Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ...by that of the officer; for the pretender vowed revenge, and had to be kept at a distance to prevent him from making a savage attack. The ordinary diseases and epidemics are supposed to be driven away, either by conciliating the spirits with offerings, or else by the practice of affixing cages and palm-leaves to trees in the neighbourhood of the dwellings or campongs. The ignorant seem always to believe strongly in those yet more ignorant than themselves; hence we have the Malays attaching great faith to the supernatural powers of the aborigines, and trusting frequently to their knowledge of herbs and simples in cases of disease. Both in Perak, and beyond our frontier in Malacca, the writer has known the people to have a great veneration for the Sakais, or Jacoons, and Mr. Swettenham, who has travelled much among them, and is well acquainted with the habits of the Malays, says that in Ilim, a part of the country between Perak and Salangore, the common people frequently consult them and ask their advice on important matters. Those curious freaks of nature, Albinos, are found amongst the Malays; and where they exist they are looked upon by the people with a kind of superstitious awe. One of these men was seen by an English party at the village of Kotah Lamah; and Newbold speaks of one as having been in 1838 the chief of Jellabu, near Malacca. He was a descendant of a prince from Menang Kabau, and was looked upon with the gretaest reverence by the superstitious Malays, on account of his having white or very light blue eyes and jet black hair. Dr. Pickering, too, speaks of one having been seen amongst the Malays in one of the islands of the Polynesian group: but their occurrence is particularly rare. Beliefs as to their origin are remarkably...
