Journal by Mr. J. C. Pasqual, a well-known local miner:—
“The Malay mining pawang will soon be a thing of the past, and many a pawang
has returned to tilling the soil in place of his less legitimate occupation of
imposing upon the credulity of the miners. The reason for this is not far to seek,
as the Malay miner, as well as the Chinese miner, of the old school, with their
thousand-and-one superstitions, has given place to a more modern and matter-of-
fact race, who place more reliance for prospecting purposes on boring tools than
on the divination and jampi of the pawang. But the profession of the pawang has
not altogether died out, as he is sometimes called into requisition for the purpose
of casting out evil spirits from the mines; of converting amang^253 (pyrites) into
tin-ore, and of invoking the spirits of a mine previous to the breaking of the first
sod in a new venture. These ceremonies generally involve the slaying of a
buffalo, a goat, or fowls, and the offering of betel-leaf, incense, and rice,
according to the means of the towkay lombong.
“The term pawang is now used by the Chinese to indicate the ‘smelter’
(Chinese) of a mine (probably from the fact that this office was formerly the
monopoly of the Malay pawang).
“To the pawangs are attributed extraordinary powers, for besides inducing tin-
ore to continue or become plentiful in a mine, he can cause its disappearance
from a rich ‘claim’ by the inevitable jampi, this latter resource being resorted to
by way of revenge in cases where the towkay lombong (or labor) fails to carry
out his pecuniary obligation towards the pawang whose aid he had invoked in
less prosperous times. Some of the stories told of the prowess of pawangs are
very ridiculous; for instance, a native lady in Ulu Langat (for women are also
credited with the pawang attributes), who was the pawang of Sungei Jelok in
Kajang, could command a grain of tin-ore to crawl on the palm of her hand like
a live worm.^254 The failure of the Sungei Jelok mines was attributed to her
displeasure on account of an alleged breach of contract on the part of the towkay
lombong.
“The term pawang is sometimes used as a verb in the sense of ‘to prospect’ a
sungei or stream; thus in alluding to certain streams or mines, it is not
uncommon to hear a Malay say that they have been prospected (sudah di-
pawangkan) by ‘Inche’ So-and-so—meaning that the stream had been