86 
FASCICULI MALAYENSES 
It is not considered obligatory for the boatmen of the flat-bottomed 
salt-barges that pole their way along the shore to use the pantang language, 
and it is more necessary that the fishermen should use it at night than by 
day, for if they ‘speak straight’ in the dark while at sea, the Hantu Laut will 
appear. The only explanation that I could get from the Patani men regarding 
the origin of this peculiar dialect, was that men of old had found by experience 
that if ordinary Malay was spoken at sea the sea spirits were angry, and the 
boats either had no luck or met with some disaster. 
On shore the fishermen are never tired of laughing at the difficulties 
experienced by landsmen in remembering to use the correct words at sea. 
They say that they talk of ‘ chehweh nasi ’ instead of ‘ nasi ’ (cooked rice), 
which is ridiculous ; while they mention beasts by their proper names. The 
following story was told me by a Patani man, who evidently considered it very 
amusing : — ‘ There was once a stupid countryman {prang darat yang bodok\ 
who went to sea and heard the sons of the boat speaking the roundabout 
language. They had told him that the boat was made of the wood of a 
certain tree, and he thought that this kind of wood must be able to understand 
the roundabout language, which was used in order that it might do so. It 
chanced that there was a tree of this particular species standing beside 
his house, and as they came back to the shore, he saw that this tree 
was falling. So he called out, “ Manding ! Manding, kayu ! ” (“ Turn ! 
Turn, O tree ! ”). But the tree went on falling, and crushed his house. Then 
he called out in great distress, “ The tree will not hear me ! The tree will not 
hear me ! ” He had believed that by saying manding , instead of palings he 
would be able to make the tree understand what he said.’ 
The word chehweh , or cheweh , is also used by the fishermen on the coast 
of Pahang, where, however, it is applied to birds 1 2 as well as to beasts, but it 
does not appear to occur in the sea language of the Langat district in Selangor . 1 
My Patani ‘ boy,’ who had himself been a fisherman in his native state, 
expressed surprise that the fishermen of the Trang coast had, so far as he 
could learn, no ‘ roundabout ’ language. It is probable that the Patani one 
may be used off Kedah, however, for many fishermen cross the Peninsula 
annually, as the fishing season on the West Coast coincides with the stormy 
season at Patani. The limited space at my disposal prevents me from 
entering into a comparison between the Patani prohibition language and 
those used by camphor collectors, miners, and others in different parts of the 
Peninsula, but I may note that all of these dialects appear to be formed 
i. Hugh Clifford, In Court and Kampong, p. 147, London. 
2. Malay Magic , p. 315. 
