136 Part II: Outsiders
One of Chaitong’s most difficult cases was in a village a few miles downhill
where a man lived with his wife, his mother, and his young son. When we
arrived by Land Rover at this household it was unclear who the patient would
be. The grandmother had a large goiter that projected six inches from her neck.
The young wife appeared to have a cataract in one eye. But it turned out to be
the adult son who was the patient. He suffered from epilepsy and did not seem
to be improved by Western medicine that, in any case, they could not afford.
Perhaps the problem was evil spirits.
Things were already arranged for the shaman and he went right to work. A
bench faced the spirit altar. On the spirit altar were a bowl of padi, puffed rice,
and incense. Chaitong put on the ti hao, the black cotton face covering that pro-
vided sensory deprivation for him as he sat on the bench, or “horse,” which he
rode into the spirit world. Various noisy implements get the spirits’ attention
and drive them out: the brass gong that an assistant bangs at a hypnotic
rhythm; a set of brass castanets with strips of red cloth that clatter and wave;
and a spearhead attached to an iron ring that is his weapon to fight the spirit.
The patient sits right behind the shaman, passive and hopeful, as the shaman
fights on his behalf in the invisible world.The shaman, his face shrouded with a black face cloth and waving strips of red cloth, rides his
“horse” into the spirit world to contact those forces directly. An assistant keeps up a steady
rhythm on a drum until the climax of the ceremony, hours later, when the final struggle with
the afflicting spirit takes place.