ARBOREAL ACTIVITIES OF MODERN MAN 209 



the spathe, he depends entirely upon the natural grasp 

 which his hands and feet afford him. He does not shin 

 or swarm up, but approximating the palms of his hands 

 and the soles of his feet to the trunk, he walks or climbs 

 up exactly as a monkey would under similar circum- 

 stances. 



Races more primitive than the Malays can climb the 

 perpendicular trunks of jungle trees with the greatest 

 ease. The Sakai " can climb about like monkeys " 

 (Skeat and Blagden) (see Fig. 79.) The Semangs, 

 although they are not ignorant of mechanical aids, are 

 skilful climbers in the typical manner of the Primates. 

 " I myself once saw two of the Kedah Semang run 

 several yards up trees by putting the flat of their feet 

 against the trunk and their arms round it " (Skeat and 

 Blagden). Sea-going Malays adopt the same method 

 when climbing masts or ropes aboard ship, and in all 

 these feats the grasp of the big toe is a very essential 

 feature. 



Tree-living habits also must not be forgotten in any 

 review of arboreal man. Arboreal houses, or even mere 

 arboreal leaf shelters, are well-known ethnological details 

 of the domestic economy of some primitive races. Nor 

 must the origin of these arboreal homes be overlooked, 

 since their purpose is that, while the human occupants 

 may freely climb to and fro, they are inaccessible to the 

 more dangerous jungle beasts. The Semangs regard a 

 shelter high up in the branches as the safest place for 

 human babies, and they usually gain access to these 

 houses by a slanting bamboo made purposely shiny and 

 difficult for predatory animals to climb. 



It does not matter to us how ethnologists might be 

 disposed to regard these cases they might label them 

 as primitive or as degenerated but for us they certainly 

 show that in Man, as he is, there is an ability to climb 

 manifested upon exactly the same lines as the climbing 

 function of the arboreal Primates, and differing only in 



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