Note 1 — Chapter III · Relations with the Supernatural World

“The accredited intermediary between men and spirits is the Pawang;1 the Pawang is a functionary of great and traditional importance in a Malay village, though in places near towns the office is falling into abeyance. In the inland districts, however, the Pawang is still a power, and is regarded as part of the constituted order of society, without whom no village community would be complete. It must be clearly understood that he has nothing whatever to do with the official Muhammadan religion of the mosque; the village has its regular staff of elders—the Imām, Khatib, and Bilal—for the mosque service. But the Pawang is quite outside this system, and belongs to a different and much older order of ideas; he may be regarded as the legitimate representative of the primitive ‘medicine-man’ or ‘village-sorcerer,’ and his very existence in these days is an anomaly, though it does not strike Malays as such.