Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. VI SAVAGE MALAYS OF MALACCA 325
not scruple to kill and eat the cubs whenever they
find them.^
From Father Borie, Cameron learnt that the
jakun (by whom M. Borie probably means the
Mantra) have a fixed and singular superstition con-
cerning tigers, ninety-nine men out of every hundred
believing it, even in the face of their Christian teach-
ing. They believe that a tiger in their paths is
invariably a human being, who having sold himself
to the Evil Spirit, assumes by sorcery the shape of
the beast to execute his vengeance or malignity.
They assert that invariably before a tiger is met, a
man has been or might have been seen to disappear
in the direction from which the animal springs.^
Omejts.
Much attention is paid to omens when a new
clearing is to be made, and charms are used for the
expulsion of evil spirits. The head of the family cut
a little of the new rice and after the feast of the
"New Year's Day of Rice" each of the guests
received a little to take home.^
Hzo-A Places of the Mantra.
We now come to the sacred or "high places" of
the Mantra, concerning which we are told in an
account from Logan, that there is a famous Wishing
Rock in Klang called Batu Tre, to which the IMantra
have, from time immemorial, been in the habit of
resorting. A person going there must not carry fire
1 Logan iny. /. A. vol. i. p. 277.
^ Cameron, Our Tropical Possessions, p. 394.
^ Cp. supra, vol. i. p. 365 sq.