Their feet are rather large and properly arched. The big toe is well separated from the others and is very strong.

The muscles of their arms are not much developed and sometimes these members are too long in proportion to the rest of the body. Their hands are also very long and slender. The chest muscles, on the contrary, are very well developed owing probably to the continual habit of climbing trees, rocks, rifts and the like in search of food or for any other motive that their nomadic life may make necessary.

Altogether the figure of the Sakai does not reveal any large amount of vigour perhaps because he is usually thin and is what might be termed pot-bellied, owing to the sort of food he eats and the cold he suffers during the night, but he is much more robust and taller (the average height of an adult is a little past one metre and a half)[7] than the other tribes and races around him who are in close reports with civilization. This fact would almost make one believe that civilization is detrimental to the physical development of an individual.

These Aborigines are endowed with wonderful agility, as may be seen when they clamber up certain clefts that we should judge impossible of ascent and also when they spring from one part to another with a nimbleness that might excite the envy of our best gymnasts.

They have not much muscular force, as I have said, but they are second to none in enduring fatigue, especially in the case of long marches, to which they are well accustomed as every day they walk about 20 miles, carrying upon their shoulders the by no means light product of the chase, together with the various roots and bulbs they find in the forest, as well as their inseparable blow-pipes and well-filled quivers.

They also resist very well the privations to which they are sometimes subjected by their own improvidence. All that they bring back with them they will eat at once, be it animal or vegetable food, and when they cannot finish it up by themselves they invite people from another village or tribe to come and help them devour it, laughing at every idea of domestic economy that I have vainly tried to impress upon their minds.

But are they wrong, after all? They know for certain that the forest will not leave them to starve and when there is no more rice, durian, mangosteen etc., it is never difficult to catch a pheasant, monkey, rat, serpent or even a wild boar.

Were they acquainted with Italian operas their favourite lines would certainly be:

Non curiamo l'incerto domani Se quest' oggi n'e dato goder.[8]

and their choice would be appropriate, for where else could the Borgias be so well remembered as in a land famous for its poisons?

The Sakais' skin is of a colour between light and burnt ochre, the tint getting darker as they grow older (in consequence of their long exposure to the sun), at which period the whole body becomes rough and wrinkled. The children are of a much lighter colour until they begin their life in the open air.



The woman, as a type, differs very little from the man. She is rather shorter as is the case with all the pure and mixed Mongolian races.

As a girl she has a rounded form and is not without grace. As long as she is healthy and blooming she may be considered a beauty.... in the forest, but she soon gets faded because of the fatiguing life she leads and also because of her early marriage, for she is already a wife when our girls are at the beginning of their teens.

The boys are generally healthy, sturdy little fellows.

* * * * *

The Sakai's head is regular in form and size like that of the Mongolian race; the cheek-bones, however, are less prominent than those of the Tartars and the eyes are wider open and less oblique.

The forehead neither retreats nor protrudes and is high and spacious enough. The nose is large and slightly flattened at the root. The facial angle measures pretty much the same as that of the Chinese.

The mouth, well-cut and not too large, with rather thick lips, would be beautified by two rows of sound regular teeth if the latter were not so blackened by the constant chewing of tobacco, betel-nut and sirih.

The chin is sharp.

All the features, in fact, are very marked and the jaws are a little projecting but the countenance is not an unpleasant one and wears an expression of frankness and goodness that soon wins sympathy.

The head is covered with a rich, crisp growth of very black hair but few hairs are to be seen on the face or body. Those rare ones, whose appearance would be rapturously hailed by our youths as the forerunners of a possible mustache or beard, are plucked out by the Sakais in their spare time!

A great many ladies would be highly contented to possess the beautiful tresses that the Sakai woman generally has, but whilst amongst us an artistic arrangement of the hair is an attraction which often makes us forget the lesser charms of the face, the raven locks of these women sometimes cause a feeling of disgust.

They do not take the least care of this splendid ornament bestowed upon them by Nature; when they do not let their hair hang dirty and dishevelled upon their shoulders they just tie it up badly with a strip of many-coloured upas bark (a remedy against migraine) stick in some roughly carved combs and hair-pins (amulets against the malignant spirit of the wind) and adorn it with fresh flowers.

But alas! under that bow of natural ribbon, under those combs and flowers there is a tiny world of restless inhabitants and the poor primitive Eve is obliged to scratch her head furiously now and then.

And not less furiously does the man also scratch his though he takes much more pains over his hair, combing and smoothing it in order to divide it well in front and display the tattoo which distinguishes the parting.

Frequently both the men and the women rub into their heads the finely pounded root of a plant to which they attribute the virtue of softening their rough, luxuriant locks and of destroying the inmates.

Even the men sometimes wear combs and hair-pins.

* * * * *

Cleanliness as the reader will have understood from the example given above is not the highest quality of the Sakai any more than it is of other primitive peoples. Hygienic practices march alongside civil progress. The bath, as a pleasure or a necessity, is quite unknown to them, and those who dwell amongst the mountains have the greatest fear of water. The foaming torrents and noisy cascades that dash down the ravines have inspired them with terror and as they have no notion whatever of being able to keep afloat, they are afraid to venture near a stream, however quietly it may flow, unless it is shallow enough for them to see the bottom.



Not only have they no idea of swimming but they are equally ignorant of any other means, of remaining on the water's surface. They have no canoes of any kind and when they want to cross from one shore to the other they either throw a huge tree into the river to serve as a bridge or they walk on round the bank until they find a fordable point and can reach the opposite side by jumping from stone to stone.

I am glad to say that my lectures upon cleanliness have not been completely fruitless for many of the young people make their ablutions now from time to time, especially the females, and come to me asking for soap. Though not a great step towards progress this is always better than nothing. The old people, of course, do not regard the bathing innovation with kindly eyes. They are always filthy to a repugnant degree, begrimed with ashes and earth from lying about round the fire, day, and night; the smell that emanates from them certainly does not invite one to approach them.

But their fathers and their grandfathers never washed themselves and so it is their duty to follow their questionable example.

* * * * *

The five senses with the Sakais are practically reduced to two for whilst they are very quick in hearing and seeing, the same cannot be said of smelling, feeling and tasting.

The acuteness of the two first is due to the continual need they have, in the forest, of keeping the ear and the eye open. To be on their guard against enemies they must either hear or see them.

The weakness of the smelling faculty may be explained by the bad way the Sakai men and women treat their noses, boring holes through them large enough to pass a little bamboo stick, which they wear, partly for ornament, and partly as a charm, against I do not exactly know what danger. And not only this, but they are in the habit of playing a sort of flute with their nose, stopping up the right nostril with leaves, so it is easy to comprehend what little sensibility this unfortunate appendix of the face can have.

Owing to their almost complete nudity their skin is not very susceptible to touch for it is hardened and toughened by the effects of sun, rain, cold and dew which makes it as weather-beaten as that of any old salt's; besides this they are accustomed from childhood to be stung by insects and nettles, to be pricked and scratched by thorns and brambles, and to be cut by the dry stiff blades of the long grasses of their native place. Habit is second nature.

Their deficient sense of taste results from the practices mentioned further on.



* * * * *

Sakai cookery does not require much study or experience.

The vegetable food they have at their disposition consists of: sweet potatoes, yams, maize, sikoi, different bulbs and tubers that they find in the forest like we do truffles, many edible leaves and all sorts of fruit, mushrooms, nanka, guaccicous, gua pra,[9] etc. Rice is an imported luxury which they use when they can get it.

Here are the necessaries for a variety of dishes, but the Sakais know no variety in the culinary art and with the exception of the fruit, the yams and potatoes that are cooked under the hot ashes, the whole lot is put, with a little water, into cooking-pots made out of large bamboo canes, and boiled up together into a kind of paste with pieces of serpents, rats, toads, lizards, beetles and other similar delicacies to give it flavour.

The monkey, deer, wild-boar, wild-sheep and any other big game caught in traps they just burn at the fire without taking the trouble to skin the animal, and then they eat it nearly raw.

They season the meat with salt, when they have any, which is not often, and with a capsicum that sets your mouth on fire. The use of this capsicum, and the continual chewing of tobacco, and betel has ruined the palate of the Sakais, and left them with little power of relishing.

Fish is rarely seen at the board (I use the word in a figurative sense as the thing it signifies does not exist for them) of the mountain tribes for the double motive that they have no fishing tackle and their fear of the water makes them avoid it as much as possible. Nevertheless when there is a dearth of other food they will throw in some beaten ple-pra and the fish, of a fair size, that rise to the surface to bite it are deftly hit by a knife, the Sakai seldom failing in his mark.

To the simplicity of their cooking corresponds the still greater simplicity of their drinks which are—of the singular number.

The inhabitants of the forest drink nothing but water but this they require clear and fresh. Should it not be perfectly pure in colour and taste they will not drink it. They always seek a spring to satisfy their thirst and supply their families with the necessary liquid.

