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V 
RELIGION AND MAGIC AMONG THE MALAYS 
OF THE PATANI STATES 
By NELSON ANNANDALE, B.A. 
RESEARCH STUDENT IN ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
INTRODUCTION 
Organized Religions that have influenced Malay Belief 
A LTHOUGH the Malays of the Peninsula to which they have given 
a name have professed the Mahommedan religion 1 2 for several 
centuries, it has remained in their case but a transparent veneer, 
covering a mass of Hindu and more primitive beliefs ; it has set up in their 
midst an ideal of religion and morality which few of them have any desire to 
realize. A Malay, living in Patani, once remarked to me, ‘We Malays will not 
hold Islam too fast, lest we be forced to cease from amusing ourselves with 
women, from cock-fighting, drinking arrack, and opium ’ ; and he might have 
reviewed the religion itself of himself and his neighbours with equal cynicism. 
Agama Islam , the Mahommedan religion — in itself a term compounded of 
Arabic and Sanscrit — means very little more in the Patani States than circum- 
cision, practised on both sexes — though often delayed until the nineteenth or 
twenty-first year in the case of males — abhorrence of pig, and to a less extent, 
abstinence from alcohol 1 ; the old beliefs and the old Pagan customs are 
openly rife to-day, especially in villages where Siamese and foreign influences 
are felt the least, though all orthodox Mahommedans theoretically regard the 
customs as disreputable, if not vicious, and no haji and no lebai (a man who, 
without making the pilgrimage to Mecca, has become learned in the law and 
i. Crawfurd, following a native annalist, gives 1276 a.d. as the date of the accession of Sultan Mahommed 
Shah, of Malacca, the first Islamite prince, as far as records go, in the Malay Peninsula. ( History of the Indian 
Archipelago , vol. ii, pp. 374, 482, Edinburgh, 1820 ; see also Leyden’s Malay Annals, pp. 91-93, London, 1821). 
Other authorities put this date a century later. (G. Dennys, Descriptive Dictionary of British Malaya, p. 202, 
London, 1894). At any rate, when the Portuguese besieged the city of Malacca in 15 11, the Pagan ‘natives’ still 
formed an important element in the population, apparently quite distinct from Pagan ‘foreigners,’ and the conversion 
of the peasants must have been gradual. 
2. The Patani Malays are fond of sweetmeats prepared from fermented rice, with a strong alcoholic 
flavour ; but the Raja of Patani, when we showed him our collection of skins, refused to touch them until we 
assured him that they had not been prepared with ‘strong water’ spirits). 
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