FASCICULI MALATENSES 
93 
other men, and therefore more ready to invent information ; each of them 
has his own theories, derived from the imperfectly understood charms and 
incantations that have been handed down to him, either orally or in very bad 
writing ; indeed, the expression c every medicine-man has his own school ’ 
( lain bomor , lain skola') is almost proverbial in Patani. I believe that the 
medicine-men pay more attention to foreign deities and spirits than to those 
of native origin, for foreigners are often regarded by primitive people as 
having more powerful magic than that of natives, and in the Patani States 
we ourselves were even asked to raise the dead ; finally, to deal with the 
charms and incantations from which the medicine-men derive their theories, in 
an intelligent manner, it is necessary to have not only a very thorough 
knowledge of Malay, both ‘good’ Malay and the ‘ barbarous ’ patois of Patani, 
but also some acquaintance with Arabic and Siamese. The ordinary peasant 
of the Patani States regards ghosts, souls, and other spirits as such very 
ordinary things that he has no hesitation in speaking freely of them ; and he 
has not, as yet, experienced the white man’s ridicule. 
PART I 
Souls and Ghosts 
A soul is, I take it, for the purposes of comparative religion, a spirit 
permeating an organized body, in which it is innate, which it vivifies, regulates, 
or prevents from dissolution. If a soul persists after the destruction or total 
disorganization of its body, and if it remains on earth as a definite unit, it 
becomes a ghost. Taking these definitions, we find that the Malays of the 
Patani States believe in at least four different kinds of souls, 1 and numerous 
kinds of ghosts, as well as several of spirits whose exact position with regard 
to the organized body is not clearly defined ; the souls, which are not 
necessarily peculiar to human beings, or even to bodies considered animate by 
ourselves, are as follows :• — - 
The Nydwa y or Life-breath. The word is Sanscrit, and the idea it 
expresses is probably quite foreign to primitive Malay religion. It is the 
breath of life, 2 almost, but not quite, a physical thing, for it is, in the opinion 
of a large number of Patani Malays, that part of a man which goes to heaven 
( surga ) or hell ( jehannam ), as the case may be, after death. According to a 
bid an (midwife) in large practice round Kampong Jalor, both among Malays 
and Siamese, the nydwa enters the human foetus at the end of the sixth month 
1. It must be clearly understood that I am dealing at present with the beliefs of the Patani peasants, not 
with the more complicated theories derived by the medicine-men from their incantations. 
2. Abbe Favre, Dictionaire Malais-Francais, vol. i, p. 620, s.v. naiva , Vienna, 1875. 