Sometimes, when I was first living amongst them, I happened to stoop over a torrent or stream to drink some water but my companions protested vehemently declaring that it might do me a great deal of harm.

They are afraid of poisons in every shape and form as they are also of contagion and would even be frightened if in drinking they were to touch their bamboo bottles and glasses with their lips. They are very clever in pouring the contents down their throats without letting the receptacle come in contact with their mouths, an accomplishment which we should not be able to achieve until after many damp trials.

It might almost be desired that our civilization would imitate this hygienic custom of the savages. How many infections the less! How much fewer the microbes that poison the blood of our poor people!

The Sakais do not drink milk, not only from the difficulty in obtaining it but also from a strange prejudice which I have never succeeded well in understanding.

Once they are weaned they never swallow a single drop of milk.

Neither do they drink alcoholic beverages for the simple reason that they have not got them and do not know what they are.

If they should ever come to taste them and procure them easily will they not crave for them like all other savages?

As soon as the Sakai's frugal meal is finished he fills his mouth with tobacco, or if he has none, with sirih.



This is composed of a leaf or two of betel—a plant that possesses a certain narcotic virtue—smeared with lime and rolled up round a little tobacco and a piece of areca nut. Both men and women chew these quids with great relish, spitting out the juice from time to time.

The old people, whose want of teeth makes mastication next to impossible, put the ingredients into a bamboo and pound them until they are reduced to, what they consider, a delicious paste.

* * * * *

The young Sakai reaches the height of his vigour at about eighteen years old, after which he has a brief stationary period, followed by a rapid falling off that I think must be caused by his being continually exposed to the inclemency of the weather.

The woman begins to decline soon after her first confinement. From the age of 13 to 15 she becomes a wife and in two years from that date she is but the ghost of her former self. Thin, and with a wrinkled skin, not even a shadow remains of her youthful freshness and the attractive points she had as a girl.

But what does this matter to her? Her husband is faithful to her, with a fidelity that knows no hypocrisy; she is happy and is proud of her maternity; she can still dance and strike chords upon her krob, modulate a plaintive ditty on her ciniloi and sing whilst she beats on her bamboo sticks an accompaniment that tortures well-tuned ears. For the rest, if her beauty soon fades, her ugliness does not create the least feeling of disgust amongst the Sakais of the masculine gender, who have aesthetic ideas peculiarly their own.

It is enough to say that the ugliest of the female sex are the prettiest and the most admired.

I am speaking in earnest.

They, as well as the men, are in the habit of painting themselves in grotesque stripes and hieroglyphics, in imitation of medicinal plants, the principal colours used being red and black. Sometimes they add a little white but very rarely yellow.

When I tell you that these strange designs are not only the manifestation of coquetry or vanity but that they are also made to frighten away the Evil Spirit you may well imagine how they each try to arabesque their skin in a more horrible way than the other, in order to look uglier and be more admired.

How many, even in civilized places, would like to adopt such a mode of winning the admiration which their forbidding features cannot command!

One of these artistic creations cannot last more than a day. It is carefully scraped off and replaced.

* * * * *

The Sakai's life is tranquil and serene. He does not pass much of his time in the hut because every morning he goes off into the forest in search of game and vegetable food. He is accompanied by his boys who either practise with their blow-pipe or with a pointed stick dig in the ground for roots and bulbs, or they catch insects and reptiles to fill the baskets they carry on their backs.

When the Sakai is not out hunting, or visiting friends and relations in other villages, he remains quietly in his hut sleeping, smoking, chewing a nice quid or in preparing poisons and poisoned arrows.

He is good-tempered and good-hearted, and never quarrels with his wife. I have never heard of one of these savages beating his wife or children, or of ill-treating them in any way and neither of using violence with any one else unless with a declared foe or one who has offended his sentiments and superstitions.

One day I ordered a child to do something, I don't remember what, and he answered me impertinently with a curt neay (no). I turned to his mother who was present and told her that the boy ought to have his ears boxed.

The woman gave me a look of mingled wonder and irritation, then said: "You are a bad man if you would hurt my son when he did not mean any harm!".

Yet in spite of this kind of reasoning and the clemency shown towards children (which would make a pedagogue of the educational rod system commit suicide) the Sakais are honest and respectful to their parents and the old; they are affectionate in their family and, poor savages! are still a long way off from such a degree of civilization as to cut up a cross wife or a troublesome lover into pieces and send them in a mysterious valise to take a sea-bath or in a butcher's sack to take a fresh water one in a convenient river.

But the answer given me by the boy and his mother's implicit approval were only the decisive affirmation of that indomitable spirit of freedom that animates the Sakai and makes him do what he likes but never what others command.

In fact, even taking him as a guide or travelling companion it is always wise to let him have his own way without interfering at all. He will rest, eat, smoke, and walk on just as he chooses and if you contradict him in his desire he will turn his back upon you and abandon you in the midst of the forest.

Every act of his life reveals and marks this mania of independence. I will quote a rare case. Should a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law not be able to agree in consequence of the difference in their characters no tragic scenes or petty quarrels occur; the young couple merely take up their scanty belongings, destroy their own hut and march off to build another at a sufficient distance to avoid troublesome contact or the possibility of further misunderstandings and discord.

It is so: nobody will submit to the will of another and even when settling some particular question unless they are all of the same identical opinion the matter has to be abandoned.

Sons-in-law and daughters-in-law love their fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law well enough and viceversa, and they all respect each other and can live peaceably together, but no one can impose his own will without determining a strike.

They put into practice the same simple remedy when there is not very good harmony in the conjugal state. A man and woman cannot exactly agree as husband and wife? They cheerfully divorce themselves instead of poisoning their existence by continual altercations and the reluctance they both feel at doing what the other wishes.

How much regarding the human spirit civilized people have yet to learn from savages! Do you not think so, kind reader?

* * * * *

The Sakai is commonly believed to be lazy by nature. This is an error, for their so-called laziness is nothing but the result of the circumstances amidst which they live.

Once their daily food is provided and they have prepared a good supply of poisons and darts what remains for them to do in the depth of the forest, where there is no thirst for riches (because unknown to them), for honours (of which they have no idea at all), or for power (which their individual independence repudiates)?



There is no race for wealth, position or fame in their parts, no struggle for life which amongst us is the inexhaustible source of progress as well as the incentive to crime and corruption.

The desire expressed by Henry IV that each one of his subjects might boil his own fowl in his own pot is more than realized amongst the Sakais.

They do not cook their fowls because they are only reared as a means of barter, but it seldom happens that they cannot enjoy a choice bit of monkey, snake, deer or wild boar, which they like much better. If (a very strange case) somebody should be without, he goes to the nearest hut, enters without speaking, and sits down without being greeted. Some food is placed before him that he devours without being invited to do so and then departs as he came without any one saying a word beyond perhaps (in an excess of courtesy) a muttered "abor" (meaning "very good" and used as "good-bye" by the Sakais), from the visitor as he leaves.

The Sakai does not understand the reason of working when there seems to be no need, but what he finds strictly necessary he does with alacrity and good will. Whatever they have to do they all work together, the head of the family, the elder, the young men, the boys, everyone gives a hand to the best of his capacity. When they have finished, the oldest of the company lie down to doze and chew tobacco or sirih, the other men squat themselves about to chat and prepare poisons or make blow-pipes and arrows, whilst the children play and the women busy themselves over the cooking.

The terms of indolent and lazy as erroneously applied to these savages might be used with the same force in speaking of many who live in the vortex of civilized society.

We frequently see, amongst us, inexhaustible treasures of energy displayed when ambition or pure need demands it but when one or the other has been satisfied, or the necessity for such continual effort no longer seems imperative, or either the desired point has been attained or the future has been fully assured, then little by little energy gives place to a longing for repose.

As I have before said, the Sakai never provides for the morrow. His work begins and finishes with the day. Give him some tobacco and in his happiness he will stay awake all the night to smoke or chew it.

He works only in proportion to the urgency of the moment and then throws himself down to rest upon the ground, because beds and chairs are unknown to him, and it is not always that dried leaves and grasses are used as a substitute for the former.

The evolution of our society has brought us on the contrary to this curious condition: he who does not work at all and consequently has no honest fatigue to rest from, lies upon a soft feather bed, there to restore his strength wasted in fast living and dissipation, whilst.... But I had better stop or I may be mistaken for a dangerous class agitator!

I will only say this: that could the Sakai look into some of our houses and palaces he would make haste to return to his own forest and if he were obliged or knew how to write his impressions he would certainly commence: "The men of the West are effeminate, lazy and indolent".

But he would do wrong to generalize for they are Western men who have conquered his forest.

I will conclude this chapter by confessing a remorse. Out of pity for these poor creatures sleeping on the cold ground, huddled together to keep each other warm, I, one day, gave a hair mattress to a Sakai family.

