LITTLE BOOK OF MAGIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 8 (Supplement)

LITTLE BOOK OF MAGIC.

WORDS THAT CANNOT BE READ

A little book of magic which 110 one can read in at present waiting for some wise man to solve its mystery, says a J/ondon newspaper. It is a Battak Book of Spells, found in the interior of tho great East Indian Island of Sumatra 25 years ago, and now in the possession of Mr. Ashley Gibson, an authority on the East Indies.

Tho book, which is really a long, con-certina-shaped strip of very thin beaten bark, is bound " between two loose boards of hardwood, inscribed with strange murks and signs, and held in position bf a rattan ring. It consists of 104 pai;es. Tho upper half of each page contains weird figures and symbols in red an I black ink. The lower half is in mysterious writing made by some island witch doctor 200 years ago.

There is one man who can read somo of tho Battak book. He is a learned anthropologist at Leyden University in Holland, but lie cannot read all of it, and as lie does not understand even that part which 110 has been able to decipher iiis wisdom is not very helpful. ■ There are two smaller Battak books in tho British Museum and one in the possession of an English woman. Neither sho nor th:i museum authorities know the secrets their treasure contains. There may be some sound herbal medical knowledge in the book, as well as fearsome accounts oi tho innumerable forest demons which afflict the life of tho Battak folk.

Tho Batlaks are a people scattered in tho uplands of Sumatra. Like the Achinese, hey have always maintained a fierce independence. They once had an unenviable reputation as cannibals, but they have been reclaimed from this unpleasant Im,bit by tho missionaries of the German Lutheran Church.