Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

98 BURIAL CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS part hi
reference given. The only remaining point of interest
in the account is the use of the Sacrificial Tray (Sak.
" anchap " = Mai. " anchak "), which contains the " food
and water" that are offered to the "Grave-.spirit" (Mai.
" Hantu kubor "),^ for whose benefit also the fire on
the grave is lit. The soul (" semangat ") proceeds to
the Infernal Region (" Neraka ") or Paradise (" Pulau
Buah " or " Fruit Island "), as his case may require ;
but his Evil Deeds remain by the grave in the form
of a " Hantu Kubor," incessantly seeking a fresh
embodiment.
To the foregoing may be added Vaughan-Stevens'
description of a ceremony observed by the Sakai on
the occasion of a death.
A dying man lies with head towards the west. The magician holding a
censer ("sungkun") in his hand, takes up the usual crouching position at the
feet of the patient, a little to the right side, and raises himself up slowly till he
is "breast high." He then waves the censer seven times horizontally over the
body, and placing the coconut-shell (bowl) at his feet, bends down and says
softly in his ear " : O dying one, do not remember any more your father, mother,
children, or relations. Think only of your ancestors already dead and gone to
another place. Your living (friends) will find food."^
The embers in the coconut - shell are kept in a
glow till the man is dead.
The alleged reasons for the use of incense in this
ceremony are that smoke " mounts upward and then
vanishes " ; also that " good spirits love its smell and
bad spirits hate it." '^
Selangop Sakai.—Of the Sakai tribes in the Kuala
Lumpur district of Selangor, my friend Father
Letessier has given an account in which he says that
when a death occurred, the body was washed, and the
' Vaughan-.Stevens, ii. 140, 141. been wearing must be washed off before
To the above may be added Vaughan- burial took place. Also that no face-
•Stevens' remark that among the paint was employed by the mourners
Sakai (" Senoi ") face-paint was never at a funeral (Z. f. E. xxvi. p. 153).
ajiplied after dcatli, and that any face- - Vaughan-Stevens, ii. 144.
paint that the deceased might have ^ Ibid.