X. NOTES ON THE SAKAI 



OF THE ULU SUNGKAI IN THE BATANG 



PADANG DISTRICT OF PERAK. (Pis. XXIV— XXVIII.) 



By Ivor H. N. Evans, Assistant Curator 

 and Ethnographical Assistant F.M.S. Museums. 



In April, 1914, I paid a visit of about a fortnight's duration 

 to Jeram Kawan, a rapid in the Sungkai river about eight 

 or nine miles by boat from Sungkai village. A Malay settle- 

 ment had recently been made on the bank of the river just 

 below the rapid, the clearings at the time of my visit being 

 only about three or four months old. Close b}' on the opposite 

 bank was a single Sakai house standing in a considerable 

 clearing which was planted with Indian corn, and it was from 

 the inhabitants of this house that I obtained a good deal of 

 the information embodied in the present paper. I took up my 

 quarters in the hut of an old Malay named Hassan, who was 

 employed by a Sungkai Chinaman to barter goods with the 

 Sakai in exchange for rattans, and I was thus enabled to get 

 into touch with aborigines from many up-country settlements, 

 who came in to dispose of heavy bundles of cane. About a 

 quarter of an hour's walk from the Malay clearing, and on the 

 same side of the river, is a hot spring, the waters of which are 

 strongly impregnated with sulphur, and to this, in dry weather, 

 big game, chieiiy seladang and deer, come in numbers to lick 

 up the sulphur deposit. I mention the spring as I shall have 

 occasion to refer to it later in connection with a Sakai 

 folk-tale. 



The Central Sakai of Batang Padang have been more 

 measured and described than any other tribe in the Peninsula, 

 and I therefore thought it better, with the exception of taking 

 some photographs, to devote myself as much as possible to 

 finding out what I could of Sakai folk-lore and beliefs. 



Before turning to other subjects I should like to say 

 a word of warning against accepting aborigines who may live 

 in a certain district as necessarily truly belonging to it. The 

 amount of shuffling and re-shuffling among aboriginal tribes 

 has often been extraordinarily complex. Some of the various 

 causes which have contributed to this admixture of tribes, and 

 even of races in the Malay Peninsula are ; pressure of alien 

 populations (Malays, Siamese, Chinese, etc.), slave raiding 

 expeditions by Malays before the country came under British 

 control, especially by Sumatran Malays, Rawa and Mendiling 

 people, in Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang; the escape 

 or liberation of slaves who had been sold into another country, 

 and on regaining their freedom reverted to jungle living, often 

 forming small villages of their own, and taking wives from 

 among the aborigines of the country : and the wandering habits 



