Note 209 — Chapter V · Magic Rites connected with the Several Departments of Nature

“I have mentioned only a few such points, and only such as have been brought directly to my knowledge; there are hosts of other quaint notions, such as the theory of lucky and unlucky days and hours, on which whole treatises have been written, and which regulate every movement of those who believe in them; the belief in amulets and charms for averting all manner of evils, supernatural and natural; the practice during epidemics of sending out to sea small elaborately constructed vessels which are supposed to carry off the malignant spirits responsible for the disease (of which I remember a case a few years ago in the village of Sempang, where the beneficial effect was most marked); the widespread belief in the power of mĕnuju, that is, doing injury at a distance by magic, in which the Malays believe the wild junglemen especially to be adepts; the belief in the efficacy of forms of words as love-charms and as a protection against spirits and wild beasts—in fact, an innumerable variety of superstitious ideas exist among Malays.”209