair and perpetual distillation;