Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

176 NATURAL RELIGION AND FOLK-LORE part iii
on the other. The mode in which the three systems
have been united so as to be amalgamated into a
consistent whole is deserving of consideration.
Poyangism remains almost unimpared, or rather the
Poyang, while assuming the character of priest, and to
a certain extent abandoning that of wizard, retains in
effect his old position. He still commands the
demons by incantations and supplications, and their
power rather than his own has been subordinated to
the deity. At the same time this idea of an ultimate
and supreme creator has not greatly altered their
conceptions of the demons. Originally, impersona-
tions of the vital and destructive forces of nature—or
the recognition in nature, through the first union of
reason and imagination in faith of a spiritual power
which animates, destroys, survives, and perpetually
renews the visible forms and forces of the world,— their
presence was still allowed to fill the sensible ; and
nature herself both material and spiritual was
subjected to God. That extramundane theism which
pervades many higher religions, adapted to the ancient
belief, left the demons in the possession of the world,
and if it rendered their power derivative instead of
self-subsisting, it also entirely excluded men from the
presence of the deity. While by his supreme power
and omniscience he could control all things, he
remained to them a God afar off.^
Similarly amongst the Berembun tribes we
recognise a pure Shamanism, with its accompanying
charms and talismans ; a living faith fresh from the
ancient days of eastern and middle Asia— preserving
^
J.
gards the Indian element, Vaughan- Materialen, points out all the facts
Stevens' editor, Grlinwedel (one of the which appear to him to indicate Bud-
I. A. vol. i. p. 280. As re- in his Introduction and notes to the
greatest living authoritieson Buddhism), dhist influence.