Skates, lobsters, crabs, shell-fish (both of land and sea)—
Every kind of substitute I give you,
Good measure whether of flesh or of blood, both cooked and raw.
Accept, accept duly this banquet of mine.
It was good at the first: if it is not good now,
It is not I who give it.”
The explanation of this part of the ceremony is that the evil spirit, or “mischief,” is supposed to leave the body of the sick man, and to proceed (guided, of course, by the many-coloured thread which the patient holds in his hand) to enter into the choice collection of “scapegoats” lying in the tray. As soon as his devilship is got fairly into the tray, the medicine-man looses three slip-knots (lĕpas-lĕpas), and repeats a charm to induce the evil spirit to go, and throws away the untied knots outside the house.
The original “disease-boat” used in Selangor was a model of a special kind of Malay vessel called lanchang. This lanchang was a two-masted vessel with galleries (dandan) fore and aft, armed with cannon, and used by Malay Rajas on the Sumatran coast. This latter fact was, no doubt, one reason for its being selected as the type of boat most likely to prove acceptable to the spirits. To make it still further acceptable, however, the model was not unfrequently stained with turmeric or saffron, yellow being recognised as the royal colour among the Malays.
Occasionally, on the other hand, a mere raft (rakit) is set adrift, sometimes a small model of the balei (state-chamber), and sometimes only a set of the banana-leaf receptacles called limas.
The vessel in the case of an important person is occasionally of great size and excellent finish—indeed, local tradition has it that an exceptionally large and perfect specimen (which was launched upon the Klang river in Selangor some years ago, on the occasion of an illness of the Tungku ’Chik, eldest daughter of the late Sultan), was actually towed down to sea by the Government steam launch ʿAbdul Samad. When all is ready the lanchang is loaded with offerings, which are of an exactly similar character to those which are deposited on the sacrificial tray or anchak[138] already described. Then one end of a piece of yellow thread is fastened to the patient’s wrist (the other end being presumably made fast to the spirit-boat, or lanchang); incense is burnt and a charm recited, the purport of it being to persuade the evil spirits which have taken possession of the patient to enter on board the vessel. This, when they are thought to have done so, is then[139] taken down to the sea or river and set adrift, invariably at the ebb tide, which is supposed to carry the boat (and the spirits with it) “to another country.” One of the charms used at this stage of the ceremony even mentions the name of the country to which the devils are to be carried, the place singled out for this distinction being the Island of Celebes! The passage in question runs as follows:—