Fehan Society Believe in Buan (Sorcery)

Two different types of individuals use magical powers: sorcery and witchcraft. They all use supernatural forces to achieve the desired results. Sorcery is usually associated with bad intentions, while witchcraft is associated with good intentions. According to people who believe in witchcraft and sorcery, witchcraft uses your powers for good; sorcery uses your powers for evil purposes (Koshal, 2011). Therefore, Buan falls into the category of sorcery, not witchcraft. Buan is a real human being who possesses a magical power or evil spirit that makes people sick, and they live right in their community.

People in the Western world probably do not believe in witchcraft or sorcery anymore. People who live in other parts of the world, such as Africa, Asia, America, and the Pacific, still believe in witchcraft or sorcery. They think that witchcraft or sorcery has a magical power to make some people get sick. Fehan people in Suai Covalima still strongly believe in Buan (Sorcery). They think some people in the community are Buan (Sorceries), who possess evil spirits to make people sick.

The most known Buan spell is Buan Tama Laran, which means that Buan's evil spirit penetrates the physical body of a sick person. The evil spirit makes the sick person scream and yell like crazy. There may be a sickness that causes the sick person to behave wildly, but the locals believe there must be a spirit of a Buan that makes them scream.

How to get Buan's evil spirit out of the patient! There are people in the community who can deal with Buan. Some say they are shamans, while others are ordinary people who happen to know how to deal with Buan. When the shaman comes in, they start asking questions; they ask the sick person to tell them who the evil spirit is now inside the sick person. Most of the time, the sick person tells them the name, but sometimes, because the person is too sick, they do not know.

Because they live in a little hamlet where everyone knows each other, they know who is a super sorcerer and only an amateur sorcerer. People refer to super sorcery as Buan Manas. Everybody in the village is afraid of it. If this Buan Manas is very active in the community and makes many people ill, sometimes the community expels the person from the village. It had occurred in the past. One even escaped to Betun, West Timor, and another one now lives in an isolated place. The Buan is a severe problem in the community of Fehan people in Suai Covalima.

Buan sometimes goes out in the middle of the night when most people are sound asleep or dreaming. They go out at night to cast a spell known as Buan Hakoro. It means to go fishing. They wander around people's homes, acting like they have just caught a lobster or fish. When they do this, they are unconscious. If someone finds them, they'll have serious issues. According to those who have come across them, they usually put a mark on them. In the past, someone encountered a Buan Hakoro in the middle of the night; he put poisonous powder on the Buan's eyes, causing his eyes to turn red. It was bizarre and frightening!

That is the Fehan people in Suai Covalima believe in Buan (sorcery).