Of all of you have been given into my care,
So much the more have the body and life
Of all of you been given into my care.
Grant this by the grace of my use
Of the prayer called divination by (secret) cognizance (tilek maʿrifat) of Somebody.
“Next you take a fathom’s length of thread, with seven strands, and seven colours running through the strands (bĕnang tujoh urat, tujoh warna mĕlintang bĕnang), and a pen made of a splinter of the sugar-palm (puchok kabong), and draw a portrait of the person you wish to charm (mĕnulis gambar orang itu). When the portrait is finished you suspend it from the end of a pole by means of the parti-coloured thread, and make fast the lower end of the pole to the branch of a tree, fixing it at an angle, so that the portrait may hang free and be blown to and fro without ceasing by every breath of wind. This will cause her heart to love you.”
It will be noticed that a general similarity underlies these several methods of soul-abduction in spite of their apparent variety, and the diversity of the objects in view in the different cases. On this point it is impossible to enlarge here: the purpose of this book has been primarily to collect authentic specimens of the various magic practices in vogue among the Malays of the Malay Peninsula, and to indicate the nature of the beliefs on which these practices are based, leaving it for others to draw from them such inferences and to make such comparisons as may throw further light on the subject. It has not been deemed desirable to anticipate such inferences and comparisons here; but, without trespassing beyond the scope of the present work, it may be noticed that there is a special appropriateness in concluding it with the above account of the various methods of soul-abduction. From them, taken together with what has already been said on the subject,[264] a fairly complete idea can be gathered of the Malay conception of the Soul; and it is hardly too much to say that this conception is the central feature of the whole system of Malay magic and folklore, from which all the different branches with their various applications appear to spring.
The root-idea seems to be an all-pervading Animism, involving a certain common vital principle (sĕmangat) in Man and Nature, which, for want of a more suitable word, has been here called the Soul. The application of this general theory of the universe to the requirements of the individual man constitutes the Magic Art, which, as conceived by the Malays, may be said to consist of the methods by which this Soul, whether in gods, men, animals, vegetables, minerals, or what not, may be influenced, captured, subdued, or in some way made subject to the will of the magician.
It would, however, probably be a mistake to push this analysis too far; for side by side with the theory of a universe animated by souls, which by the use of the appropriate words and forms can be cajoled or threatened, there are the ideas of Luck and Ill-luck, and the notion, strong in Muhammadans all over the world, of a preordained course of events. Sometimes, presumably in extreme cases, there is no escape from this destiny: if a man is fated to die at a certain time, die he must, whatever he may do. But to a great extent ill-luck can be avoided if one knows how; though we cannot stop it, we need not expose ourselves to its influence. Thus a particular hour may be unlucky for the doing of a certain act; but if we know that it is so, we need not incur the danger.