FASCICULI MALATENSES 
39 
great science.’ On my questioning him how this might be, he told me that if 
a man met a spirit he should grasp it firmly without being afraid. It would 
turn all manner of shapes, but he must not let it go ; it would offer silver, 
gold, and gorgeous apparel for its release, but the silver would turn to sand, 1 2 the 
gold to sawdust, and the clothes to filthy rags. At last it would ask what its 
captor desired, and he should then demand the great science, and would thus 
obtain the power to walk invisible. 
The Earth Spirits are also regarded in Patani as being the cause of night¬ 
mare, 1 amusing themselves by sitting on the chests of sleeping men and women 
and pretending to throttle them j if a person so treated tells anyone else, they 
are very angry with him and cause him some further annoyance. They are 
much dreaded by actors and actresses, and all theatrical performances 
commence with a ceremony, called * opening the earth,’ in which they are 
propitiated. There is no stage in the Malay theatre (which is usually a shed 
built of the flimsiest materials) except a mat laid on the ground, and apparently 
it is feared that the noise of the orchestra, which is very considerable, would 
alarm or irritate the Earth Spirits, and that they would retaliate upon the 
performers. They generally appear in the form of small creeping things, such 
as ants or scorpions, but can assume any shape they please. 
The Great Spirits , The Great Spirits in Jalor are essentially the spirits of 
primeval jungle, only approaching the abodes of men when they are summoned 
by a medicine-man, who may address them either as Datoh Sa Tmijong Bhang 
or as Dob Jenaw Saw Jenaw . Their chief is called Dewa Sa Alang Sungei, 
and the following prayer is said to him by those who have to sleep in the 
jungle :— 
Hei, Dewa Sa Alang Sungei ! 
Mahu tidor, Aku jaga ! 
Mahu tidor. Aku jaga ! 
(Ho, Dewa Sa Allang Sungei 1 I am going to sleep. Guard me 1 1 am 
going to sleep. Guard me ! ) 
The formula is of a sort rare among the conjurations addressed by 
Malays to the bantu as being a prayer pure and simple, quite devoid of any 
1. A modern story, illustrating the same principle, is current among the Malays of Singapore j it was told 
me at Patani by a man who had lived in the Straits for some years. He laid that a gharry driver passing near the 
European cemetery at night is often hailed by a European lady and gentlemen, who tell him to take them a drive and 
give him some cigar*. At the end of the drive he finds that they have disappeared and that the cigars have become 
dead men's bones. Altogether, the Singapore hantu appear to be more immoral than their Patani congeners* for the 
same man told me of another spirit which amused itself by bribing the orderly In charge of the Raffles Museum at 
night to leave his past, giving him a five-dollar note, which turned out nest morning to be only a piece of dirty paper. 
There are many objects of some value in this museum, and it is quite probable that an artifice of the kind may have 
been practiced by a would-be thief, but I never heard that it succeeded,, and my informant was quite indignant when 
I suggested this explanation of hi* ghost story. 
2. One night at Jambu* after we had been talking of the kumbiitg gurun r or mountain antelope {Nrm$rhatdus 
iwttmhami)) a KeUnlan youth in our service was troubled by bad dreams. Wert morning he told Inc confidentially 
that a spirit in the form of a Limbing gurutt had been playing with him and had nearly choked him ; he added that 
i lie spirit would be angry that he told me. The house in which we were staying was believed by our men to be 
haunted, because of noises heard at night. 
