468 THE WILD TRIBES OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 



being able, when no one else can, to tell the exact whereabouts of a 

 bird or animal moving- a great way oflf in the forest. Their sight, as 

 I have said, is naturally good, and through training becomes wonder- 

 fully quick. The same is true of their hearing, and, as they are 

 believed to be able to track snakes by their smell, it is evident that that 

 faculty is in no way inferior. They know^ their way al)out the jungle 

 better than anyone, and their intimate knowledge of the life history 

 of the jungle beasts is turned to account in the methods by which they 

 hunt and trap their game. 



HUNTING AND TRAPriNG. 



The chief weapon of the Seniang (as among Negrito tribes else 

 where) is the bow, which closely resembles that used in the Little 

 Andamans," and with which poisoned arrows are used. That of the 

 Sakai and Jakun is the ])lowgun or blowpipe. This latter is com- 

 monly a long slender tube, often 6 or 8 feet long, composed (when- 

 ever so long a piece is obtainable) of a single joint or internode of an 

 exceedingly rare species of bamboo, which is found in the peninsula 

 on two or three high mountains only, and which is called Bambusa 

 Wrayi.'^ This tube is protected and strengthened by being inserted 

 in a similar bamboo tul)e or case of slightly larger caliber. The darts 

 are made of fine slivers obtained from the midrib of the leaf of certain 

 kinds of palm. The}^ are about tlie size and thickness of a steel knit- 

 ting needle, and are furnished at one end with a small, conical butt 

 which is made to tit (rather loosely) the bore of the inner tube or 

 blowpipe. The point is about an inch or more long and as .sharp as a 

 needle, and just above it a nick is cut in the shaft of the dart, which 

 causes the point to break off in the wound when the quarry attempts 

 to escape through the tangled undergrowth. The point is, moreover, 

 thickly coated with poison compounded from some of the most deadly 

 poisons known, among which are the sap of the well-known Upas tree 

 {Antiarh foxicarta) and the sap of a shrub called Ipoh Akar, Avhich is 

 a species of Strychnos. 



The blowpipe is a breechloader, the dart l)eing inserted in the ori- 

 fice, with a light Avad of a Hutiy sul)stance ()])tained from the loaf 

 bases of a palm {canjoia) packed bciiind tiu» butt end for the preven- 

 tion of ""windage." It IS sliot l)y taking part or the whoh^ of the ■ 

 mouthpiece into the mouth and siiarply expelling the air from the 

 lungs. The dart thus poisoned and ready to break otf in the wound 

 may in fact be not inaptly compared to the sting of a bee, from which 

 it may quite possibly, to some extent, have been copied. 



«E. H. Man, The Andaiuaii Islanders. 



^A very nnicli rarer kind is the woodi-n hlow^nin of Kuautan, whicli is made by 

 lashnig together tliroughout their entire length two half cylinders of wood. One of 

 these latter, measuring 5 feet 2 inches in length, has recently been jiresented to the 

 British Mnsenni by Mr. F. W. Douglas, of the F. ,M. S. service. 



