Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/62

 THE WERE-TIGER

I

N THE more remote parts of the Malay Peninsula five and twenty years ago we lived in the Middle Ages, surrounded by all the appropriate accessories of the dark centuries. Magic and evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery, spells and love-potions, charms and incantations are, to the mind of the unsophisticated native, as much a matter of everyday life, and almost as commonplace, as is the miracle of the growing rice or the mystery of the reproduction of species. This basic fact must be realized by the European, if the native's view of human existence is to be understood, for it underlies all his conceptions of things as they are. Tales of the marvellous and of the supernatural excite interest and it may be fear in a Malayan audience, but they occasion no surprise. Malays, were they given to such abstract discussions, would probably dispute the accuracy of the term "supernatural" as applied to much that white men would place unhesitatingly in that category. They know that strange things have happened in the past and are daily occurring to them and to their fellows. Such experiences are not common to all, just as one man here and there may be struck by lightning while