Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. VI MALAYAN SEA-GYPSIES 375
Abbott denied the existence of such things, not know-
ing that Dr. Abbott had already found them.
No true Malays live on the island, and all the
inhabitants eat pig.
Dr. Abbott concludes, I think quite rightly, that
these images c:innot be regarded as true " berhala
or idols, and that most probably they are a form of
scape-goat (" sakat buang ") for use in sickness. Dr.
Abbott adds that when an Orang Laut is ill, a wooden
figure of a bird, snake, fish, or other animal is made, and
as soon as the medicine-man (" pawang " or " bomor ")
has exorcised the demon (" hantu ") in the sick man,
and has driven it into the figure, the latter is then
carried out to sea and thrown overboard. In the
same locality (during the previous year) Dr. Abbott
picked up the floating image of a bird. Very likely
(says Dr. Abbott) these human images were similarly
used. They resemble the "adu-adu" of the Nias
Islands.
To this (already mentioned) testimony I may add
my own, for I myself once picked up on the Kuala
Langat coast, close to the regular haunts of the local
group of Orang Laut or Besisi, a large wooden figure
representing a coconut -monkey or " b'ro." As in
the case of Dr. Abbott's specimens every kind of
information was rigidly withheld, but in view of these
later discoveries, I have now little or no doubt that
my own specimen should be explained in the same way.
As somewhat analogous, I may add that at a shrine on
the Bird's Nest Islands in the remarkable " Inland
Sea " ( Tale Sap) of Singora, visited by the Cambridge
expedition under my guidance in 1899, a (human)
image of wood occupied a central position, between
the skull of a rhinoceros and that of a crocodile (this,