FASCICULI MALATENSES 
37 
that actors fear is named Hahlipah, the names of the others are unknown. 
Seretang Bogoh cannot be seen of men, and Sang Siuh cannot be seen of 
men.’ This story is evidently connected with the incantation used by a theatrical 
company in the magical overture with which they commence their performance, 
to which 1 will allude again in connexion with the Earth Spirits ; it is 
hinted at in an invocation of the same kind quoted by Skeat/ 
It is very difficult to describe the different kinds of spirits recognized by 
the Patani Malays, both because the names are often extremely local, and 
because native beliefs are mingled with Arabic ones to a different extent in 
the minds of different individuals. One man 1 questioned regarding the 
number of the spirits, replied that he supposed there were as many different 
kinds of bantu as there were races of men ; others said, simply, that they were 
many exceedingly ; others thought that there were two kinds, hantu proper 
a nd jinn^ which were the more powerful—so powerful, a Patani man said, that 
if a man had a tame jinn he could cause the meat from another man’s cooking 
pot to come to him. A few old men, as already noted, believed that there 
was, in reality, only one universal hantu . A Jalor midwife said that every 
person had one hundred and ninety spirits in him, each of which was the 
cause of some particular disease, and each of which, if it gained the mastery 
over the rest, could bring about the disease it represented ; while several 
persons in Jalor told me there were three genera of spirits-— Hantu Raya (Great 
Spirits), spirits of the jungle ; Hantu Tanab or Jimbalam Bumi (Earth Spirits), 
spirits of the earth and of the villages ; and Jinn Puteb (White Jinn), also called 
Mahommed’s Parrots (Nuri Mabommed). This classification may be adopted 
for the sake of clearness, but it does not include the Sea Spirits, and, while in 
Jalor the Hantu Raya are c great 1 2 in the sense of being powerful, and are said 
never to come into the village of their own accord, in Patani town they are 
little more than bogeys with which to frighten children who will not come 
home at night, being described as enormous negro giants, with their mouth 
slit vertically, who wander about the town at night; while, curiously enough, 
Si Raya, the Great One, is in Selangor the sea name of Batara Guru, the 
Hindu Kala.* 
The IVbiie Jinn . These spirits are not much regarded by the Malays, 
because, as a Jalor man remarked to me, they cannot be forced to do anything 
bad. They are also called Jinn Islam , and are good spirits, being, in fact, 
the only mundane spirits that can be said to have any moral character. One 
1. Malay Magic y p. 505. * Peace be unto thee, whose mother is from the earth, and whose father has 
ascended to the heavens !’ 
2. Skeat, Malay MagU t p. 90. 
