FASCICULI MALAYENSES 
IOI 
remains by the body after death, devouring the semangat , or as it is some- 
times said, the ‘ liver ’ (hat!)' of those who approach. If the body be removed, 
the badi goes with it. Indeed, it is difficult to say exactly how far this soul 
is believed to exist before death, and to what extent the manner of death 
causes it to develop. It is certainly regarded as being present in the blood, 
and as originating from it ; but its existence in a living member of any 
civilized tribe is vague. Its active presence in the personality of a Semang is 
said in Jalor to be proved by the fact that no one can approach the shelters of 
this race without being afraid. When a civilized person is murdered or dies 
in any way considered unnatural, as it is sometimes expressed, if he ‘ dies of 
being killed ’ ( mati di bunoh ), his badi is of practical moment, for it is then 
that it becomes a definite malicious ghost. Old Jalor and Patani Malays told 
me that formerly the corpse of a murdered man was often cast forth to be 
eaten of vultures and dogs, but now it is more usually buried hastily 
in the jungle, while in Kuala Bukar there is a part of the cemetery, that 
furthest from the town, reserved for those who have ‘ died badly.’ If a 
person is affected by the badi of a murdered man the effect is the same as if 
he was affected by any other spirit, and the badi is often called bantu orang ; 
it is generally invisible, but resembles the person from whom it is derived. 
When we talk ( antea, p. 8) of the jungle folk of Jalor as being 
considered by their Malay neighbours as intermediate between beasts and 
spirits we do not speak at random ; not only did their Malay master at 
Mabek constantly refer to them as ‘beasts of the jungle, spirits’ ( binatang 
hutan , bantu), but he told us they were not subject to spirits, being akin to 
them. We were congratulated in a very marked manner by the Raja of Jalor 
on obtaining a Semang skeleton, and were told in his village that if a man 
obtained a jungle-man’s bones and rubbed their ashes on his forehead no 
jungle spirit would molest him, and the jungle-men would consider him one 
of themselves. The Jalor Malays also believe that there is something peculiar 
in the position of the sutures of the skull of a Semang, and apparently attach 
some mystical meaning to the supposed fact, for which we are unable to find 
any foundation in our specimens. 
No domesticated animal possesses a badi , even though its wild congener 
may do so, and not all wild beasts and birds are thus endowed. Among 
mammals, the deer and the serow ( Nemorboedus ), the chevrotain 1 2 or mouse 
1. The expression is metaphorical, for it is not believed that if the body of a possessed person were opened 
the material liver would be absent. 
2 . In Jalor, the chevrotain is said once to have been a very lazy man. While he slept, instead of working, 
his mother-in-law applied a bees’ nest to his rump, and he ran away into the woods. This explains the presence of 
certain anal glands in the male. 
