Notes on the Old Calabar District of Southern Nigeria

the traditional methods of any one teacher (guru).The attribution of purely physical, as distinct from menLal, disease to an evil spirit's actual presence is not usual among the Malays of the Peninsula, and was in the present instance directly brought about by words uttered by a person believed to be in a state of supernatural excitement, for there was no indication that aniything supernatural was believed to be the matter with the child until these words were uttered.I should, perhaps, explain that the langsuir had 'no connection with the familiar, being regarded at Grit as a " jungle spirit" (which cannot be tamed) except in so far that all evil spirits are, in the belief of a few of the more intelligent of the Maiays, among whom was the headman of Grit, fuudamentally one pervading the whole world.The paum jerei is often connected with spirits of different kinds not only in thle Malay Peniinsula, owing to its peculiar growth, for it takes root in a crevice of the trunk of some other tree, and then sends down into the ground aerial roots that finally strangle its host, which decays and leaves it standing as if on stilts.The inhalation of the evil spirit was a primitive method, but a reallv savage medicine-man would have probably produced some material object to represent the disease, as the nodule under her skin represented tbe langsuir by which the penghulu's wife was troubled.The scattering of rice to strengthen a spirit, at least temporarily benieficent, is interesting, as is also the spirit's revival, when worn out with a hard won contest, by the pungent smoke of incense.Thie cheerful demeanour and ready laughter of the crowd during the ceremony has its significance, for nothing makes a man's soul (semangat) * so weak as fear or violent emotion, and when spirits are about it is well that his soul should be strong, or, at any rate, should This content downloaded from 198.91.37

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