FASCICULI MALATENSES 
are always made on a Friday, because that day, besides being the Mahommedan 
sabbath, is also looked upon as the one on which spirits of all kinds have the 
greatest power and are most active. Some fishermen make it a practice to lay 
‘ turmeric rice ’ on the prow of their boat every Friday as an offering to 
the mayor , and to leave it there during the week. 
I was anxious to know in what way the boat ‘ soul ’ was supposed to 
originate, and questioned a number of fishermen on this point. Most of them 
replied that they did not know, but one said that just as the steamer did not 
exist as a steamer until all the wood and iron and engines in its construction 
had entered into it, so the mayor prahu did not exist until all the planks in the 
boat had been fitted together. My informants agreed in denying that the 
‘ soul ’ was called into the boat by any ceremonial method, their phrase being 
‘it becomes of itself’ ( dia jadi sendiri). 
Sea Spirits 
Misfortune at sea is attributed, in many cases, to those spirits which are 
called on land Hantu Laut , or ‘ Sea Spirits,’ but which, as is explained below, 
have a different name at sea. They are believed to be very numerous, and to 
be all evil and malicious, feeding on dead men. Like other hantu , many 
different kinds of which exist on land and in the water, the Sea Spirits have the 
power of changing their form and of rendering themselves either visible or 
invisible. They may take the appearance ot giants walking on the waves, of 
phantom ships that disappear when approached, or of lights like those of 
enormous fireflies that dance over the sea or settle on the masts of boats. 
The last is their most common manifestation, as seems to be also the case 
on other parts of the coast 1 of the Malay Peninsula. It is believed that a 
Hantu Laut sometimes sits on a mast in this form and pours down dirty water 
into the boat until it is filled and sinks, the spirit’s object being that it may 
feast on the crew when they are drowned. Opinions differ, however, as to 
whether it actually devours their flesh, some fishermen asserting that it only 
drinks up their semangad or ‘ directive souls.’ Some bomor ikan, however, know 
a charm by which the dirty water poured down by a Sea Spirit can be trans- 
formed into fish of a highly esteemed species known as Ikan Duri or ‘ Thorn 
Fish.’ 
There are, of course, innumerable methods of terrorizing and keeping 
away the Hantu Laut , and a knowledge of some of these methods forms part 
of the stock-in-trade of every bomor ikan , while other and more simple modes 
of safety are known to every fisherman. For example, the Sea Spirits at 
M 
i. Malay Magic, p, 279. 
2. Man, February, 1903, p. 27 ; and postea, s.v. semangat. 
20/2/03 