All of them took their places on it and slept soundly, but in the morning their bones ached so much that they gave me back my mattress in a hurry and without a single word of thanks.

And I could not blame them for this.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: A little more than five feet. Translator's Note.]

[Footnote 8: Let to-morrow take care of itself If to-day is ours to enjoy.]

[Footnote 9: The latter is a sort of acorn which keeps good for a long time. When pounded into an oily paste it is not altogether disagreeable to the taste.]



CHAPTER X.

The Sakai woman—Conjugal fidelity—A life of labour—Betrothals and nuptials—Love among the Sakais—Divorcement—No kissing— Chastity—Bigamy—Maternity and its excesses—Aged before the time—Fashion and coquetry.

Woman, who has been compared to nearly every sort of animal that flies, creeps, swims or runs by poets and others of chivalrous sentiments, amongst the Sakais is simply a woman. In speaking of her those good sons of the East neither calumniate the dove nor the gazelle, and they do not slander the tiger and the snake but when they are inclined to praise her charms they do so with affection and brevity And this is not to be wondered at when one considers that the female sex in the jungle, although not beautiful to our taste (but very much so according to the Sakay criterion) is good, laborious and incorruptible. These three virtues, if they were better known in our parts would spare poor, suffering humanity a great deal of prose, as well as poetry, without the least damage to Art.

It is for this reason that the savages in the Malay States have always considered, and still consider, the Woman as the faithful companion of their life and as the mother of their children. They have never imputed to her the sin committed by Eve, which in other countries, where ever so little of Sacred History is known, has made her the butt of every insulting, sarcastic and opprobrious term. They have never discussed, as at the Macon council, the probability of a woman having a soul or not; what little is necessary to harmonize with their own they have recognized without any argument and they have found it in the care and affection shown towards her dear ones and in her unswerving faithfulness.

Amongst these uncivilized people there are no chivalrous traditions, it is true, but neither have their women been driven to seek emancipation, because, sharing with perfect equality the rights of the men, none remain for them to claim, and they have no wrongs to revenge!



The men, for their part, never dream of what Demosthenes said of the corrupt Athenians of his time, words which are repeated and acted upon by some of our leading men in this the twentieth century: "We marry a woman to have legitimate children and to possess a faithful housekeeper; we keep concubines and pay harlots for our convenience and for the enjoyments of love".

* * * * *

As I say, among the Sakais the one sex is not the slave of the other. They live in perfect harmony. The male is considered the head of the family, although there is nothing to be administered or directed and the female shows herself sufficiently deferential towards him, but the custom does not exist among them that one should passively submit to a will with which his, or her own does not agree.

The man provides food by hunting in the forest, fishing, gathering fruit and cultivating a little land around; the woman helps him in the work of agriculture, sometimes follows him into the jungle, prepares his meals and attends to other domestic duties. She looks well after her children and is very jealous of them. When they are too little to walk she straps them to her back with long strips of bark, resting their legs upon her hips.

This burden does not prevent her from moving about and working. If they go for a long march the parents take turns in carrying the child.

As soon as a boy reaches the age of six seasons (6 years) he passes from his mother's to his father's guardianship and under the latter's guidance begins to make trips into the forest where he catches insects, picks up fruit and bulbs, learns, little by little, to handle the blow-pipe and to take part in the hunting and fishing as well as to distinguish poisons and assist in their extraction.

This is the educational period of the little Sakai.

The girl, on the contrary, remains with her mother and is taught to help in household (?) work, doing her part with a good will and cheerful temper.

She goes with her mother to plant and pull up potatoes and yams, to gather fire-wood, and fill the bamboo buckets with water; she learns to cook and take care of the little ones.

Quite early she begins a life of great activity. Her arms are still weak and she can scarcely lift some of the weights allotted her, but they gradually become nerved for heavier ones.

Her fatiguing duties always increase, and yet as a little girl, a maiden, and also a woman she accepts it all with a light heart and is so contented with her hard life that I have often heard one of these good, laborious creatures declare that she was completely happy. How many ladies in civilized Europe and America would be prepared to make a similar avowal?

* * * * *

At about 15 years of age, when our girls are still in short dresses and are not always dignified by the term "young lady", the female Sakai is generally a wife.

From her infancy a baby-girl may be betrothed by her parents to some boy of another tribe. But if when the time comes to unite in matrimony the two young people engaged from babyhood, one no longer likes the other in the quality of a life-partner, they exchange a quiet gne (no) and the engagement is at a complete end.[10]

Neither one nor the other is offended at this refusal for they are of full accord that it is better not to be bound together unless the desire is mutual, as heartache and suffering would be the sure result.

Wonderful philosophy, in all its simplicity, that liberates the little Sakai world from an enormous number of martyrs, and sensational crimes.

The girl is left free in the choice of a husband. Of course advice is readily given her, favourable or otherwise to the suitor, but nobody can compel her to wed a man she is not inclined to.

This total absence of coercion is no marvel, however, for in the forest there are no fortune-hunters, dowries being unknown, and there are no Dianas to join in the chase after a rent-roll. There is no ambition with regard to title, position or lineage because all are equal. They are human creatures, made in the same form and invested with the same right of living. There is no difference of blood amongst them for it is always red.

* * * * *

The young Sakai that wishes to form a family, accompanied by some near relations (grandfather, father or brothers) leaves his own village and goes to a more distant encampment.

It often happens that hunger, dusk, or some other circumstance determines this Pilgrim of Love and his companions, to stop at one hut rather than another.

They enter, as is their custom, without saying a word; they sit down on their heels and eat what is offered them.

In the meantime the young man looks about him and carefully eyes the girls, should there be any and if there is one that pleases him he points her out to one of his companions who immediately rises and tells the fortunate damsel what his relative desires.

The young woman, when she does not utter a curt gne, murmurs, "Eh! eh! ngot" (Yes, I am willing), a phrase which seems a hiccough but is not.

Then the gallant youth draws near the girl and offers her a necklace of glass beads, and, if he has any, some brass wire to make bracelets, receiving in exchange from his future bride a quid or two of betel.

Without any delay the father of the girl and that of the young man, or some one who represents them, commence the more prosaic part of the business, that is: they decide upon the sort of presents that the bridegroom must give the parents and sisters of his spouse on the wedding-day, to compensate them for the girl he is taking away.

They discuss if the gifts must consist of only one earthen-ware cooking-pot (an article of luxury in the jungle where bamboo utensils are in common use) instead of two, and if a pair of parangs (woodcutter's knives) should be added; then there must be some coloured beads, brass wire and perhaps even a piece of bright coloured calico.

These very important matters being settled, the wedding-day is fixed, after which the affianced couple part without either tears or sighs, the young man returning with his relations to their own habitation.

The great day comes.

The bridegroom accompanied by all the men of his family and by some of the women, betakes himself to the far-off hut of the bride, carrying with him the promised gifts.

There is a large gathering of Sakais from every part, because joys and pains, plenty and famine are equally and fraternally shared by them.

The Elder gets up and says in a loud voice:

"Hearken! hearken, all you who are here assembled: they who were at a distance are now together; they who were separate are now united".

The bridal couple then take each other tenderly by the hand, and some rice is presented to them upon a leaf. The woman takes up a few grains and puts them into the mouth of her husband and then they both partake of that light, symbolical repast from the same leaf. The nuptial ceremony finishes here, without the intervention of Ala or any sort of ecclesiastical or civil authority. How they are to be envied!

A banquet immediately follows and the company cram down everything that they find eatable. The menu consists of every sort of edible article known in the Sakai cuisine, and when they have stuffed themselves to their utmost, they dance, sing and draw from their instruments the sharpest notes that ever rent the human ear whilst the furious beating of bamboos give out the sound of wooden bells. Terminated in this way the wedding festival, the newly-made husband and wife return, with the relations of the former, to their own group of huts, where a new one, a nest of love, has been prepared for them.

* * * * *

Love among the Sakais never becomes a passion or a delirium. It is a quiet calm sentiment, a physiological necessity such as the good soul of Schopenhauer interpreted it, to the great scandal of a certain class of lovers.

Men and women are united from a feeling of cordial sympathy, by a spontaneous act of their own wills which would never suffer the least restraint.

No personal or family interest suggests or determines the important step. The only thing that may be said to inspire love (and bring about a marriage) in the jungle is that supreme and inviolable law of nature for the conservation of the species.

But what is to be admired in the unions of these good, simple people is the fidelity which follows them throughout life.

The Sakais are not, I repeat, very ardent spirits, nor are they excessive in sacrificing to Venus perhaps because sensual satisfaction arrives when physiological development imposes it, instead—as too often happens in civilized society, with great damage to morality and race—of after a long and wearisome vigil, always waiting for financial conditions to permit the formation of a family.

It is a fact to be noted that neither the men nor the women feel drawn toward other than their rightful partner, which naturally contributes a great deal in maintaining faithfulness between the two.

