THE 



FOLKLORE OF THE MALAYS. 



BY 



W. E. MAXWELL. 



" There is nothing that clings longer to a race than the religious 

 " faith in which it has been nurtured. Indeed, it is impossible for 

 " any mind that is not thoroughly scientific to cast off entirely the 

 ' ; religious forms of thought in which it has grown to maturity. 

 " Hence, in every people that has received the impression of for* 

 " eign beliefs, we find that the latter do not expel and supersede 

 " the older religion, but are engrafted on it, blend with it, or 

 " overlie it. Observances are more easily abandoned than ideas, 

 " and even when all the external forms of the alien faith have been 

 " put on, and few vestiges of the indigenous one remain, the latter 

 " still retains its vitality in the mind, and powerfully colours or 

 " corrupts the former. The actual religion of a people is thus of 

 " great ethnographic interest, and demands a minute and searching 

 " observation. No other facts relating to rude tribes are more 

 " difficult of ascertainment or more often elude enquiry."* The 

 general principle stated by Logan in the passage just quoted 

 receives remarkable illustration from a close investigation of the 

 folklore and superstitious beliefs of the Malays. Two successive 

 religious changes have taken place among them, and when we have 

 succeeded in identifying the vestiges of Brahmanism which under- 

 lie the external forms of the faith of Muhammad, long established 

 in all Malay kingdoms, we are only half-way through our task. 

 There yet remain the powerful influences of the still earlier indi- 

 genous faith to be noted and accounted for. Just as the Buddhists 

 of Ceylon turn, in times of sickness and danger, not to the consola- 



* Log ax— Journal of the Indian Archipelago. IY-, 573. 



