196 



usually made some attempt at decorating themselves ; their dress 

 consisted of a very scanty T-bandage loin-cloth of terap {artocarpus 

 kunstleri) or ipoh (antiaris toxicaria) bark held in position by a 

 string of vegetable fibre wound many times around the waist ; above 

 this one or two of them wore an ornament made from a single strip 

 of rattan cane coiled several times round the body, the two ends of 

 the coil being tied together. These strips of rattan were decorated 

 with neatly scratched-in patterns ornamented with burnt-in dots 

 (plate xxxvii). Bamboo combs were rare, but two examples were 

 obtained, one a large and rather new specimen (length 12.5 cms. 

 breadth 6.5 cms.) decorated with some very roughly scratched-in 

 patterns which were said to represent jungle flowers ; the other 

 older and smaller (length 8.5 cms., breadth 4.5 cms.), the patterns on 

 it being chiefly of the type known to Malays as " puchok rebong " — 

 bamboo sprouts. Studs of rolled up palas leaves were noticed in 

 the ears of an unmarried girl and a married woman was seen 

 wearing a bamboo comb and several flowers of the sendiidoh 

 {Melastoma polyanthum) in her hair. 



With regard to hair dressing the difl^erent types can be well 

 seen in the accompanying illustrations. The men often shave the 

 head entirely, partly in order to rid themselves of parasites, partly 

 owing to the trouble of dressing their densely matted hair, and 

 probably also in order that the Malays shall not be able to tease 

 them about having woolly heads. With their fondness for shaving 

 or cutting the hair very short it is difficult to obtain any idea as 

 to what length the hair would grow if not interfered with. The 

 married woman in the centre of plate xxix (upper figure) is not 

 typical and it would therefore be unfair to theorize upon the length 

 of her liair. The other tv/o unmarried girls in the same picture 

 have their hair cut fairly short. The married woman seen in the 

 Ulu Cheka had hair reaching only to the base of the neck. Probably 

 typical Negrito hair if left uncut would only grow long enough to 

 form a large woolly mop. 



WEAPONS. 



Apart from two old Tower muskets seen in the house of one 

 of the Ulu Cheka Pangan, the only weapons in use appeared 

 to be blow-pipes and even these were comparatively rare, each 

 man, as a rule, only possessing a single specimen. The reason 

 for this was, the Pangan said, that bamboos with a length 

 between the joints sufficient for making blow-pipes wex-e very 

 difficult to get locally. The most prized weapons they owned 

 were those obtained from other aboriginal tribes, especially from 

 the aborigines who live in the hilly country at the source of the 

 river Jelai, probably a Sakai tribe, who, living in a mountainous 

 district, are able to obtain long-jointed bamboos. The Pangan 

 thus value their blow-pipes very highly, one man saying that 



