savage mind only fairly represents their intimate connexion in the Possession-theory itself.
In the Australian-Tasmanian district, disease and death are ascribed to more or less defined spiritual influences; descriptions of a demon working a sorcerer's wicked will by coming slyly behind his victim and hitting him with his club on the back of his neck, and of a dead man's ghost angered by having his name uttered, and creeping up into the utterer's body to consume his liver, are indeed peculiarly graphic details of savage animism.[1] The theory of disease-spirits is well stated in its extreme form among the Mintira, a low race of the Malay peninsula. Their 'hantu' or spirits have among their functions that of causing ailments; thus the 'hantu kalumbahan' causes small-pox; the 'hantu kamang' brings on inflammation and swellings in the hands and feet; when a person is wounded, the 'hantu pari' fastens on the wound and sucks, and this is the cause of the blood flowing. And thus, as the describer says, 'To enumerate the remainder of the hantus would be merely to convert the name of every species of disease known to the Mintira into a proper one. If any new disease appeared, it would be ascribed to a hantu bearing the same name.'[2] It will help us to an idea of the distinct personality which the disease-demon has in the minds of the lower races, to notice the Orang Laut of this district placing thorns and brush in the paths leading to a part where small-pox had broken out, to keep the demons off; just as the Khonds of Orissa try with thorns, and ditches, and stinking oil poured on the ground, to barricade the paths to their hamlets against the goddess of small-pox, Jugah Pennu.[3] Among the Dayaks of Borneo, 'to have been smitten by a spirit' is to be ill; sickness may be caused
- ↑ Oldfield in 'Tr. Eth. Soc.' vol. iii. p. 235; see Grey, 'Australia,' vol. ii. p. 337. Bonwick, 'Tasmanians,' pp. 183, 195.
- ↑ 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. i. p. 307.
- ↑ Bastian, 'Psychologie,' p. 204; 'Mensch,' vol. ii. p. 73, see p. 125 (Battas); Macpherson, 'India,' p. 370. See also Mason, 'Karens,' l.c. p. 201.