Sometimes, but very rarely, one may find a couple whose difference of character renders cohabitation impossible.

There are no scenes of fury, no violent quarrels and, still less, no reciprocal blows.

The two interested parties merely declare that his or her heart suffers too much from a life of such perpetual misunderstandings and they decide to part good friends, hoping to find better luck next time.

They will then separate with the best and most sincere wishes for each other's future happiness.

The woman only takes away with her the youngest of her children who have most need of her care, leaving those over six years of age to the father, and she returns to her own place where she is affectionately received.

She often finds another husband, even in the first days of her separation; her new companion adopts her little ones and considers them as his, after which the relationship with their real father is annulled.

* * * * *

Divorce, as is here seen, is performed without the intervention of others. The Sakais are as free to marry as they are to part when they find that they cannot live in peace and quietness. They attribute to the heart the same impulse of union as of separation. It is then Sentiment that takes the form of Law amongst them and regulates their acts. How much it is to be deplored that a similar law is not recognized in civilized countries, where that imposed by legislature creates so many unhappy beings and provocates so many tragedies and so much infamy.



And yet, in spite of this facility in obtaining a divorce, there are very few who recur to it, a circumstance that ought to have weight with those persons who fight furiously against a measure so conducive to the real defence of the family, defence in the sense that its condition and functions would be improved without the crushing and suppression of those rights (by a prejudice that is made to pass as a religious precept) which the soul itself asserts.

Nowadays the holy state of matrimony is viewed by the majority with sceptical diffidence, almost as an abyss that swallows up freedom, energy, scruples of honour, morality, will and every kindliness of sentiment that has survived the shipwreck of many hopes and illusions.

Among the Sakais no such feeling prevails. The men voluntarily bind their own existence to that of a woman and sanctify their new state with the sincere virtues of fidelity and chastity.

But—these virtues belong to savages and I am a savage to speak of them!

Let me then, briefly finish up the argument. Divorce cases are rare because they are almost exclusively based upon incompatibility of temper or persistent sterility.

Neither the man nor the woman can reconcile themselves to stay without children; if their union is without fruit there is no longer need for them to live together.

In an exceptional case it sometimes happens that the two parties do not agree over a divorce, in which circumstance the decision is left to the Elder who pronounces a sentence without the possibility of appeal.

The immediate consequence of an annulled matrimony is the return of the presents given by the husband to the family of the wife. The latter at once abandons the tribe to which she belonged after her marriage and becomes a stranger to those who, a short time before, were her closest relations.

This is not the end of a love-dream but the calm and reasonable decision of two beings who, finding that their characters do not agree and that they no longer feel pleasure in each other's company, are not sufficiently cruel towards themselves and their better or worse halves (as the case may be) as to simulate and continue a union which renders them unhappy.

In our parts the question of divorced people's children serves as a weighty argument to the opposers of divorce and gives to its partisans a difficult problem to study. To the Sakais the solution is easy enough. The age of the children decides with whom they have to remain, and those left to the father's charge are taken care of by the womenfolk around, who from a pure impulse of maternity and without any hope of reward, treat them with motherly tenderness. It is as though their mother was dead and their natural female guardians become the sisters or mother of the father. In default of these close relations the man is free to contract a second marriage at once, his term of mourning being condoned.

Any way, the little ones always become the object of affectionate interest to all the women of the village.

* * * * *

The Sakai people do not kiss each other. They know neither the kiss of Judas nor that of Romeo. They express their sympathy and love by some rough fondling or the scratching of each other's nose, neck or chin.

Yonder, in the jungle, there are no poets, novelists, dramatists or painters; a new (and original) field would here be opened to the excellence of their arts. Can you not imagine, kind reader, how irresistible the effect would be if, at the most passionate point of their love scenes, instead of "their trembling lips meeting in a thrilling kiss" the hero and heroine were to furiously scratch each other's noses?

Although, now and then, in the interest of true Art, it might be a good thing for some of our pseudo artists to go to that distant land in search of strong inspirations that would, at least, increase the glory of common sense in civilized places, I would certainly not advise them to emigrate into the Malay forest for it would be like condemning them to death by starvation as there they would find no sort of tool or material with which to do their work. There are no suicides, murders, robberies, adultery, coveted legacies and suppressed wills, forgeries, lost women and illegitimate children, there are no alcohol drinkers, opium eaters etc.

It would be utterly impossible for even a "Sherlock Holmes" to satisfy the cravings of appetite if he had been created in those parts.

But let us return to my good friends the savages after this involuntary ramble.

* * * * *

The Sakais manifest their love and gallantry by scratching nose, chin or neck but when they want to express a milder sentiment, such as sincere affection or friendship, they do so by a smile, at the same time embracing each other.

I have sometimes noticed both men and women, when far from their other halves, indulge in a few caresses and a little nose-scratching, as also young men not engaged, but I can affirm with the fullest certainty that these demonstrations of tenderness go no further; they finish where they begin.

It may seem strange, but it is true. Both sexes are in continual contact. In the cold nights they will all sleep close together to keep themselves warm and yet nothing wrong results from this promiscuous proximity.

As I have already said, chastity is a natural virtue among the Sakais, and even that which relates to legitimate love is veiled in a coy mystery. Neither the male or the female are given to sexual caprices.

If a young man should happen to be in love with a girl before he can handle his blowpipe with dexterity and profit, or is able to procure the wedding presents prescribed by habit, he will perhaps persuade his sweetheart to meet him in the forest.

It is extremely seldom that any harm comes to the girl through such an appointment, because it is not in their character to give way to lust, but should this occur, and the fact become known, a marriage is arranged without any loss of time. The woman who will not consent to a matrimony with her lover or who is known to have been on intimate terms with more than one young man is held in great disdain by the rest of her people.

There are very few spinsters to be found in these tribes but those who do remain in the single state owe it to some moral or physical defect. Such persons live with their nearest relations.

Polygamy is never thought of by the Sakais but bigamy is not an absolute exclusion although it very rarely takes place because as soon as a woman sees that her husband is enamoured of another she is the first to propose a divorce and no recriminations follow her suggestion.

"Your heart" she says "suffers with me, when with her it would be glad. Well, then, let us separate for I feel that I could not live happily with another wife of yours".

Should a woman, however, be contented to share the nuptial bed with a rival you may be quite sure that the very best harmony would reign in that menage a trois.

* * * * *

The Sakai women are born with the instinct of maternity and will never renounce nursing their own babes unless scarcity of milk or a weak constitution compels them to do so. These exceptions are, however extraordinarily rare and they are at the height of their pride when their little ones are drawing life and strength from their breasts.[11]

There are very few cases of complete sterility or excessive fecundity amongst them. Hardly ever does a woman have more than four or five children.

She nurses and takes care of them with great tenderness, delighted at seeing them grow strong and healthy.

Children are weaned at from seven months (reckoned roughly by the moon) to two years of age (two seasons of fruit) but generally when they are about a year old (one season).

The first food given to the baby is a well-cooked pap made with a certain bulb and the tender leaves of a little plant whose names I do not remember.

When the little fellow has become accustomed to his new food (whether he likes it or not) or begins to babble a word or two, he is given a name that usually recalls the place where he was born, some particular event of the moment or the way he may have of making use of a word often, or of pronouncing it badly.

* * * * *

The good-heartedness and maternal kindness of the Sakai woman is extended even to young animals that have been deprived of their mother. They will adopt them and bring them up with the same care they bestow upon their own children or human orphans.

One day a she-boar was caught in a trap, and, as a matter of course, was cooked and eaten, but soon after a litter, belonging to the victim, was found and the tiny beasts, only just born, were taken and nursed by the women of the village.

I once saw a big boar that followed a Sakai tribe with wonderful docility even allowing the children to play tricks upon it; it had been brought up by the women.

I have also seen rats, that have been reared by these foster-mothers, go backwards and forwards from the hut at their will, and I remember that one night when I had taken shelter in one of these cabins and had selected a particular corner for my night's rest, the dark lady of the house, without raising any objection to my choice, warned me that during the night a rat would return to repose in the same spot and begged me not to do any harm to the poor thing, as he was one of the family, but to call her if it gave me any disturbance.

In fact I was fast asleep when some warm fur softly caressed me, and waking up I understood that the dissolute rodent—almost bigger than a cat—had returned home in the small hours, just as if he had been provided with a latch-key.

I hastily called the woman who tenderly took it up and carried it away to sleep with her.

It was an adopted child!

Is not this the acme of maternal feeling? And does it not approach foolishness?

* * * * *

The birth, and subsequent suckling, of her first child put an end to the grace and bloom of a Sakai woman.



She fulfils with incomparable zeal the functions confided to her by Nature, but as she has, at the same time, to attend to the heavy duties allotted her by man she becomes over-worked and worn-out with excessive fatigue.

