MALAY SKETCHES
of the place lodge a formal complaint against the supposed author of these ills and desire that he be punished.
Before the advent of British influence it was the practice to kill the wizard or witch whose guilt had been established to Malay satisfaction, and such executions were carried out not very many years ago,
I remember a case in Perak less than ten years ago when the people of an up-river village accused a man of keeping a bâjang, and the present Sultan, who was then the principal Malay Judge in the State, told them he would severely punish the bâjang if they would produce it. They went away hardly satisfied and shortly after made a united representation to the effect that if the person suspected were allowed to remain in their midst they would kill him. Before anything could be done they put him, his family, and effects on a raft and started them down the river. On their arrival at Kuala Kangsar the man was given an isolated hut to live in, but not long afterwards he disappeared.
The hereditary bâjang comes like other evils, the unsought heritage of a dissolute ancestry, but the acquired bâjang is usually obtained from the newly buried body of a stillborn child, which is supposed
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