1916.] I. H. N. Evans: Upper Perak Aborigines. 



205 



II 



frequently take advantage of the Jehehr's guilelessness. 

 Among the Jehehr, as among other Negrito tribes of the 

 western, and I beHeve, most of those on the eastern side of 

 the Peninsula, the hair of both sexes was cut short or the head 

 shaved, but in many cases a small top-knot was left, which 

 they adorned with sweet-smelling leaves or other ornaments. 



Annandale places the Jehehr in the Sakai section of his 

 notes on the aborigines of Upper Perak* though he himself 

 says : " The first two tribes to be dealt with under the 

 heading t are so closely related to the Semang stock, that the 

 wisdom of separating them from it may be doubted. It is 

 hardly controversial to state that they are Semangs with a 

 slight admixture of either Malay or Sakai blood, supposing 

 that it is legitimate to speak of a definite Sakai race, which is 

 very doubtful at the present stage of our enquiry. Still, it has 

 seemed better to make the division, seeing that the differences, 

 though inconspicuous, most certainly exist, and that the tribes 

 of Upper Perak, other than Semang, include persons among 

 their numbers whose hair is nearly straight and whose com- 

 plexion is very much paler than chocolate." 



There is certainly truth in these observations, still, if we 

 take into consideration the three characters of hair, skin 

 colour, and features, the Jehehr are, according to my mind, 

 very distinctly Negrito. It is but seldom that an individual can 

 be found (I can only remember one) in whom two out of the 

 three characters are not negritic, and, though there is no 

 doubt some slight admixture of foreign blood in the tribe, pro- 

 bably few people, if they were shown a group of Jehehr, would 

 hesitate in saying that they were Negritos. Furthermore, 

 though language is in itself admittedly not a fair criterion of 

 race, yet the Jehehr do speak a "Semang dialect;" (i.e. one 

 in which the words given by Skeat as distinctive of Semang 

 dialects occur). Now, though instances of Negrito tribes 

 speaking Sakai dialects are well known (e.g. the tribes of Grik 

 and Lenggong) I do not ever remember having heard of a case 

 in which a Semang dialect had imposed itself upon a Sakai 

 tribe. 



An account of the dress and ornaments worn by the 

 Jehehr has already been given by Annandale 1], and to this I 

 can add ver}' little fresh information. One man seen was 

 wearing rather a curious crown-like head-dress made of strips 

 of pandanus leaf, coloured yellow, interwoven with akar or 

 urat batu. The nasal septum was pierced in the majority 

 of the men, the operation being, the Jehehr told me, performed 

 with a porcupine quill, porcupine quills being also frequently 

 worn through the hole as an ornament. Annandale mentions 

 that the young shoots of some ;cingiberaceous plant were used 



• Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology p. 22. 

 t The Jehehr is one of the two. 

 \ Skeat's Pagan Races, Vol. 11, page 390. 

 U Fasciculi Malayenses, Anthropology p. 27. 



