The akuan or spirit-friends
Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad’s 1922 article in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society documents the belief in akuan—spirit-friends held by certain individuals in Negri Sembilan, particularly among descendants of the old Menangkabau tribes. Drawing on fieldwork across multiple villages in the “Nine States,” Ahmad describes two distinct types of spirit-friend (an airy, conjurable entity and a permanent animal form, usually a tiger), the elaborate ritual of their invocation, and the practical services they are believed to render their owners.
Summary
Ahmad’s central concern is to record a specific form of Malay spirit-belief as it persisted in rural Negri Sembilan in the early twentieth century. He distinguishes carefully between two categories of akuan: the first, an ethereal spirit that dwells at a remote locality (a mountain, rapid, or forest) and must be ceremonially summoned through a trance ritual called berejin or berhantu; and the second, a spirit permanently embodied as an animal—almost invariably a tiger—that acts as a loyal attendant within its natural habitat. The spirit-type is conjured only in cases of desperate illness that have defeated ordinary medicine-men, and the ceremony involves a medium entering trance, an interpreter translating the spirits’ speech, and a formal exchange in which the cause and prognosis of the sickness are declared. The animal-type requires no invocation; it is always present and renders services such as guiding lost travellers, protecting the household, and even healing by licking the body of a sick owner.
Ahmad supports his account with several detailed case narratives, most prominently that of an old medicine-woman at Bukit Kerdas (Jempul) who possessed both types of akuan and whose tiger is said to have been the transmigrated spirit of her deceased husband. He also records a rare instance of a crocodile-akuan in Juasseh, where the spirit offered itself to a man in exchange for protection and in return guaranteed agricultural prosperity and family health. These narratives serve to illustrate the practical logic of the belief system: the akuan are benevolent auxiliaries, distinct from the malignant spirits (polong, pontianak, penanggalan) catalogued elsewhere in Malay ethnography.
The article closes with a brief reflection on the coexistence of these beliefs with orthodox Islam. Ahmad argues that the Malay mind compartmentalises religious doctrine and popular superstition, allowing the most “orthodox of Muhammadans” to maintain spirit-beliefs without perceived contradiction. He also notes that the belief was already in decline among younger generations by 1922, and cautions that investigators must allow for the Malay “habit of exaggeration and fondness for the marvellous.”
Key Findings
- The berejin (spirit-summoning) ceremony lasts approximately three hours (8–11 p.m.), is performed at the patient’s house, and draws crowds from within a mile-and-a-half radius; preparations include berteh (toasted rice-in-the-husk), three to seven pots of water, betel-leaves, and richly ornamented mats laid out “just like a marriage ceremony” (pp. 379–380).
- The spirit-type akuan number between three and four and a dozen or more per owner; they are addressed by descriptive epithets (sex and dwelling-place) rather than proper names, and their relationship to the owner is that of “old acquaintances” rather than servants (p. 378).
- The animal-type akuan is almost always a tiger; only one case of a crocodile-akuan is recorded, in Juasseh, where the spirit guaranteed the owner a harvest “quite above the average” and immunity from illness for the whole household (pp. 380, 383).
- The akuan can be inherited: the Bukit Kerdas old woman is said to have received both her spirit-friends and her medical art from her deceased husband, whose grave was venerated with panji-panji (white cloth strips) marking fulfilled vows (pp. 381–382).
- The vow-paying ritual (niat) at a sacred grave involves slaughtering two goats, cooking nasi kunyit (saffroned rice), inviting people to eat, having a lebai read prayers of thanksgiving, and firing large crackers; failure to fulfil the vow invites the spirit’s appearance in dreams and subsequent misfortune (pp. 382–383).
- Ahmad explicitly distinguishes akuan (benevolent, serviceable auxiliaries) from polong, pontianak, penanggalan, and pelesit (malignant spirits kept for inhuman purposes), citing Skeat’s Malay Magic (pp. 327–331) for the latter category (p. 384).
Conclusion
Ahmad’s definitive takeaway is that the akuan belief, while already receding among younger Malays, remained firmly embedded in the conservative elder generation of Negri Sembilan and operated as a functional system of spiritual protection and healing that coexisted without apparent tension with orthodox Islamic doctrine. He frames the persistence of such beliefs not as ignorance to be corrected but as a natural feature of the “raw and uncultivated mind,” where “the most opposite beliefs and doctrines can subsist side by side in two water-tight compartments.”
Context
- Ahmad’s fieldwork was conducted independently across Ulu Jempul, Kuala Jempul, Batu Kikir, Juasseh, Sungai Dua, Seri Menanti, Rembau, Jelebu, Lengging, and Beranang, giving the account a breadth of corroboration unusual for ethnographic notes of this period (p. 379).
- The article sits within the broader MBRAS project of documenting Malay folk-belief before its anticipated disappearance, and Ahmad’s cross-references to Skeat’s Malay Magic (1900) and his own earlier paper on “Tiger-Breed Families” (JSBRAS 85, pp. 36–39) position it as part of a systematic comparative study of Malay spirit-categories.