22 
FASCICULI MJLyfTENSES 
it unrolls itself, twines itself round his feet, enters his person by means of his 
big toe, and feasts within on his soul, so that he becomes distraught and dies 
in convulsions, unless a competent medicine-man can exorcise it in time to save 
his life and reason. It is said that spirits of this kind have become far less 
numerous of recent years, perhaps because the establishment of Siamese rule 
has restrained the ferocity of the native rajas, making it impossible for them 
to murder their subjects at will. A very intelligent Malay, whom I met in 
Upper Perak, explained to me that the hantu bungkus was a corpse in its shroud. 
The spirits of dead men do not confine themselves to waste places, for 
they are naturally anxious to re-visit their former homes. For this reason a 
curious belief is held in Patani regarding talking birds, such as the mina and 
the cockatoo. It is said that such birds never live very long after attaining 
human speech, because the spirits of the dead strangle them. The mere fact 
that they are able to acquire articulate speech marks them off from other 
animals, and they are believed to be also singular in being able to see spirits 
which do not willingly reveal themselves. The spirits, therefore, are afraid 
that they will warn the master of the house of their approach, having gained 
the capacity to do so in his own language, and so they strangle them, not 
wishing that the inmates should be given the opportunity of protecting them¬ 
selves against their attacks. 
Houses, especially those in which a murder has been committed, often 
get the reputation of being haunted by a ghost, and the same fate Is believed 
to befall families which have been cursed on a death-bed. The hereditary 
governors of Nawngchik were long subject to a curse of the kind, the legend 
of its origin being as follows The first governor, on his death-bed, 
threatened to kill anyone but his own son who should succeed him. By the 
intrigues of a rival candidate the son was declared insane, and was not given 
the governorship. For several generations no governor lived for more than 
a month after succeeding to the office, and strange noises were heard at night 
in the house, until the predecessor of the present governor summoned a great 
magician from Patalung, who successfully exorcised the ghost. 
The form of the bantu bungkus shows that it is not necessary for a ghost, 
when it reveals itself, to have the proper form of its corporeal body, though 
it generally does so, and the same idea is illustrated in a less striking manner 
by the hantu langsuir> the ghost of a woman dead in child-birth. This spirit 
takes the form of a very beautiful woman with a hole in the back of her neck. 
We were told in Jalor by several old women that it only originated from 
Siamese or Chinese women, and that Malay women who lost their lives in 
augmenting the population went straight to heaven (jhrga) i but this is certainly 