When thirty years old she looks almost as old and withered as one of our hard-worked countrywomen does at fifty, and the poor creature cannot in any way conceal this premature falling off because of—the extreme lightness of her attire.

"The tailor tree of our great father Adam" has no leaves for the inhabitants of the jungle, for both male and female only wear a strip of bark (well beaten to render it flexible) wound round the body and fastened on the hips.

That worn by the men never exceeds four inches in breadth, but the women use lists of from six to eight inches wide. Another piece of bark-cloth is passed between the legs and tied, in front and behind, to this belt.

The women, although daughters of the forest, are not without a certain amount of coquetry and will often decorate their girdles with flowers or medicinal and sweet-smelling herbs, but they never think of making a chaste veil of large leaves with which to cover those parts of their persons that ought to be kept secret from the public gaze.

The costume that they are wearing in the photographs was prepared by me in order to present these ochre-coloured Eves to my readers in a more decent state, or rather, a little more in accordance with what civilized society requires, because "to the pure all things are pure" and in my opinion the perfect innocence in which these women go about naked is preferable to that consciousness of their natural form which leads so many of our society ladies and other females, to resort to artificial means that they may deceive their admirers, and gain a name for beauty.

The men, too, are even to be envied, for in the total absence of nether-garments their better-halves can never claim "to wear the trousers" as sometimes happens amongst us.

Necklaces are very much worn by Sakai girls and women. They are made of beads (which are considered the most elegant) serpents' teeth, animals' claws, shells, berries or seeds.

The men, instead, finish off their toilet by loading their wrists with bracelets. These are of brass-wire, bamboo or akar batu which it is believed preserves them from the fever.

Their faces are always disfigured by coloured stripes or hieroglyphics.

They have not the custom of wearing rings through their noses but only a little bamboo stick that is supposed to have the virtue of keeping off I don't exactly know what sort of malady or spirit.

The mother bores a hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly, without closing. Afterwards she passes through a light piece of this reed.

The same operation is made upon the ears, which from being generally well-shaped, become deformed, as the hole through the lobe has to be very large. It is not sufficient to pierce the tissue with a quill; a little bamboo cane has to be at once inserted; the day after a larger one is substituted and so on until it is possible to hang from the ears pendants made of bamboo and ornamented with flowers, leaves and perhaps even cigarettes.

A strip of upas bark twisted round the head bestows the finishing touch to the Sakais' toilet. Happy people! They have no tailor's, dressmaker's or milliner's bills to pay!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: Gne would be pronounced in English as neay. Translator's Note.]

[Footnote 11: In chapter XIV speaking of the superstitions of this people I have mentioned those which refer to the birth of a child and the strange ideas they have concerning this event.]



CHAPTER XI.

A Sakai village—The "elder"—The family—Degrees of relationship—Humorists disoccupied—On the march—Tender hearts—Kindling the fire—A hecatomb of giants—The hut—Household goods and utensils—Work and repose.

A real village, such as we understand it to be, does not exist among the Sakais, but I have been obliged to make use of the word for want of a better one to explain the meaning. Each hut is some hundreds of yards distant from the other so that altogether a village covers an area of from twenty to forty miles. Nearly always the boundaries of village territory are marked by secondary water-courses (the true Sakais never encamp near a navigable river) which give their names to the people living round the shores.

Only the width of a brook or torrent divides two of these settlements that I have called villages, therefore the distance is much less than that lying between the two extremities of a single village.

And yet, beyond being on neighbourly and friendly terms, they have nothing to do with each other, for one Sakai tribe does not like mixing with another and will not recognize any tone of authority, or receive any word of advice unless proceeding from a close relation, and even then it must be given in the form of fatherly counsel or affectionate exhortation otherwise the person to whom it is addressed would probably leave his own people, not to have further annoyance from them, and go to live among his wife's kinsfolk.

The inhabitants of a village are all one family, belonging to the first, second, third and even fourth generation for they are all descended from the same old man, who is called the "Elder" and who is regarded with esteem and consideration by everybody.

It is he who acts as magistrate or arbitrator in any dispute or quarrel (that very rarely takes place) amongst his offspring and the sentence pronounced by him is rigorously respected. It is he, too, who selects the spot for a clearing when, as often happens, the Sakais change their place of encampment, forming their village in quite another part of the forest.

Besides this he has nothing else to do, unless he is still able to work.

The Elders of the various villages are upon a perfect footing of cordiality and never incite to or permit the shedding of blood, or even a conflict between their tribes.

If upon the death of an Elder there happens to be two or more brothers still living the oldest one succeeds him, and should any misunderstanding eventually arise between them, or should the number of those composing the village become too great, the other emigrates to a far off corner of the forest, followed by all the families which are, in a direct line, closely related to him, thus forming the nucleus of a new Sakai village which never exceeds a few hundreds of inhabitants.

In the plains, however, a great many families may be found living together in the same village, sometimes even to three thousand persons.

But it is not here that one is able to study and observe the habits and customs of the genuine Sakais.

Notwithstanding the practice of living in groups, one family isolated from the other, fraternity of race is very profoundly felt and if to-morrow a common danger should be menaced they would all unite like one man to resist and overcome it, besides being always ready to help each other in time of need.

* * * * *

Not many degrees of relationship are recognized by the Sakai.

The male and female children of the same father and mother are considered, as with us, brothers and sisters, but also the sons and daughters of brothers (who among us would only be cousins) are classed the same and call all their uncles "father".

That established for the descendants of females is quite different, and this is natural because the girls of one village marry into another.

The children of a woman are supposed to bear no relationship to those of their mother's brothers and very little attention is paid to that which exists between them and their uncles.

Sisters' children are considered brothers instead of cousins, and the aunts are all called mothers, even when they live in other villages.

The wives of brothers call themselves sisters and are known by the name of "mother" by their nephews and nieces but sisters' husbands have no claim to relationship, other than that of cordial friendship.

Grandchildren give the title of "father" also to their grandfather and great-grandfather and that of "mother" to their grandmother so that these two words which have such a sacred significance to us, to the Sakais are but common appellations.

No tie whatever exists between the parents of the husband and those of the wife and neither between the latter (the father and mother of the wife) and their sons-in-law. They are only upon simple friendly terms.

Humourists who are fond of exercising their wit upon the eternal mother-in-law question would find no ground for their jokes among this people.

The daughter-in-law, on the contrary, recognizes her husband's parents as her own father and mother.

This does not, however, prevent her from still feeling and cherishing a fond affection for those who are nearest to her in blood and who were the authors of her being.

She goes very often to see them and is welcomed with great joy. At parting they give her good wishes and advice.

"Go, follow thy husband!".

"Take care not to fall by the way!".

"Abor!".

"Abor!".

As far as I know there are no other relations acknowledged by the Sakais who dwell on the forest heights, beyond these I have mentioned and even these are reduced to four names: father, mother, sister and brother. It is very difficult, though, to get information about the bonds of kinship.

Judging from the youthful age at which they marry and have children and assuming that the greatest age which they reach is that of 60 years old (a calculation purely by guess as it is impossible to ascertain precisely) it may be said that every village is populated by the second, third, fourth and even fifth generation of the same people.



In fact, establishing the date of his first paternity at 16 years old, it is evident that at 32 a Sakai may be a grandfather, at 48 a great-grandfather and at 64 a great-great-grandfather.

The closer and more direct the relationship the stronger is their affection.

The tenderest love that a Sakai can bestow is poured out upon his son, especially when the child is little, but gradually, with the passing of years, and the formation of new families around, the warmth of this attachment somewhat cools down, perhaps because there is no longer any need of his care.

* * * * *

Kind reader, I have introduced you (as best I could) to my good friends of the Malay forest; I have made you know their virtues and their defects, their habits and their family ties and now I should like you to follow with me the little tribe marching from one end of their territory to the other in order to fix upon a new dwelling-place.

The long procession moves along without any order whatever. Everybody carries something that they did not want to leave behind in the abandoned village. The very little children are fastened to their mother's backs, the others caper merrily round the women, and the old people walk slowly on, sometimes leaning on their sticks.

All the men and the youths are armed with their deadly cane and poisoned arrows.

Several dogs—not unlike little setters—escort the company and give the alarm when danger threatens. With them, in friendly intimacy, are monkeys, squirrels and tame wild-boars, while fowls cackle in the dossers where they have been put for fear of being lost in the jungle.

This is an emigrating tribe. Are they then taking a long journey that they are so well provided with food?

Such a supposition would be erroneous. Those fowls, boars, squirrels and monkeys are not a reserve stock of provisions for the travelling Sakais but are their friends and companions, brought up by them with kind care and which are considered as a part of the family.

A Sakai never eats an animal that he has reared; it would seem to him to commit a crime. He uses the fowls, however (which are a trifle smaller than those in Europe) as a means of exchange for tobacco, rice and other articles but he would never eat one himself unless reduced to the verge of starvation.

