384 THE AKUAN OR SPIRIT-FRIENDS. 
self to a woman-neighbour of his. But on its commencing to stay 
in the river in front of her house, the woman’s people disturbed it 
with sticks and fish-spears (tirok) so that the animal could not 
rest in peace. When it was leaving the place, the woman had a 
dream in which the spirit said to her, “ I (awak) desired to act to 
your profit, but it seems yon do not care to have my service. You 
disturbed me. Now I don’t want to have anything more to do 
with you. If you want my friendship again you must sacrifice 
one of your children to me.” I do not know if any similar case 
occurs anywhere in the Peninsula. 
To sum up; such are among the alleged phenomena purport- 
ed to lend support to the numerous spirit-beliefs of the Malay 
peasantry. ‘An upholder of the doctrine of Transmigration of 
Souls may possibly be tempted to suspect some connection between 
this akuan-behef and the doctrine. But apart from mere suspi- 
cion, there is nothing in the popular conception of it to show 
that its believers have even the barest idea of that theory. The 
“owners ” themselves never have any such idea. But that the 
akuan may pass down as a legacy from parents to children or from 
a dead husband to a surviving wife appears to be a generally ac- 
cepted possibility. With the introduction of modern ideas and 
surroundings the belief in akuan is gradually dying out among the 
younger generation of Malays. But among their old-fashioned 
elders of the purely conservative type, whose contact with this new 
influence has not gone to any extent beneath the surface, the grip 
of the belief and other kindred superstitions is still very strongly 
in evidence. However, it is remarkable that in matters of this 
kind, investigators can hardly have much data to go upon owing 
to the scarcity of “ actual cases.” One must also allow for the 
Malay habit of exaggeration and their fondness for the marvellous 
and mysterious. The same applies to the wide-spread belief in 
polong, pontianak, pénanggalan, pélésit, etc., etc., which is now 
confined only to the most superstitious. The difference between 
the polong, pontianak, etc., and the akuan is that the former are 
mahgnant spirits, kept for inhuman purposes, (cf. Skeat, Malay 
Magic, pp. 827-331) while the latter are good and serviceable auxi- 
haries. 
The Muhammadan religion, it is true, discountenances all such 
belief in the powers of the devils. Any recognition of a power, 
other than God, as a being superior to man is repugnant to it. 
But ignorance is as much a power as knowledge: where it exists 
the impossible becomes possible. The most opposite beliefs and 
doctrines can subsist side by side in two water-tight compartments 
in any raw and uncultivated mind. And so it is with the majority 
of the Malays. With all these they “are among the most orthodox 
of Muhammadans.” 
Jour, Straits Branch 
