98 
FASCICULI MALATENSES 
Several of those whom I questioned concerning the semangat stated that 
it dies with the body, while others appeared to have no definite idea of it apart 
from the body, and a few said that it retained the form of the body as a bantu 
or wandering spirit after dissolution. A type of paper kite often flown by 
the boys of Patani and other parts of the Malay Peninsula is known as the 
wd semangat in the former locality, and is said to represent a ‘ man without 
feet’ {orang kurong kaki). At the present day no religious significance 
attaches to it, and it is a plaything pure and simple, but it is interesting to 
notice that the ‘ man ’ has no head, but a pointed prolongation of the body in 
its stead, for this is the form assigned to the ghosts of warriors slain in battle 
by the natives of Mount Peninjauh, in Borneo . 1 
So far I have dealt with the human semangat. It will be unnecessary to 
describe the beliefs that centre in the semangat of animals at any length ; for 
it will be sufficient to say that every animal, as every human being, has an 
individual soul of this name which guides and co-ordinates its actions. To 
entrap his quarry the hunter must deceive its semangat , and so render it stupid 
enough to enter his toils or trap, or come within reach of his gun. As among 
the Malays of the more civilized States of the Peninsula, this is done by 
incantations, in which the conjurer boasts of his own might and terrorizes 
or cajoles the semangat of the beast or bird he would entrap. 
The semangat of trees and plants is of an even less definite character than 
that of beasts and men. Though large jungle trees are sometimes said to have 
an individual soul of the kind, the semangat padi , or ‘ rice-soul,’ is common 
to a whole field of rice plants, unless two kinds of rice be growing together 
as ordinary rice {Oryza sativa) and padi pulut {Oryza glutinosa ), in which case 
each species has its own semangat. Mr. Skeat has described the cultus of 
the ‘ rice-soul ’ with such care that it will be unnecessary to do more than to 
refer to his work , 2 as the beliefs surrounding the semangat padi in the 
Federated Malay States only differ in details, such as the time for which the 
sheaf that represents the soul should be preserved, from those current among 
the Patani Malays. What is commonly called the semangat padi , however 
(that is, the bunch of rice in which the ‘ soul ’ is preserved from one harvest 
to the next), must not be confused with the ‘ soul ’ itself, though it is believed 
that if this bunch were destroyed, all the grain with which it is stored would 
be ruined. I am sure that the Patani Malays, at any rate, have no such con- 
fusion in their minds, and that ‘ semangat padi ’ is generally used as an 
abbreviation for ‘ temp at semangat padij the ‘abode of the rice-soul.’ As 
I. Cf. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sara-wak and British North Borneo, vol. i, p. 217, London, 1896. 
2. Malay Magic, pp. 225-226, etc. 
