FASCICULI MALATENSES 
35 
language than in our own, and that the Malays reckon all animals, even frogs 
and slugs, by the tail, just as we reckon cattle by the head ; but the Patani 
Malays go further, reckoning spirits' in the same way as beasts. Spirits, in their 
opinion, are not reasonable beings—they cannot think; they believe what they 
are told ; being in a way mere essences themselves, they cannot distinguish 
between a shadow and a reality, between a picture and its model. If a 
promise is made to a spirit it is sufficient to fulfil it by any subterfuge, to sub¬ 
stitute a sham offering for a real one, an effigy for a true victim ; I have 
even known a case where a spirit was promised two wives, and was given 
two little female figures modelled in dough, apparently quite to its satisfac- 
faction. Similarly, under certain circumstances, with which I will deal later, 
a human soul cannot distinguish between its own body and a conventional 
image thereof. The lie, too, may be spoken. The hunter cows the spirit of 
his prey by telling it that he, the slayer, is King Solomon, Alexander the 
Great, the Archangel Gabriel, any great man or being - he may tell it in the 
same breath that he is several totally different persons, for even consistency of 
statement is unnecessary—the spirit believes, trembles, and submits, and the 
offence of killing does not He at the slayer’s door. The majority of spirits 
are regarded as utterly non-moral ; they are certainly not good, they are only 
* vicious 1 (Jakai) in self-defence; for, unlike the mermaid of Teutonic legend, 
who sought for a soul, they continually seek for a body, and if they find a 
man whose soul is w f eak they drive it out and take its place ; they are never 
wicked in the sense that the Christian Satan is wicked, for they neither tempt 
mankind to evil nor are conscious of evil in themselves. 
Such, in brief, are the views held by the Patani Malays as a people 
regarding souls, ghosts, and wandering spirits, but a small minority of my 
informants, composed of a few elderly peasants in Jalor, seemed rather imbued 
with a kind of primitive pantheism, or, more accurately, pandaemonism, 
believing that all mundane spirits, whether they were called by Arabic or by 
native names, were really one, pervading the whole world, only called by 
different names according to the environment in which the universal spirit of 
evil was considered for the moment—Hantu Laut if it were at sea ; Hantu 
Raya in the jungle; Saitan in religious works; Jinn, Pelesit, or whatever else, 
in different circumstances. As one old man expressed it in my hearing , 4 It may 
be hot here and at Mecca at the same time, and the heat is the same ; so 
t. This is only the case in the colloquial dblcct of the Patani Malays, for spirits arc reckoned as * pci ions ' even 
in conversation among the Malays of Perak and in the written charms used by Patani timer. Too much strew must 
not be laid on the point, interesting as it i*, for if a Patani man is asked how many children he lias, he often 
replies, jokingiy, ‘ 1 feed so many tail,’ as if he were talking of his cattle or sheep ; but hi# phraseology may be 
partly due to the reticence with which Mstiayi sometimes speak of their families, fearing to bring ill-luck upon 
them. The expression 1 five tails of Chinese ’ is also a *cornful jest. 
