Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalof283018951897roya).pdf/142

 offering of nasi kunyet (yellow rice) and the killing of goats; but I also noticed a number of live pigeons there which illustrate the practice, common in Buddhist countries, of releasing an animal in order to gain "merit" thereby.

To return to the elemental spirits: it was explained to me by a Malay, with whom I discussed the subject at leisure, that apart from the spirits which are an object of reverence and which when treated with proper deference are usually bene- ficent, there are a variety of others. To begin with, spirits (the word used on this occasion was hantu) are of at least two kinds—wild ones, whose normal habitat is the jungle, and those that are, so to say, domesticated. The latter, which seem to correspond to what in Western magic are called "familiars," vary in character with their owners or the persons to whom they are attached. Thus in this particular village of Bukit Senggeh, a few years ago, there was a good deal of alarm on account of the arrival of two or three strangers believed to be of bad character, who were supposed to keep a familiar spirit of a particularly malignant disposition which was in the habit of attacking people in their sleep by throttling them. One or two cases of this kind occurred, and it was seriously suggested that I should make the matter the subject of a magisterial enquiry, which, however, I did not find it necessary to do. But familiar spirits are by no means necessarily evil: indeed the Pawang (a functionary of whom more will be said later on) keeps a familiar spirit, which in his case is a hantu pŭsâka, that is, an hereditary spirit which runs in the family, in virtue of which he is able to deal sum- marily with the wild spirits of an obnoxious character. The chief point of importance is to keep these wild spirits in their proper place, viz. the jungle, and to prevent them taking up their abode in the villages. For this reason charms are hung up at the borders of the villages, and whenever a wild spirit breaks bounds and encroaches on human habitations it is necessary to get him turned out. Some time ago, one of these objectionable hantus had settled down in a kĕrayong tree in the middle of this same village of Bukit Senggeh, and used to frighten people who passed that way in the dusk: so