126 MALAY SUPERSTITIONS. 



That doctrine to which the Malays of Sarawak most 

 rigidly adhere, is the aversion in which the unclean 

 animal is held. The Princes of Borneo do not scruple 

 to drink wine when it is procurable, and I have fre- 

 quently seen them partake of it before the Malays, 

 their dependants, without the least sense of impro- 

 priety, or fear of their being openly seen thus to 

 violate the inculcations of the Koran. 



From what has been stated respecting their reli- 

 gion, it will be easily seen that the intolerant bigotry 

 of the western Mahometan is entirely unknown to 

 these people ; and I am strongly inclined to believe 

 that a rigid Turk, being set down in their country, 

 would scarcely allow that they had a chance of safely 

 skating over the narrow bridge into the paradise of 

 the Prophet. Many superstitions are mixed with their 

 religious belief, such as charming out the spirits which 

 are supposed to possess a sick or mad person ; these, 

 and many others, the relics of a former idolatry, are 

 unknown to the purer precepts of the Koran. 



Their marriages and burials are performed according 

 to the ceremonial ritual of the Koran, but as far as I 

 have been able to observe, the respect paid by most of 

 the Mahometans to the graves of their ancestors does 

 not prevail here, as their graves are neglected, and fre- 

 quently all traces of them taken away without the 

 slightest remonstrance on their parts. A little stone, 

 or a piece of wood which soon decays, are the most 

 frequent and only memorials of the persons, the sole 

 indications of the tenements of the dead. The modern 



