Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

350 NATURAL RELIGION AND FOLK-LORE part in
derived from Pirman. Each species of tree has its
Genie. The rivers also have a spirit connected with
them, but this spirit is the Earth Genie, who haunts
them with his power. The mountains are similarly
animated by him. He does not, therefore, appear to
be entirely a personification of the destructive power
of nature, but is, to some extent, identified with its
living force also.^
The Soul.
Although the Benua have a conception of the spirit
(or rather the soul) of man as distinct from the body,
and their belief that the souls of their magicians are
carried in music to heaven," whilst their animate bodies
remain beside them, even shows a high degree of im-
materiality in their conception of its nature,—they
appear to be without any glimmering of faith or hope
in its permanent indestructibility, or rather in its
retention of individuality.
It is believed to be fashioned by Pirman of air, and
when the Earth Genie is commissioned to dissolve its
union with the body, it relapses once more into the
airy nothing from whence it came.^
The Magician.
To avert death recourse is had in sickness to a
1 J. I. A. vol. i. pp. 275, 276. It l3y most of the tribes of the Indian
should be noted that though the word Archipelago. It is to prepare the
"Jin" is of Arabic origin, the spirits traveller for this journey that the
to which the name is applied by the weapons and cooking utensils used by
Jakun are almost certainly of native him in life, and a pittance of food, are
origin, in spite of their thin disguise. buried along with the corpse. The
2 Newbold, writing of the Benua, souls of the bad are to lie devoured by
says :— " The better informed of the sjiectres, who approach the graves for
Benua have a confused idea that after that pur])ose on the seventh day after
death the spirits of good men travel to- interment, on which fires are kindled
wards the west and are absorbed into to drive the evil spirits away " (ii.
the effulgence of the setting sun, ' the 389, 390).
eye of day,' as he is poetically termed ^ j^ /_ ^^ vol. i. p. 279.