How different to civilized persons who breed animals and poultry on purpose to devour them, who fatten fowls in coops, cruelly convert cockrels into appetizing capons, peg geese to the ground that their liver may supply an extra dainty for the table and protect the poetic love of pigeons in order to cook their little ones!

Oh, yes! we protect animals, even the birds that fly wild in the woods, we surround them with attention, we make laws in their favour, why? for what? That we may have the pleasure of eating them!

* * * * *

A halt is called. The Elder, assisted by some of the men inspect the site to see if in its vicinity there are any sort of flowers or birds of ill-omen. If any such are discovered the journey is continued but if there are none they begin at once to kindle a fire.



A little bamboo reed is taken and a hole made in it through which is passed a towy substance found upon palm-trees and known by the name of lulup among the Malays. Round this reed is wound two or three times a long piece of very flexible Indian cane and he who has undertaken to light the fire now holds the two ends of the latter, and pressing the bamboo hard with his foot, pulls first one and then the other, sharply and rapidly.

The violent friction soon brings about combustion for the larger reed is heated to such a point that the tow ignites. Leaves and dry grasses are thrown on and the Elder watches the smoke.

If this goes up in a straight column the position is good, otherwise it is not a suitable one.

The decision having been made in this manner, work commences in right earnest and a febrile activity pervades the spot.

The men carefully observe in what direction the trees are inclined, and with a small axe (that cuts into the wood wonderfully well) they begin to chop round the roots of the smaller ones.

This done they attack one of the superb giants of the forest. With primitive, but not for that less practical, ladders made of bamboo, they ascend the tree they mean to fell, and after having planted some stout poles around it they construct an ingenious platform some yards from the ground.

Up there they again make use of their little, but terrible hatchet, which is pointed in shape and marvellously resistant. It is of a moderate size, scarcely measuring 8 inches in length, 4 in breadth and 2 in thickness. Firmly fixed on a pliant bamboo cane the blows given by it have marvellous force.

The Sakais of the mountain obtain this instrument (which is never used by them as a weapon of offence or defence) from their brethren of the plain who, in their turn, get it from the Malays by bartering.

When the preliminary work has been finished the huge tree is attacked (upon one side only) and its wood is soon reduced to chips under the terrific strokes which are repeated in rapid succession.

In the meantime nimble youths climb up the trunk and near the top tie two stout and very long Indian canes, letting the ends dangle to the ground. As soon as the tree gives the slightest sign of vacillation the men hurry down, grasp a rattan upon each side and with all their might, rhythmically and simultaneously, pull the vanquished colossus towards the other trees whose roots have been already recised.

The enormous tree, for a while, seems to withstand all their efforts, then begins to bend and sway, shaking as though seized by a fit of trembling; it totters for a minute or two and at last crashes down with awful violence, in its fall hurling to the ground the nearest ones that have been prepared on purpose, and these in their turn knock down those which are behind.

Everybody has fled to a safe place but are deafened for a time by the loud noise of falling trunks, broken boughs, the crackling of leaves and the snapping asunder of the thick masses of foliage that the creepers have woven amongst the branches. The turmoil is indescribable. Reptiles, birds, squirrels, insects frightened at the unexpected disaster are moving wildly about in search of shelter, filling the air with their cries and buzz.

Through the gap made in the green roof of the forest the sun enters triumphantly and illuminates the prostrate forms of the gigantic victims (lying about like Cyclopses fulminated by the ire of Jupiter) that ever and anon still give convulsive starts at the breaking of some huge bough in under that can no longer bear their tremendous weight.

The opening has been made; it must now be cleared out. The work continues with feverish haste; all take part in it.



One after the other trees are stripped and maimed and, with miracles of strength and ingenuity, are pushed away as far as possible in order to make with them a solid and reliable enclosure all round.

Before night comes, in the space thus prepared, rise groups of temporary huts, and large bon-fires burn.

Following the method here described, the Sakais in a few hours succeed in clearing the forest for several miles round.

The next day they begin afresh and go on until the clearing is big enough to contain the number of huts necessary, separated, as is the use, two or three hundred yards each one from the other.

These are immense breaches which are opened in the forest but the latter also is immense and does not suffer from this raid upon its land, the less so because with its amazing power of fecundity it will soon have covered anew with vegetable life the abandoned village of the wandering tribe.

* * * * *

The hut (dop) of the Elder is the centre around which all the others are erected.

To defend themselves against wild beasts and other animals, as well as against the humidity of marshy ground, the Sakais of the plain often build their huts either up a tree or suspended between stout poles.

But on the hills there is no necessity to do this and the rude habitation is constructed on the ground with green branches and leaves, the roof and walls being of such poor consistency that they do not afford the very least protection. Wild beasts, as a rule, never venture into open spaces and besides are kept afar by the glare of the fires but the inclemency of the climate on those heights would render a more substantial residence desirable for comfort.

There is no furniture or other sort of household goods in the Sakai's dop. His bed consists of dry leaves and the same bark they use for their waist-cloths, strewn upon the ground. Some of them possess a coverlet, worth only a few pence, but for which the poor creatures have paid its weight in gold by means of articles given in exchange. The majority have not even this.

The hearth is placed in the middle of the hut and is made of four pieces of wood surrounding and closing in a heap of earth.

Three stones placed upon this serve to sustain the cooking-pot.

As I have said, they have no tables, chairs, stools or cupboards, and also the inventory of their kitchen utensils is very short: one or two earthen-ware pots (when they have not these they use bamboo canes for cooking), a couple of roughly-made knives, a few basins composed of cocoanut shells, and some bamboo receptacles which officiate as bucket, bottle and glass. The ladle with which they distribute their food is also of cocoanut shell.

Their plates are... banana or other leaves, adapted for the purpose, that are thrown away after they have finished eating.

At the top of the hut are hung the blow-pipes, and well-filled quivers. They are kept there for a little heat to reach them, this being considered essential to the efficacy of the poisons.

Above these, twined amongst the green, are preserved strips of bark for a change of... dress when required, together with the Sakais' musical instruments which are never forgotten.



Such total poverty of shelter and chattels I think must be explained as cause and effect of the nomadic life these people live (although I should not know how to define the former from the latter) as well as the result of their indolence and the excessive simplicity of their wants.

If once the continual migrations, from one point of the forest to the other, could be prevented the huts would certainly be improved both in construction and adornment.

* * * * *

Round the hut a piece of ground is prepared for the cultivation of potatoes, yams and maize, but the harvest is very scanty, and the whole is frequently destroyed by the visit of a sladan. Here, too, the good-wife devotes a part of her time to fowl-breeding.

She, like all the Sakais, sleeps at her pleasure in the morning. As soon as she gets up, with the help of her daughters she prepares the morning meal and serves it out as she thinks proper without the slightest remark being heard as to the quality or quantity of the food given to each.

After breakfast every one goes about their own business; the men shooting, searching for poisons, or setting traps; the women and girls gathering tubers, bulbs and mushrooms, or catching insects, lizards and frogs, whilst the old people no longer able to go to the forest remain behind chewing tobacco or sirih and looking after the children.

Sunrise and sunset keep each other company!

Towards noon all who can, return to the village, those who cannot, after having eaten in the forest, squat themselves on the ground to rest. It is the solemn hour of silence and repose, observed by man and beast.

Only when the sun, from being right overhead, has begun to decline westward is the interrupted work or march resumed. At the first sign of twilight, which is very brief, the Sakais may be seen hastening back to their huts, on their return from labour or from other villages, where an abundant meal and ineffable peace awaits them.



CHAPTER XII.

Intellectual development—Sakais of the plain and Sakais of the hills—Laziness and intelligence—Falsehood and the Evil Spirit—The Sakai language—When the "Orang Putei" gets angry—Counting time—Novel calendars—Moral gifts.

Intellectual development amongst the Sakais of the hills is very limited and as a consequence requires little or no study but much more is to be met with amongst those of the plain for two reasons which I have already explained: one their traffic and consequent intercourse with more civilized races; and the other the mixture of blood from their parents' concubinage with strangers, thus destroying the purity of their own. After the establishment of the British Protectorate and the abolition of slavery in the Federated Malay States the Sakai men and women returned to their native places, the latter taking with them the children born of their masters and the former entered into business relations with their quondam owners by the exchange of forest products for trifles of little or no value.

This explains why in the tribes dwelling on the plains we meet with certain cunning and malicious intents which are in strange contrast with their primitive ingenuity and sincerity. But although in comparison to their brethren of the mountains they might and do pass for artful, they themselves are continually cheated and deceived by their more skilful neighbours who barter inferior qualities of tobacco, iron, calico and other trash, worth nothing, for real treasures in rattan, cane, rubber, poisons, fruit and fishing gear which the Sakai of the plain is very clever in making.

