The Akuan or Spirit-Friends 
By ZAINUL-ABIDIN. BIN AHMAD. 
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy. 
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 
Akuan is the term generally in use among Negri Sembilan 
Malays to designate the Spirit-friends which certain individuals 
among them are believed to have from among the inhabitants of 
the spirit-world. Other terms are used in other parts of the 
Peninsula, and the belief varies with different states in matter of 
details. In this paper I am speaking of it as it obtains in the: 
“Nine States,” particularly those portions of it inhabited by the 
descendants of the old Ménangkabau tribes. The persons credited 
with the possession of the spirit-friends are usually those having 
some pretension to the knowledge of a pawang, a diviner, or a 
medicine-man. ‘They may be men or women, “wizards” or 
“witches,” but in either case they are almost always past middle: 
age. ‘The word akuan is derived from aku, to own or to claim as. 
one’s own; while the thing owned is supp sosed to be a spirit which 
may either remain in its natural airy state—a sort of Ariel to the: 
Malay Prospero—or may take the shape of the body of some animal, 
ordinarily a tiger, for its permanent residence. The “owner” may 
possess one or both of these two types. But if he is master of the 
first type, he is as a rule master also of the second. As for the 
first type, their “owners” are mostly men, and the number of 
akuan belonging to each owner is always more than one, ranging 
from three or four to a dozen or more. They may be male or 
female, but more often the latter if the owners are men. Their 
relationship to the owner is, without exception, that of old acquain-. 
tances rather than of intimate friends or of servants and master. 
Hence, they are less under control and never so devoted to the owner: 
as the animal type. Some far-off Jocality is assigned to each of 
them as dwelling place—such and such a mountain, rapid, kémpas- 
tree (Cumpassia malaccensis), ravine, plain or forest. The 
names by which they are mentioned are not proper names, but 
merely epithets descriptive of their sex and dwelling. They do 
not come unless ceremonially conjured in a solemn séance-like: 
fashion. This is only done when their aid is imperatively needed 
on the occasion of very urgent sickness which has taxed all the 
wit and skill of the medicine-men to cure. Otherwise it is consi- 
dered improper or even sacrilegious to mention them. 
Jour. Straits Branch: 
