Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof283018951897roya).pdf/141

 and get enough water for irrigating their fields. There was another kramat of his lower down the hill, also consisting of rocks, one of which was shaped something like a boat. I was informed that this jin is attended by tigers which guard the hill and are very jealous of the intrusion of other tigers from the surrounding country. He is believed to have revealed himself to the original Pawang of the village, the mythical founder of the kampong of Nyalas. In a case like this it seems probable that the name attached to this object of reverence is a later accretion and that under a thin disguise we have here a relic of the worship of the spirit of rivers and streams, a sort of elemental deity, localized in this particular place and still regarded as a proper object of worship and propitiation, in spite of the theoretically strict monotheism of the Muhammadan creed. Again, at another place, the kramat is nothing but a tree, of somewhat singular shape, having a large swelling some way up the trunk. It was explained to me that this tree was connected in a special way with the prospects of local agriculture, the size of the swelling increasing in good years and diminishing in bad seasons! Hence it was naturally regarded with considerable awe by the purely agricultural population of the neighbourhood.

As may be imagined, it is exceedingly difficult to discover any authentic facts regarding the history of these numerous kramats: even where there is some evidence of the existence of a grave, the name of the departed saint is usually the one fact that is remembered, and often even that is forgotten. The most celebrated of the Malacca kramats, the one at Machap, is a representative type of the first class, that in which there really is a grave: it is the one place where a hardened liar respects the sanctity of an oath, and it is occa- sionally visited in connection with civil cases, when the one party challenges the other to take a particular oath: a man who thinks nothing of perjuring himself in the witness box and who might not much mind telling a lie even with the Koran on his head, will flinch before the ordeal of a falsehood in the presence of the "Dato' Machap." The worship there, as with most other kramats, consists of the burning of incense, the