94 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums. [Vol. VI, 



had made a bed of leaves for him so that he might rest until 

 he had recovered a little, and had then taken repeated strides 

 backwards and forwards over his body. Asked why this was 

 done my informant said that he did not know, except that it 

 was customary to do so when a man fell from a tree, and that 

 the action was supposed to help the patient to recover. 



The reason of Yok Dalam's misfortune was thought to 

 have been because he left the house without chewing sireh, as 

 he had wanted to do, but being in a hurry had put it off. On 

 account of this he was said to have been stricken by " Punan' 

 (kena Punan), it being considered particularly unlucky to go 

 out into the jungle with any craving unsatisfied. This belief 

 according to Hassan is also current among the local Malays. 

 There is a Malay word Kempunan meaning " a dilemma or 

 difficulty caused by every course open to one having its 

 disastrous features" (Wilkinson's Dictionary), which very 

 probably has some relation to the punan of the Sakai. 



Religion. 



The Sakai seem to have very few definite religious beliefs, 

 but they have a supreme God, Yenang, whom they say corres- 

 ponds to the Tuhan Allah of the Malays. The following 

 legend gives some details about Yenang and the Sakai after- 

 life, though I am inclined to think that the greater part of it 

 may have been borrowed from the Malays, and slightly adapted 

 to suit Sakai ideas. 



"The souls of Senoi leave their bodies, before they actually 

 die, by the whorl of hair at the back of the head (ruai.) 

 The soul passes to the west and tries to get into heaven 

 {Surga, Malay) by the gate by which the souls of Malays 

 enter. This it cannot do, so it goes round by another way 

 until it comes to a large iron cauldron {kawah) full of hot 

 water. This is spanned by a bridge called Menteg (meaning 

 unknown to Yok Pataling, who told me the story) which looks 

 like a tree trunk from which the bark has been removed. 

 Below the iron cauldron there is a great fire. The souls of 

 little children pass safely over the bridge for they are without 

 fault, but those of full grown people fall into the cauldron of 

 hot water. Yenang takes these souls from the cauldron and 

 plunges them into the fire until they are reduced to powder. 

 Then he weighs them in a pair of scales and if they weigh 

 lightly he passes them over into heaven, but if they are heavy 

 he puts them into the fire again until they are sufficiently 

 purified. 



BURIAL CUSTOMS. 



I had no opportunity of visiting any Sakai graves, but I 

 made a good many enquiries about burial customs, and about 

 the haunting of the grave by evil spirits. The results of my 

 questioning are as follows. 



The body of a dead person is buried lying on the left side 

 with the head towards the west and the face looking north. 



