3 ° 
FASCICULI MALATENSES 
mostly caught in Lower Siam or Lower Burma, receive a certain amount of 
reverence from the Malays, who do not, however, treat them with the com¬ 
plicated etiquette adopted by the Siamese ; while white monkeys, especially 
the white gibbon, are reputed sacred both by the Malays and by the aboriginal 
tribes of this district, their bones being looked upon as powerful luck charms. 
White buffaloes, on the other hand, are said to be accursed, and their flesh is 
believed to cause a sickness to those who eat It ; but they are agreed to be 
kramat y because they form the most acceptable offering to the spirits, to which 
white cocks are also offered as well as being often used in magical ceremonies. 
Certain large trees also get the reputation of being sacred, and it is these 
which are said to be haunted by a snake-spirit, and also to have a badi* As 
has already been noted, offerings to Toh Panjang are frequently hung on a 
tree growing at the mouth of the Pa tan \ River, and there is a sacred place only 
a few hundred yards up stream from this tree which is known as Kramat 
Perapit , because a perapii tree, a kind of mangrove, is said to have formerly 
grown there. It is sometimes stated, moreover, by the natives of this district, 
that all trees are sacred, in that spirits frequently rest upon them, and 
there are many Patani men who will not take shelter under a tree at any time 
on a Friday, or at sunrise, mid-day or sunset on other days—these being the 
times when spirits are most powerful—lest the spirits sitting in the tree might 
dive down into them. The precaution especially applies to travellers, whose 
bodies are weary and whose souls are, therefore, weak. 
The peaks of mountains 1 are as a rule held sacred in lower Siam, 
and white flags are often attached to the top of the highest tree upon 
them, accompanied, not infrequently, by a baling or musical wind¬ 
mill. 1 On Bukit Besar, between Jalor and Nawngchik, both Mahom- 
medans and Buddhists resort to the top of the mountain, and sometimes spend 
the night there fasting, in order to obtain the gratification of any wish. A 
curious belief, perhaps more Siamese than Malay, has it that no man can 
become a really great magician in any country m which the peaks of the hills 
are rounded, and that, therefore, the state of Patalungd in which there are 
1, At the Siamese village of Ban Kassot, on. the Jalor-Rhaman border, wc found the population being rapidly 
decimated by some form of Jung disease, apparently tubercular. Their house* were small, dirty and airless, though 
they were well-to-do enough l gave them a lecture on the germ theory of disease, adapted to suit their comprehen¬ 
sion, translating * germ' by the Malay phrase hibu penakit (mother of the sickness). They replied that they knew 
the mother of the sickness must be ever with them, for they lived shut in between three hills, right in the pathway 
of the spirit*, which were continually passing from one hill to another. Our Malay servant quite agreed with them. 
l. Antetiy pp. 7, 8. 
3. The Patalung people, who are partly of Malay origin, still enjoy a very bad reputation in the Malay Penin¬ 
sula, and arc said to have formerly been dacoits, whose bands, frequently led by women, penetrated as far south a* 
Relantan, They were believed to have the power of rendering themselves invulnerable by a ceremony considered 
very wicked, dpring which they, like many Burmese dacoits, inserted coins or medal* beneath their skin. A Patani 
Malay told me that the curious thing about them was not that they could make themselves invulnerable—many 
people could do that—but that their invulnerability did not wear oft’ when they visited a foreign country, whereas, in 
other cases, it disappeared as soon as the charmed person ( left his own water, 1 that it to say, went into a district not 
watered by his native river. It is interesting to contrast this idea with the belief recorded by Skcat among the 
Kclantan Semanga, that the man-tiger can only manifest hit power at a considerable distance from home or in 
another valley ( hum. jinthrop. but n 1901, p. 137). 
