Note 24 — Chapter IV · The Malay Pantheon

“I explained to Mr. M. clearly the names of all the sheitan believed in by Chinese and Malays; all ignorance and folly which have come down from their ancestors in former times, and exist up to the present day, much more than I could relate or explain. I merely enumerated the varieties, such as hantu, sheitan,24 polong,25 pontianak, penanggalan,26 jin,27 pelisit,28 mambang,29 hantu pemburu,30 hantu rimba, jadi-jadian,31 hantu bengkus,32 bota, gargasi, raksaksa,33 nenek kabayan,34 himbasan,35 sawan,36 hantu mati di-bunoh,37 bajang,38 katagoran, sempak-kan, puput-kan,39 ʿefrit,40 jemalang,41 terkena,42 ubat guna.43 Besides all these there are ever so many ilmu-ilmu (branches of secret knowledge), all of which I could not remember, such as gagak,44 penundok,45 pengasih,46 kebal,47 kasaktian,48 tuju,49 ʿalimun,50 pendĕras,51 perahuh,52 chucha,53 pelali,54 perangsang,55 and a quantity of others. All these are firmly believed in by the people. Some of these arts have their professors (guru) from whom instruction may be got. Others have their doctors, who can say this is such and such a disease, and this is the remedy for it, and besides these there are all those arts which are able to cause evil to man. When Mr. M. heard all this he was astonished and wondered, and said, ‘Do you know the stories of all these?’ I replied, ‘If I were to explain all about them it would fill a large book, and the contents of the book would be all ignorance and nonsense without any worth, and sensible persons would not like to listen to it, they would merely laugh at it.’”56