Note 264 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man (continued 3)

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.