I^I"OTES ON THE ABORIGINES OF LENGGONG AND 

 KUALA KENERING, UPPER PERAK. 



By I. H. EVANS, b.a., 

 Assistant Curator and Ethnographicat. Assistant, F.M.S. Museums. 



'"pHOUGH 911 linguistic grounds the aboi'igines of Lenggong are 

 placed by Skeat among the Northern Sakai, ethnologically 

 there can be little doubt that Negrito blood preponderates enormously 

 over any other. That there is, however, some slight Sakai element 

 among them seems most probable. They describe themselves as 

 being considerably lighter in colour than the pure Semang of Grit, 

 who also speak a Sakai dialect with a few interspersed words of 

 Semang origin. Skeat does full justice to the Negrito origin of the 

 Lenggong people and attributes their language to encroachm-ent of 

 Sakai dialects upon Semang. 



The writer spent some three weeks in Upper Perak in January, 

 1913, with the view of getting into touch with these interesting- 

 people. Two encampments were visited, one on a liill close above 

 Lenggong, the other about a mile and a half from Kampong Gelok, 

 which place is situated some two and a half miles from Lenggong on 

 the Grit (or Gris) road. 



A wandering anthropologist being to the native mind a person 

 without any ostensible business except that of poking his nose into 

 all kinds of. ungodly matters which should not concern him, and 

 being armed moreover with a battery of mysterious ajid fearsome 

 instruments, such as callipers and measuring rods, is liable, move 

 he never so cai-efully, to be suspected of ulterior designs upon the 

 people he is attempting to study. 



In spite of these drawbacks the expedition was not altogether a 

 failure, either with regard to aboi'iginal or Malay investigations. 



HABITATIONS AND INHABITANTS. 

 The Lenggong settlement and that near K. Gelok differed con- 

 sider-ably in the type of dwelling in use. At Lenggong the Negritos 

 were living in a number of huts made of tepus leaves lashed to a 

 light framework of saplings. The essential plan of a hut was that 

 of two wind-shelters set opposite to each other and arching- over 

 slightly so as to meet at the top. Sometimes, however, a whole arch 

 frame was made from a single piece of wood. In several instances, 

 in order to afford greater protection, one end of the hut was shut up 

 by a frame of sticks covered with palm leaves. Each hut had its 

 own fireplace and also a sleeping platform of bamboos over a frame- 

 work of sticks, which was i-aised about a foot from the ground. As 

 far as the writer could ascertain separate huts were assigned to 

 married couples, bacheloi-s, and unmarried girls. 



