NOTES ON THE FOLK-LORE AND 



POPULAR RELIGION OF THE 



MALAYS. 



[ Read before the Straits Philosophical Society. ] 



X" 



HE folk-lore and the popular religious beliefs and 

 practices of any race form a wide subject which it 

 is hardly possible to compress within the limits of 

 a short paper. I do not propose here to give a 

 complete survey of the subject, but merely to offer 

 a few notes illustrating the general character of 

 Malay ideas and customs under this head so far as they have 

 come within my own personal observation. 



A good deal has been written on these matters, and amongst 

 other papers I would refer particularly to that by Mr. W. E. 

 Maxwell, which appeared in the seventh number of the 

 Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, in 

 1881. The chief point made in that paper is the thoroughly 

 non-Muhammadan character of many of the common Malay 

 beliefs and practices. That characteristic Is also perhaps the 

 only one that I can claim to illustrate. 



Malays in the country districts are in fact only superficially 

 Muhammadan. It is true they often carry out all the ritual 

 precepts of that religion : many of them pray the required 

 number of times daily, most attend the Mosque with decent 

 regularity on Fridays, and a fair proportion (but by no means 

 allj keep the fast of Ramadhan. But to their Muhammadan 

 observances they superadd a good many practices which, from 

 the Muhammadan point of view, are at least unorthodox, in 

 fact almost pagan, and which can often be traced to a heathen 

 origin. 



For instance, although officially the religious centre of the 

 village community is the Mosque, there is usually in every 



