Vol. V, No. 3.] The Theory of Souls among the Malays, 61 
[N.S.] 
dance of the fish-trap into which a sprit has ‘‘dived,” or claim 
that their favourite medicine-man can summon a temporary 
life into a log of wood and cause it to leap through the air. A 
found in modern Europe and America among the spiritualists. 
According to the Malays, possession of one kind or another is 
quite a common occurrence. If a man quarrels with his wife, 
his semdngit is weakened, he grows hysterical, he is possessed ; 
the professional story-teller must become possessed before he 
(or more frequently she) can recite the tale ; a patient suffering 
from small-pox is possessed ; a magnet or a telegraph wire is pos- 
sessed ; the puppets in the shadow-play are possessed, and must 
frequently done to me, ‘‘ The man, the thing, is affected by a 
spirit (berhdntu, literally ‘‘be-spirited”). Why does a man 
become possessed? ‘‘ Because his soul (semangit) is weak, or 
soft, or sick,’ anda wandering spirit has entered into him, driv- 
ing out his proper soul. 
It is not clear how the human soul originates, and I do 
not think that the Malays of the present day, nominal Moham- 
fluence, d become fever-stricken and delirious. This is 
the view held in Jalor, one of the small States of the Siamese 
provinces on t coast of the Peninsula. the 
as 
more civilized Federated Malay States there appears to be no 
evidence on this point. It is obvious, however, that the 
quently can neither raise nor transport them; but if we consider how 
the amant raises and transports the iron, and how the soul of man, 
i irit, can raise or transport the body, and that a man’s 
is abl 
upon it, though in a very insensible way : and thus we see li ewise, that 
the es of wine or melancholy will represent strange apparitions, and 
make us think them real.’’ 