Notwithstanding this sharpening of their intellect due to sojourn amongst their more astute neighbours or to the inheritance of insincerity, theirs by birth when born in exile, they are not yet capable of understanding what profit they might make by exciting competition between their covetous barterers, and the latter, each one for self-interest, are very careful not to open the eyes of those who are so ready to let themselves be cheated. Moreover, the ill-treatment to which they were once subjected, and the imperfect knowledge they still have of what the British Protectorate means, renders them timid and too much afraid of these rapacious merchants to dare resent, in any way, the prepotence which damages them.

In spite of the corruption which has infected them from their companionship or relationship with corrupted people the Sakai of the plain still preserves some of his original goodness and uprightness. Only too well it may be said that once he has rid himself of these moral encumbrances which leave him defenceless in the hands of the unscrupulous he will have taken a new step towards civilization but there will be two virtues the less in his spiritual patrimony.

* * * * *

The Sakai who has taken refuge in the hilly part of the forest in order to escape from the influences of Civilization which may now be said to beset him on all sides, still preserves and defends the original purity of his race.

His intellectual development is inferior to that of his brother living in the plain because he keeps himself alien to everything that might effect his physical laziness and the utter inertia of his brain.

He lives because the forest gives him abundant food, and he lives idly, immersed in innumerable superstitions that Ala (the sorcerer) enjoins him to always preserve intact.

If, quite suddenly, a change should come in the life and conditions of these Sakais they would never be able to adapt themselves to a different regime until after extreme suffering and sacrifice had strewn the new path with many victims.

And yet, in spite of all, I believe him to be endowed with a fair amount of intelligence, dormant for the present, but susceptible of development when once awakened and with great patience he has, by slow degrees (almost imperceptibly) been taught to overcome his strange fears and to lose those curious ideas concerning life which the old forest philosopher revealed to me.

I say "almost imperceptibly"—as for some years I have been doing myself—that no suspicions may be raised and that Ala may have no cause to rebel against the introduction of modern sentiments by outsiders who insinuate themselves into the tribe, persons whom he does not view with benevolent eyes, especially if they are white. This sort of priest obstinately opposes every element of progress and obliges his people to do the same.



I have my reasons for believing in the latent intelligence of the mountain Sakai as I have noticed in him a great facility in imitating sounds, movements and even the way of doing things and also of learning and remembering what he has been taught or has seen. I have perceived in him, too, a pronounced rectitude of judgment and a remarkable sharpness of observation when his superstitious terrors do not throw a veil over his mind.

But he is incorrigibly lazy and will not engage in any kind of work that requires fatigue unless it be by his own spontaneous will. The spirit of independence within him is so profound and indomitable as to induce him perhaps to renounce a benefit to himself for fear of obtaining it through satisfying the desire of another.

He is also very touchy; a harsh word or an impatient gesture is enough to offend him.

In compensation he is hospitable, generous, sincere and averse to falseness and intrigue. If sometimes he tells a lie he does so from the dread of an imaginary or possible evil which might otherwise befall him or his, as for instance when somebody he does not know asks his name or seeks information about his place of abode. In such a case the Sakai, with something like childish impudence, will give a fictitious name or information quite contrary to the truth because he is convinced that every stranger brings with him an evil spirit to let loose upon the person or place he seeks, and that by not saying the truth he tricks both the man and the spirit that cannot injure him as he is not the person declared.

As can be seen, this their way of reasoning does not lack a certain ingenuity which leads one to think that the poor things' brains might be educated to more agility in thinking and understanding.

Unfortunately the means are very scarce for making new impressions upon the grey matter enclosed in the bony case of their thoughtless pates. The first difficulty to be met with is the incredible poverty of their language which impedes the communication and development of an idea.

I endeavour to remedy this deficiency by employing English words and phrases because this is the official language in the Protected Malay States, and the British Government wishes to make it popular.

The Sakais catch the meaning and make use of the terms the same as they often learn a word in Italian or Genoese that I sometimes utter when speaking to myself.

I remember well, one day, that in a moment of irritation about something that did not go right, I exclaimed "Sacramento" (I apologize to those who know what a naughty word it is).

My little servant boy who was present looked at me frightened, then began to cry and darted away as if mad, although he had nothing to do with my bad temper.

Well, what do you think? Now it has passed amongst the Sakai boys that when the Orang Putei gets angry he says "Sacramento!". And they repeat the oath with all the emphasis and air of a trooper, yet I had not taught them it nor should I have wished them to learn the exclamation.

* * * * *

The Sakai language is, as I have said, very poor indeed, so much so that it is impossible to form a long phrase or keep up the most simple conversation because there are no means of connecting the various words one with the other.

An idea is expressed by a single word or perhaps by three or four together so that it requires a great deal of practice, attention and also a special study of the mimicry which accompanies and explains these terse vocal sounds, to enable one to follow out the thought.



Their vocabulary is soon exhausted for it is composed only of those words which are strictly necessary to make known their daily wants, the necessity of defence and their superstitious feelings. They refuse to adopt any of those expressions that their brethren of the plain have learnt from other races, considering them as impure and perilous as the people themselves. This is an implacable application of the maxim "timeo danaos et dona ferentes" by folks who do not understand Latin and who ignore the existence of the Greeks but who know thoroughly well their stranger neighbours.

It is therefore vain to seek among the Sakais those poetical metaphors and that flowery, figurative style of speech which is attributed by us to all Orientals without distinction.

I am not a student or professor of glottology, contenting myself with being able to speak one or two languages without troubling my head over their origin, so I dare not judge upon the affinity more or less remote of the not too sweet Sakai idioms with others, but there seemed to me such a marked difference between the Malay and Sakai phraseologies that I should have declared them to be absolutely distinct one from the other.

However, the recent studies of the German, W. Schmidt, and the more profound ones of the Italian, A. Trombetti, have proved that all the tongues spoken by the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula as well as those to be heard in the neighbouring isles are in connection with each other.

The most part of the words used by the Sakais are of only one syllable, polysyllables being very rare, and the way in which these accents are shot out from the lips would make a foreigner decide at once that the best method of translating their talk would be by a volley of shots.

* * * * *

For the curious and the studious I have here added a short list of the words commonly used amongst the Sakais but as their language is totally exempt from every rule of orthography I have tried as well as I can to give a phonetic interpretation of the same.

Arm — glahk

Arrow — grog

" (poisoned) — grog mahng tshegrah'

" (not poisoned) — grog pe' m tshegrah

Bamboo — annahd'

Banana — tellah'e

Betelnut — blook

Bird — chep

Body — brock

Born — egoy (alphabetical sound of e)

Blow-pipe — blahoo'

Brother — tennah'

" (elder) — tennah' bop

" (younger) — manang se ne (e sounded as in met, men)

Child — kennon

Cigarette — rocko

Come soon — hawl aghit (a as in father)

Cover — tshenkop

Day — e eah top

Dead — daht

Death — daht

Dog — chaw

Ear — garetook

Earth — in noos

Evening — danwee

Evil — ne' ghne' e' (alphabetical sound of e)

Eye — maht

Father — abbay', abboo', appah'

" (in-law) — tennah' amay

Fear — sayoo neot

Female — knah

Fish — kah

Flute — tshinelloi

Foe — pay kabaad

Foot — jehoo

Forest — dahraht

Fowl — poo

Fruit — pla'

Good — bawr

Good-bye — abbawr

Hail — tayho oontoy

Hand — tahk

Harm — ne', ghne' e' (like evil)

Head — kovey

Heart — noos

Hen — poo

Hill — loop

Hot — baykahk

Hunger — chewahr

Husband — care lore

Hut — dop

Illness — nigh

Leaf — slah

Leg — kaymung

Lightning — bled

Malay — my gope

Male — crahl

Man — sing no

Mandoline — krob

Mangosteen — play semmetah

Many — jeho e

Medicine — penglie (ie as in lie)

Moon — ghecheck

Monkey — dak

" (with long tail) — raoh

Mouth — eneoong

Morning — pawr

Mother — amay, kennen, kenung

" (in-law) — tennah abbay

Mountain — lot, loop

Night — sin oar

No — pay neay'

Noon — dahjis

Nose — moh

Old — din grah

One — nahnaw

People — my

Plain — barrow

Pond — tebbahov

Poison — chingrah

Quiver — lock

Rage — roh

Rain — mahny

Rat — hay loy

Rice — bah

River — tayhoo

Season — moosin

Sing — jeoolah

Sister — kaynah

" (elder) — taynah kaynah

" (younger) — mennang kaynah

Sky — sooey

Sleep — bet bet

Slumber — n' tahk

Snake — teegee

Sorcerer — ahlah

Spirit — ghenigh nee

" (Evil) — ahtoo

Star — pearloy

Storm — poss

Sun — mahjis

Thunder — nghoo

Thunder-bolt — nahkoo

Tiger — mah moot, mah noos

Tobacco — bahkoo

Tree — jehoo oo

Two — nahr

Valley — wawk

Water — tayhoo

" for drinking — " engot

Wedding — ba' kaynah

Wife — kay el

Wild boar — loo

Will, wish, want — engot

Wind — poy

Woman — knah, caredawl

Yes — aye ay.[12]

* * * * *

This poor language that seems to be composed of short coughs does not even lose its roughness in song, if I may so term the musical (?) sounds that proceed from the Sakais' mouths, because real songs they have none. They are accustomed, however, to improvise something of the sort in which they always allude to facts of the day but as there is nobody to collect these fragments of extemporaneous ballads they disappear from the world of memories as quickly as they have been put together.

