Note 39 — Chapter IV · The Malay Pantheon

The Hantu katagoran, sempak-kan, and puput-kan I have not been able to identify, and as the two last possess the verbal suffix it is clear that each is the name of a state or process and not of a ghost or demon. In fact, v. d. Wall gives (under sampok), kĕsampokan, which he explains as meaning “door een’ boozen geest getroffen zijn,” to be attacked or possessed by an evil spirit, which is doubtless the correcter form of the word. So with puput-kan, which is also a verbal form meaning (acc. to v. d. W.) “to blow (tr.),” to “sound a wind instrument.” It would seem that ʿAbdullah’s list of “ghosts” is not very systematically drawn up. ↑