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



217 



I 



II 

 II 



II 



There seems to be some prejudice against a man men- 

 tioning his own name, but it can scarcely be said to amount to 

 a tabu. 



When a woman is about to give birth to a child a small 

 hut is built on the ground, and in this the event takes place. 

 For three days after her delivery the mother may not eat rice 

 or fish ; sengkuai or ubi are allowable. 



The flesh of the sambhur, the muntjac or wild pig is not 

 eaten by women, as it is thought that it would cause sickness 

 either in themselves or in their children. 



Toh Stia told me that it was customary to take the 

 semangat sengkuai (soul of the millet) and that the ceremony 

 was performed by an old woman. On the first day of the 

 proceedings, before reaping had been begun, she went into the 

 crop and cut about a gantang measure of the sengkuai heads, 

 and, on the second day, she again took the same amount. On 

 the third day no reaping might be done, but on the fourth 

 harvesting was started. Flowers, water and sireh were 

 placed near the semangat which was hung up in the house. 

 The semangat was finally mixed with the grain reserved 

 for seed purposes. 



The lunar eclipse is thought to be caused by an animal, or 

 spirit, called Pud, which swallows the moon. 



The custom in force among many Sakai tribes of never 

 going out into the jungle with any craving unsatisfied, which I 

 have referred to in previous papers on the Sakai of the Ulu 

 Sungkai and on the Aborigines of Negri Sembilan, is also 

 observed by the Sakai Bukit. Thus it is thought that if 

 a Sakai were to start on a journey without chewing sireh, 

 though he had wished to do so, some misfortune would be 

 sure to overtake him. 



The same belief (the evil effects following the breakage 

 of the custom being called kenipunan*) seems to be held by 

 the Malays of Upper Perak and other districts. In connection 

 with this belief the Sakai mentioned the word shelentap, and 

 though I could not definitely find out its meaning — they said 

 shelentap means "there is not" — it may possibly be equivalent 

 to the kempnnan of the Malays. 



In marriage exogamy is usual, but not invariable, since 

 whether or not a man takes a wife from another community 

 partly depends on the presence or absence of girls of marriage- 

 able age and of a sufficiently distant degree of consanguinity 

 in his own settlement. As far as I could ascertain, first 

 cousins are within the prescribed degrees, but second cousins 

 are not. When exogamy takes place the husband very 

 frequently goes to live with his wife's family. This was so in 

 the case of Toh Stia, a Sakai from the Plus River, who on my 



* A Johore Malay, whom I recently questioned about the meaning of the 

 word Kempunan, immediately said "going out without having eaten something 

 you wanted to." Wilkinson translates the word as a " dilemma." 



February, 1916. , 3 



