Malay witchcraft
H. Marriott’s brief concluding remarks on Malay witchcraft, published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 39, 1903), address the role of the Pawang in the context of the Polong—a spirit believed to afflict children.
Summary
Marriott argues that the Pawang exploited the community’s fear, extracting payment on the threat of bewitching children. He explains the self-reinforcing logic of the belief: if a person was thought to have offended the Pawang, the next illness in the household would be attributed to supernatural causation, ruling out ordinary remedies in favour of incantations alone. The outcome for the patient was predictable, and Marriott notes that a young child in high fever, already familiar with the Polong narrative, would naturally give answers that confirmed the family’s suspicions (p. 210).