It is for this that all my endeavours have been in vain to find amongst them some song transmitted from father to son which by referring to an event more or less remote might serve as a clue to the legends or history of this mysterious people. But nothing of the kind exists and not even in talking can they narrate anything farther, back than three or four generations. They could not tell you if the sun and the forest were in existence before their great-grandfather lived. One cannot wonder much at this, though, when it is known that these poor inhabitants of the wildest parts of the jungle can scarcely reckon beyond three and have no means of counting time.

With them the first three numbers are not followed by a series of others which always increase by one but from neer (three) it is rare that they pass to neer nahno (three one) jumping instead to neer neer (three three), and by this addition they express number six. They use the words neer neer nahno for seven and then jump again to neer neer neer which means nine.

When a birth, a death or any other event takes place which requires the exact period of seven days for the accomplishment of certain ceremonies according to their habit, the Sakai takes a strip of reed or rattan (splitting it into parts to make it flexible) with which he ties two groups of three knots each and a single one apart. Every day he undoes one of these knots and so knows when the time prescribed is finished.

If you ask him whether it would not be better for him to learn to count at least as far as seven, a number that for one thing or another is frequently necessary in his life, he answers you invariably:

"We know nothing. Our fathers did so and we too will do the same without being too fantastical".

Thus we see that the saying: "My father did so", may be an inveterate enemy of arithmetic whilst it establishes a close relationship between those who in civilized society put it into practice and the savages dwelling on the heights of Perak.

The Sakai renounces all attempts at counting more than nine, and his total abstention from commercial persuits permits him to spare his brain this fatigue.



Returning from a day's shooting, if they have had luck, my good friends do not trouble themselves much over counting the heads of game they have brought home. They will perhaps begin by placing their victims in groups of neer (three) until they amount to three threes but should the number exceed nine they simply declare them to be jeho e (many) and do not care about knowing anything more precise as they are satisfied at the fact that they, and any of their relations who like to partake of the feast, can live upon game until it is all finished.

Many times I have amused myself by asking a prolific father or mother how many children they had. My friends would get as far as three but then becoming confused would beg me to count them for myself, and their offspring had to pass in front of me whilst they called each by name, for example: Roy (boy) No (boy) Taynah (girl) Po lo (boy) Tay lep (girl) Betah (girl).

Counting them upon my fingers I would tell the parent or parents that they were six, to which they agreed with:

"If you say they are six, they are six".

It is more difficult still for the Sakais to count time. They imagine pretty nearly what hour it is by the position of the sun overhead or from the various sounds which come from the forest announcing, as I have already said, morning, noon, and evening, and during the night the crescendo and diminuendo of the wild beasts' roaring proclaim the hours before and after midnight.

The shortest measure of time that the Sakais understand is that employed in smoking a cigarette.

They observe, although not with much precision, the phases of the moon that they gladly greet at her appearance but they do not feel any curiosity in knowing where she has gone and where she remains when they do not enjoy her soft light at night and during their dances.

The flowering of certain plants and the ripening of certain fruits gives the Sakai a faint idea of the longest period of time they are capable of imagining and which is about equal to our year. The seasons, which cannot here be recognized by diversity of temperature, are distinguished by the gathering and storing away of those fruits that supply them with food at regular intervals of time, such as the durian season, that of the bua pra, the dukon and the giu blo lol.

I think it would be quite impossible to find out the right age of a Sakai. Sometimes after the birth of a child its parents will cut a notch in the bark of a tree every time the season when he was born returns. But these signs never continue very long because even if the father or mother have not been compelled to abandon their tree-register to follow their clan to another part of the forest, after the third or fourth incision they easily forget to keep up the practice.

* * * * *

When as often happens a Sakai has to undertake a journey of more than three days as in the case of seeking a wife or of making a large provision of tobacco for all the encampment, both he and those left behind have recourse to a novel calendar in order to remember how many days he is absent. They pick up some small stones or little sticks and dividing them into threes the traveller carries away a half with him leaving the rest with his family. At the end of every day those at home and the one who has departed throw away one of these stones or sticks. When the little stock is finished the Sakai is sure to return because he knows very well that any further delay would be the cause of grave apprehensions and anxiety to his dear ones which he is eager to spare them.

Some of them adopt the same system on this occasion as when counting the days of traditional ceremonies, that is by the tying and untying of knots in a strip of scudiscio.[13]

* * * * *

Amongst those Oriental peoples not yet civilized the Sakais are the least known, and yet I firmly believe that they could surpass the others in intelligence—as they undoubtedly excel them in solid moral qualities—if they were to be made the object of assiduous care and benevolent interest.

Once these poor jungle dwellers could be brought to have full confidence in their white protectors, it seems to me that the best thing which could be done for them would be to induce them, by degrees, to dedicate themselves to agriculture.

But their aversion to any kind of labour cannot be overcome by coercive means or evangelical preaching. They would rebel as much against one as the other for they wish to be absolute masters of their own will and their own conscience. And this liberty of thought and action must be left them whilst very slowly and with great patience, by force of example and gentle persuasion, they are made to understand that by doing what we want they are giving us a pleasure which will be largely compensated with tobacco and with the numerous trifles that are the joy and vanity of savages.

He who would dream of redeeming them from their present ignorant state by treating them arbitrarily and thereby hurting their feelings and insulting their beliefs would find his undertaking not only fruitless but also dangerous because he would be immediately considered an enemy and the Ala would not fail to incite vengeance upon him in the troubled spirits of the tribe.

I think the method most promising in its results is that which I myself have proved. I slipped in amidst them, living the life that they live and respecting their opinions and superstitions, at the same time seeking indirectly to cure them of their natural laziness.

The Sakais are nomadic for two reasons: first, because when they have exhausted, by their prodigality, the edible treasures that the forest soil produces for them without need of toil, in the tract of land within reach of their settlement, they change their residence to a fresh quarter where this uncultivated product is for a long time in superabundance; secondly, because when somebody of their number dies they believe that an evil spirit has entered their village and that to free themselves from its malignant influence it is necessary to fly to another part.

Well, more than once I have made a point of sleeping in a hut lately visited by death to show them how absurd the idea is. At first they stood afar, looking at the forsaken spot and believing that I, too, was dead, but afterwards finding, to their immense wonder, that I was still alive and well, they began to doubt their own superstition and to build their huts a little more solid so that they might be of greater durability.

Overthrown in a definite manner one of the motives of their wanderings the other would cease to exist from the moment they were taught to work the ground. With this scope in view, from time to time, I make a distribution of padi or maize and am glad to see that little by little the miserable plots once rudely sown with corn are now becoming ample fields.

Like the old philosopher I found in the forest, the other Sakais have never thought, or rather let themselves think, what a boon it would be for them to grow the things they like best, around their huts, instead of feeling obliged to get it from others, and they evidently shared his dislike to torturing the earth with iron, for before my advent and sojourn amongst them they simply burnt the pith of the trees and plants they felled and into the bed formed by the ashes they cast indiscriminately bulb and grain, covering up both with their feet or with a piece of wood, and afterwards they took no more care of it.

But this pretence of cultivation was nothing less than a greedy caprice and did not in any way help their domestic economy. The products of the planting which had cost them so little fatigue was deemed surplus food and they would eat up in a few days what might have lasted them for months, inviting friends even lazier than themselves (who had not taken the trouble so much as to imitate this rudimental mode of agriculture) to take part in the gorging feast.

It would be a real blessing to those Sakais who have already begun to cultivate their fields, to work with me in the plantations I am making, to help me in gathering in jungle produce and to apply themselves to some simple industry, if a few good-hearted, thrifty families of European agriculturists were to come and dwell amongst them. In this way my forest friends would make rapid and immense progress for they have already shown their aptitude and ability and the British Government would in a very short time have a flourishing colony by thus bringing them into direct contact with a wholesome civilization consisting of kindness, rectitude and honest work without their losing any of their characteristic integrity through the contaminating influence of spurious evolutionary principles.

It is true that the wide dominions of England claim an immense amount of care and energy but her rulers display sufficient activity and wisdom for the need and would have no cause to regret, but rather rejoice, if they were to extend their beneficence to the far off worthy tribes of Sakais now wandering over Perak and Pahang.

* * * * *

Returning to the character of my no-longer new friends I must really repeat that we should be fortunate if we could find similar traits in many of the persons belonging to civilized society.