THE MALAY PENINSULA 



93 



As every anthropologist is aware, it is most difficult for travellers to obtain clear and true 

 information with regard to the religion of any savage race. According to Mr. Hale's testimony, 

 which he gives for what it is worth, the Sakais offer up prayers to a great variety of spirits 

 spirits of the forest, of the mountains, of the rivers, of the winds, and also of chiefs now 

 departed. 



When a Sakai dies, the friends bury with the corpse some of the articles which the 

 deceased used in daily life, such as a necklace, if a woman; or a rattan tobacco-box, if a man. 

 The house of death is invariably burned down, and the place entirely forsaken even if it 

 involves the loss of a crop of tapioca or sugar-cane. All the objects that belonged to the 

 dead are considered to be bartered or given away. 



Professor Keane, in his latest work "Man Past and Present," says of these little people: 

 " Surrounded from time out of mind by Malay peoples, some semi-civilised, some nearly as wild 

 as themselves, but all alike slowly crowding them out of the land, these aborigines have 

 developed defensive qualities unneeded by the more favoured insular Negritos, while their 

 natural development has been arrested at perhaps a somewhat lower plane of culture. In 

 fact, doomed to extinction before their time, they never have had a chance in the race, as 

 Mr. Hugh Clifford sings in ' The Song of the Last Semangs ' : 



The paths arc rough, the trails are blind 



The Jungle People tread; 

 The yams are scarce and hard to find 



With which our folk are fed. 



We suffer yet a little space 

 Until we pass away, 



The relics of an ancient race 

 That ne'er has had its day. 



A GKOUP OF NEGH1TO.-5. 



