Note 62 — Chapter V · Magic Rites connected with the Several Departments of Nature (continued 2)

An alternative method was thus described to me by a magician: Take a white cup, fill it with water, fumigate it with incense, and deposit it in the hole dug to receive the centre-post. Early next morning take note of it; if it is still full of water, it is a good sign; if the water has wasted (susut), a bad one. If live insects are found in it, it is a good sign, if dead ones, bad. There can, however, be little doubt that the original victim of this sacrifice was a human victim (generally perhaps a slave), for whom the buffalo was substituted (the goat, fowl, and egg representing further successive stages in the depreciation of the rite). Malays on the Selangor coast more than once told me they had heard that the Government was in the habit of burying a human head under the foundations of any unusually large structure (e.g. a bridge), and two cases where a local scare resulted from the prevalence of this idea were recorded in the local press (the Malay Mail) in 1897. For similar traditions of human sacrifice, vide p. 211 infra. ↑