Note 125 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man

Upon the ground, exactly underneath the tray, should be deposited the feathers, feet, entrails, etc., of the fowl, portions of whose flesh have been used for the tray, together with the refuse of the parched rice and a censer. Strictly speaking, a white and a black fowl should be killed, but only half of each cooked, the remainder being left raw. The “portions” of fowl are as small as they can possibly be, a mere symbol (ʿisharat) of each kind of food being all that the spirits are supposed to require. Sometimes funnel-shaped rice-receptacles are used, which are skewered with a bamboo skewer and called kĕronchot. Occasionally a standard censer (sangga?) is used, the end of a piece of bamboo being split up and bent or opened outwards for several inches, and a piece of rattan (cane) being wound in and out among the split ends, so as to form a sort of funnel (about nine inches in diameter at the top), which is lined with banana leaf, filled with earth, and planted vertically in the ground, great care being taken to see that it does not lean out of the perpendicular. Live embers are placed upon it, incense crumbled over it (between the finger and thumb), and the appropriate charm recited. A specimen of a charm or formula used during the burning of incense will be found in the Appendix.125