63 
FASCICULI MALATENSES 
conspicuous, was a platform, on which the * sons of princes ’ were to sit, while 
their companions of humbler rank squatted on a staging below. We were 
told that five hundred bearers were necessary during the ceremonial progresses 
in which the bird played a part, but this was probably an exaggeration. 
Similar figures are often preserved for generations among the petty 
royalties of the Patani States, and it is believed that after a time they acquire 
a spirit, which will ‘devour* (that is to say, possess) any person not of the 
blood royal who attempts to mount upon their backs. A Malay of the town 
of Nawngchik kept a similar, but less elaborate, bird for hire, calling it hurong 
singa chrandawasir , or ‘ bird of paradise lion bird,* and asserting that it too 
was endowed with a living spirit, which would cause any person who approached 
it without its owner’s leave to be possessed and lose his senses. At Ban 
Sai Kau it appears to be the custom for friends of the family to bring to a 
circumcision somewhat smaller figures, constructed in a similar manner but 
representing deer and other animals. One which we saw, dismantled, in this 
village had its body formed of one of the long openwork cane baskets in 
which pigs and poultry are carried in the Patani States, while the head was 
modelled over the skull of a real stag, the horns of which remained in position. 
The great ceremony at Patani commenced by the persons who were to be 
circumcised being borne on the bird from Jambu to that town, a distance of 
some six miles, and lasted for many days, during which a variety of entertain¬ 
ments were provided for the people and numerous processions took place. 
The following is the account of one day’s ceremonies, literally translated from 
our Malay’s diary :— f On the thirteenth morning of the month, at nine of the 
white men’s time 1 2 3 , the Raja of the country took the matter in hand, and there 
was a noise of gongs, and of drums, and of tambourines, and all the wrestling 
schools ( skola berstlai) wrestled, 4 and there was moreover a noise of cannon, for 
four-and-twenty cannon were fired, and the noise thereof lasted for the space 
of an hour. Then the Raja of the country and all the sons of rajas and of 
great men feasted on all manner of meats in the audience hall of the Raja, and 
all the plays were played, and while they eat the four-and-twenty cannon were 
fired again, slowly, one by one. Then a man of the Abyssinian kind 1 , Abu 
1. The Siamese day commences at sunrise, and the twelfth hour is about sunset, after which comes the first 
hour of the night. The Patani Malays do not reckon by hours, but have certain vague divisions of the day and 
night. 
2. The performance taught in, these schools, which are numerous in Patani, is really a war dance. The two 
performers in each bout do, however, come to grips tn some cases—always to slow music—and their manoeuvres more 
closely resemble those of catch-as-catch-can wrestlers than any other athletic exercise with which we are acquainted 
in this country. The schools are generally organized by some famous ‘ wrestler * too old to perforin himself. The 
pupils, until they arc sufficiently advanced to perform on their own account, pay all expenses, especially those con¬ 
nected with lighting up the arena, which is generally an open field. In return they receive instruction from the 
master, at whose house a practice is held every evening. Competitions between rival schools are frequently held, bets 
being freely given and taken. On the occasion of marriages or other festivities the wrestling master (gt/nA is paid 
to exhibit hi* pupils. 
3. That ts, a Soudanese. He had been brought as a slave from Mecca and then given his freedom. 
