Note 67 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man

When personal attractions begin to wane with the lapse of years, invocations are resorted to for the purpose of restoring the petitioner’s lost youth. In one of the invocations referred to (which is said to have been used by the Princess of Mount Ophir, Tuan Pŭtri Gunong Ledang, to secure perpetual youth), the petitioner boasts that he (or she) was “born under the Inverted Banyan Tree,” and claims the granting of the boon applied for “by virtue of the use of the “Black Lĕnggundi Bush,” which when it has died, returns to life again,”67 the idea being, no doubt, that a judicious use of black magic will enable the petitioner to “live backwards.”