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



spirit whom he wounded comes outside and hurls the spear 

 with which he was stabbed through the wall of the bunibun. 

 The Halak seizes the spear and then goes to sleep and what- 

 ever offerings the spirit asks of him in his dreams such as bras 

 kunyet,* or soaked rice in the husk, he throws out of the hut 

 into the jungle. The spirit takes the bras kunyet and the 

 soaked rice (bertis) and throws back a few grains as a sign that 

 he wishes to be friendly with the Halak. So after this the 

 spirit becomes the Halak's friend and helps him to cure sick 

 people and in other ways. 



The Halak. 



I obtained the following further details about Halaks and 

 their attributes, which I may as well give here. 



(i) The Halak is said not to be buried in the earth. 

 Instead of this his body is placed in a round hut {bumbnn) and 

 left there. Two or three days after death the body vanishes 

 from the hut. 



(ii) The spirit of a dead Halak becomes a B'lian or were- 

 tiger. 



(iii) The last of the great Halaks in the Sungkai district, 

 a man named Bekoh, is said to have died about five years ago. 

 Since then, though there are several men who are supposed to 

 have a little knowledge, there has been no one to succeed him. 

 Old Hassan, the Malay, declared that he had seen Bekoh, 

 when possessed, grow a large pair of canine teeth {taring) three 

 or four inches long. These on Bekoh's command he had 

 taken hold and shaken in order to prove that they were 

 genuine. Jahaia, headman of the settlement between Jeram 

 Kawan and Sungkai, makes some pretence to being a Halak 

 and is supposed to have a familiar spirit which descended to 

 him from his father, but he can scarcely be counted a Senoi,as 

 his father was a Malay-speaking Selangor aborigine and his 

 mother I believe half Senoi half "Mai Selangor." I will 

 however describe a performance, seen at Jahaia's kampong 

 later on. 



Senoi Oaths. 



If a Sakai wishes to take an oath he swears by the sun. 

 This I found out in the following manner. While I was at 

 Sungkai a dog of Yok Pataling's chased and slightly bit a 

 goat belonging to a Malay. This was, the Malay thought, too 

 good a chance of imposing on a -Sakai to be let slip, so he 

 started "dunning" Yok Pataling for seven dollars cash as 

 compensation, or demanded in lieu thereof that he should 

 come and work for him for several days. Hassan, the rattan 

 gatherer, told me about the affair and I called Yok Pataling 

 and asked him if the goat was badly damaged. He replied, 

 that the wound was little more than a scratch. "Very well," 

 I said, "you go and tell this Malay that if he considers he has 



* Rice coloured with turmeric. 



