1916.J I. H. N. Evans: Upper Perak Aborigines, 215 



bottom of the receptacle, a piece of the next internode, 

 sharpened to a spike for planting the quiver in the ground, 

 being left adhering to the node. The arrows were prevented 

 from rattling in the quiver, or from falling out by a plug of 

 leaves pushed down into its mouth between the arrow-shafts, 

 which projected from it to the extent of rather less than half 

 their length. Both the quivers made by the Hill Sakai, which 

 I obtained, were partially ornamented with scratched-in pat- 

 terns, but one had some of the patterns made more prominent 

 by removing poitions of the outer skin of the bamboo and 

 rubbing in brown colouring matter, after the manner of the 

 Negrito tribes. 



The Hill Sakai, as I have already stated, have some little 

 skill in forging iron. Outside the communal house there was 

 standing a small thatched shelter, and under this was a Sakai 

 blacksmith's forge. The anvil, or anvils, on which the iron 

 was hammered out were a couple of small boulders with rather 

 concave faces; and the hammer used was an iron spike with a 

 flattened head, hafted to a short handle after the fashion of 

 a native adze (beliong). The bellows or apparatus for blowing 

 up the fire consisted of a couple of vertical bamboo cylinders, 

 from the open tops of which projected two slight wooden 

 piston rods. The piston-heads were made by binding a mass 

 of feathers to the end of each rod. The cylinders were lashed 

 to a stake driven into the ground, and further steadied by 

 spikes of bamboo projecting into the ground from the node 

 which formed the base of each. The air was delivered from 

 the cylinders to the hearth by two bamboo tubes issuing 

 from their base. The apparatus was exactly similar to one 

 in the Perak Museum collected by Mr. L. Wray in the Piah 

 Valley, and is of a type found throughout the Indo-Malayan 

 region. Two or three half-completed spear-heads, which had 

 cracked in forging and had been thrown aside as useless, were 

 lying about near the forge. Iron for making spear and arrow- 

 heads is, of course, obtained from Chinese or Malay traders. 

 Fish-spear heads are also made by Sakai blacksmiths and one 

 kind of which I purchased a specimen, deserves description in 

 detail. This implement, 18 cms. in length, was composed of 

 four fine bars or strips of iron, bound together at the " tang," 

 or end which is inserted into the shaft, with a strip of rattan- 

 cane. This "tang" is exceedingly clumsy and measures as 

 much as 2.5 cms. in breadth below the base of the blade 

 proper, but tapers towards its other end owing to the fining out 

 of the iron bars of which it is composed. In the blade 

 the two outer strips are bent at the base so as to separate them 

 from those in the centre : the latter are slightly bent apart at 

 their tips. The spear-head looks a very inefficient implement, 

 but in spite of this, I saw fish each of about three pounds 

 weight, which had been obtained with fish-spears of this type. 

 Barbed fish-spears like those of the Malays (serampang) were 

 also used, and the Sakai told me that these too were of their 

 own manufacture. 



