To your own Parents, to your own Casing.”
And this is no mere chance expression, for in another charm the soul is adjured in these words:—
“As you remember your own parents, remember me,
As you remember your own House and House-ladder, remember me.”[69]
The soul “appears to men (both waking and asleep) as a phantom separate from the body of which it bears the likeness,” “manifests physical power,” and walks, sits, and sleeps:—
“Cluck! cluck! Soul of So-and-so, come and walk with me,
Come and sit with me,
Come and sleep with me, and share my pillow.”[70]
It would probably be wrong to assume the foregoing expressions to have always been merely figurative. Rather, perhaps, we should consider them as part of a singularly complete and consistent animistic system formerly invented and still held by the Malays. Again, from the above ideas it follows that if you call a soul in the right way it will hear and obey you, and you will thus be able either to recall to its owner’s body a soul which is escaping (riang sĕmangat), or to abduct the soul of a person whom you may wish to get into your power (mĕngambil sĕmangat orang), and induce it to take up its residence in a specially prepared receptacle, such as (a) a lump of earth which has been sympathetically connected by direct contact with the body of the soul’s owner, or (b) a wax mannikin so connected by indirect means, or even (c) a cloth which has had no such connection whatever. And when you have succeeded in getting it into your power the abducted and now imprisoned soul will naturally enjoy any latitude allowed to (and suffer from any mutilation of) its temporary domicile or embodiment.[71]
Every man is supposed (it would appear from Malay charms) to possess seven souls[72] in all, or, perhaps, I should more accurately say, a sevenfold soul.[73] This “septenity in unity” may perhaps be held to explain the remarkable importance and persistency of the number seven in Malay magic, as for instance the seven twigs of the birch, and the seven repetitions of the charm (in Soul-abduction[74]), the seven betel leaves, the seven nights’ duration of the ceremony, the seven blows administered to the soul (in other magical and medical ceremonies), and the seven ears cut for the Rice-soul in reaping.[75]