THE MALAY PANTHEON
(a) Gods
A careful investigation of the magic rites and charms used by a nation which has
changed its religion will not unfrequently show, that what is generally called
witchcraft is merely the débris of the older ritual, condemned by the priests of
the newer faith, but yet stubbornly, though secretly, persisting, through the
unconquerable religious conservatism of the mass of the people.
“There is nothing that clings longer to a race than the religious faith in which it
has been nurtured. Indeed, it is impossible for any mind that is not thoroughly
scientific to cast off entirely the religious forms of thought in which it has grown
to maturity. Hence in every people that has received the impression of foreign
beliefs, we find that the latter do not expel and supersede the older religion, but
are engrafted on it, blent with it, or overlie it. Observances are more easily
abandoned than ideas, and even when all the external forms of the alien faith
have been put on, and few vestiges of the indigenous one remain, the latter still
retains its vitality in the mind, and powerfully colours or corrupts the former.
The actual religion of a people is thus of great ethnographic interest, and
demands a minute and searching observation. No other facts relating to rude
tribes are more difficult of ascertainment, or more often elude inquiry.”^1
“The general principle stated by Logan in the passage just quoted receives
remarkable illustration from a close investigation of the folk-lore and
superstitious beliefs of the Malays. Two successive religious changes have taken