FIG. 2.—Ceremony of invoking the tiger spirit.The accompanying diagram shows (approximately) the relative positions of all
who were present. In one corner of the room was the patient’s bed (sleeping-
mat) and mosquito curtain with a patchwork front, and in a line parallel to the
bed stood the three jars of water, each decorated with the sort of fringe or collar
of plaited cocoa-nut fronds called “centipedes’ feet” (jari ’lipan), and each, too,
furnished with a fresh yam-leaf covering to its mouth. A little nearer to me than
the three water-jars, but in the same line, stood a fairly big jar similarly
decorated, but filled with a big bouquet of artificial “flowers” and ornaments
instead of the water. These flowers were skilfully manufactured from plaited
strips of palm-leaf, and in addition to mere “flowers” represented such objects as
rings, cocoa-nuts, centipedes, doves, and the like, all of which were made of the
plaited fronds referred to. This invention was intended (I was informed) to
represent a pleasure-garden (taman bunga), and indeed was so called; it was (I
believe) intended to attract the spirit whom it was the object of the ceremony to
invoke. In front of the three jars stood, as a matter of course, a censer filled with
burning embers, and a box containing the usual accessories for the chewing of