Note 147 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man (continued 2)

Another method, not of recalling the soul, but of stopping it in the act of escaping, is to take a gold ring, not less than a maiam147 in weight, an iron nail, a candle-nut (buah k’ras), three small cockle-shells, three closed fistfuls of husked rice (b’ras tiga gĕnggam bunyi), and some parti-coloured thread. These articles are all put in a rice-bag, and shaken up together seven times every morning for three days, by which time the soul is supposed to be firmly reseated in the patient’s body; then the rice is poured out at the door “to let the fowls eat it.” The ring is tied to the patient’s wrist by means of a strip of tree-bark (kulit t’rap), and it is by means of this string that the soul is supposed to return to its body. When the shaking takes place the following charm must be recited:—