THE SEMANG BETWEEN JANING AND RAMAN. 



by 

 F. O. B. Dennys. 



[During a recent conversation with Mr. F. O. B. Dennys, 

 of Taiping, he mentioned to me that he had once met a tribe of 

 naked Semangs in the far north of Perak. As I believe that 

 there is so far no record of any tribe in the Peninsula absolutely 

 dispensing with clothes I asked him to write down what he 

 could remember about them. This he has very kindly done in 

 a letter from which I have made the following extract. /. H. 

 Evans.] 



" About 1897 I went on a prospecting tour from Janing up 

 to Rhaman and after leaving Janing on elephants we went 

 through rather hilly country. Qn our second day away — I 

 should say about 1,500 feet above sea level — we got to a fairly 

 large stream and noticed that there were the remains of a 

 Sakai camp. The Malays said they were Semangs and I told 

 the Gembala to try and make them come and see me if he 

 could find any and after a good deal of trouble he managed to 

 get some of them to come near our camp. They were rather 

 short and very dark sk'inned, with very close, curly hair — rather 

 heavy about the shoulders in build, put poor below the belt. 

 They did not understand Malay, but the Gembala (elephant 

 driver) could make himself understood. After giving them 

 some tobacco and rice they got more friendly and others 

 appeared, in all about 15 to 20 turned up, and I noticed they 

 were no clothes of any description, either men or women, and 

 I think there were about 6 or 7 women. This was the cause 

 of some amusement to my followers, who said only monkeys 

 went naked. I got the Gembala to show me their present 

 camp and I noticed they had small shelters built up in trees, 

 but nothing on the ground. They could hardly be called huts 

 as there were sticks to act as a flooring and the roofing was 

 of leaves. This is all I can remember of the Semangs." 



