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FASCICULI MALATENSES 
as hard as he can. The ceremony is also practiced by Chinamen, who some¬ 
times let slices of melon, stuck full of cigarettes, float down in front of them ; 
it is called by the Malays c doing obeisance to the idols'—a curious description 
of his own actions in the lips of a Mahommedan. At one place, a little above 
Janing, the Malay who throws the offering and makes the speech frequently 
has a white cross marked with lime upon his back, but I was told 
that this was only customary at this particular spot—the head of the Jeram 
Panjang, or Long Rapid, reputed the most dangerous on the river. On the 
navigable part of the Patani River there are no dangerous rapids, but at the 
mouths of tributaries, which are liable to be rather risky spots after heavy rain, 
a small mound is often stuck with white flags and regarded as a sacred place ; 
the boatmen scattering rice on the water as they pass it. 
Perhaps, however, the majority of sacred places in the Patani States, where 
they are more numerous than in Perak, are the reputed graves of great medicine¬ 
men or living shrines, which are said to be visited by spirits as well as men. 
The latter bring little white flags 1 as offerings, light candles and incense, kill a 
sheep or some fowls, or even a white buffalo, and make a feast near the grave, 
offering certain parts,of the victim to the person who lies within. The same 
things are done at the graves of Mahommedan saints such as ’Toh Panjang. 
T Toh Ni, however, was so very great that his grave is not very much more 
reverenced than any other place connected with him, at least so I was told on 
the Patani River, but my informants did not appear to know where the grave 
was. At Kota Bharu, Rhaman, the cemetery of the other rajas of that state 
is regarded as a sacred place, and it is said that sick persons are sometimes laid 
on the graves for a night. 
Any manufactured object habitually used in magical ceremonies is hr am at^ 
and in many cases is rendered so by a ceremony of sanctification ; while other 
objects, the possession or presence of which has been fortuitously accompanied 
by good luck, have the same term applied to them, though, perhaps, not quite 
in the same sense. Objects 1 also of any peculiar form supposed to be lucky 
are occasionally described in the same way ; thus certain kinds of flaws in the 
blade of a knife are, in Rhaman, considered sufficient to ensure good fortune 
j. These flags are made of fresh cotton doth, not old rags, and the sticks to which they are attached, in the 
Patani States, arc tipped with a conical piece of cocoa not husk—perhaps a degenerate phallic emblem ; while in 
Perak they appear to have no such termination. The Malay name of these flags is panji-fmnji j occasionally they 
have an elephant drawn upon them, 
z. Such object* are also said to ‘have luck' (adti the quality being evidently considered as individual 
and not a# common. Indeed, it is difficult to *ay, exactly, how far thia luck is a mere quality, or how far something 
of the nature of a degenerate guardian daemon. I have never heard any numeral co-efficient applied to the word, 
and it expresses something possessed by the spirits themselves, but when I was asking Patani Malays which animals 
had a badi —an actual spirit reckoned by the same co-efficient as other spirits and as animals—I often got the answer, 
‘ No, but it has luck/ Thus the ground dove has luck, while the turtle dove has not j the cow and the ox have 
luck, while the buffalo has not. The luck of human beings is said to be greater than that of spirits, and this is why 
the latter generally disappear when a man approaches them. 
