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 to be the abiding-place of a
familiar spirit until lured therefrom by the solicitations of some one who, at dead
of night, stands over the grave and by potent incantations persuades the bâjang
to come forth.”^5
“It is all very well for the Kĕdah ladies to sacrifice their shadows to obtain
possession of a pĕlsit, leaders of society must be in the fashion at any cost; but
there are plenty of people living in Perak who have seen more than one ancient
Malay dame taken out into the river and, despite her protestations, her tears, and
entreaties, have watched her, with hands and feet tied, put into the water and
slowly pushed down out of sight by means of a long pole with a fork at one end
which fitted on her neck. Those who have witnessed these executions have no
doubt of the justice of the punishment, and not uncommonly add that after two
or three examples had been made there would always ensue a period of rest from
the torments of the bâjang. I have also been assured that the bâjang, in the shape
of a lizard, has been seen to issue from the drowning person’s nose. That
statement no doubt is made on the authority of those who condemned and
executed the victim.”^6
The popular superstition about the Langsuir is thus described by Sir William
Maxwell:—
“If a woman dies in childbirth, either before delivery or after the birth of a child,
and before the forty days of uncleanness have expired, she is popularly supposed
to become a langsuyar, a flying demon of the nature of the ‘white lady’ or
‘banshee.’ To prevent this a quantity of glass beads are put in the mouth of the
corpse, a hen’s egg is put under each arm-pit, and needles are placed in the
palms of the hands. It is believed that if this is done the dead woman cannot
become a langsuyar, as she cannot open her mouth to shriek (ngilai) or wave her