Fesruary 28, 1907 | 
NATURE 
47 
balai are mentioned in Besisi songs, and Mr. Skeat 
holds that their existence is not due to borrowing 
from the Malays, but is ‘‘rather an example of a 
custom sprung from their common origin.”’ 
Closely associated with the character ‘of their dwell- 
ings is the form of agriculture of these backward 
people. A Malay chief of Selangor informed Mr. 
Skeat that the Besisi were originally in the habit 
of eating their jungle fruits in temporary shelters 
built where the fruit trees were most abundant, but 
that later, recognising that this practice resulted in 
overcrowding of the fruit trees which sprang from 
their rejected seeds, these folk took to carrying their 
fruit to a little distance before eating it, so as to 
spread the seeds over as wide an area of country as 
possible. It must be remembered that “all these 
aborigines are adepts at tree-felling, and there seems 
no doubt that fruit seeds or seedlings of fruit-bearing 
plants may be planted by the wilder tribes, who do 
not eat rice or any grain, except when they obtain 
a small supply by barter. Those Semang who have 
reached an early stage of agriculture sow a species 
of millet. Hill rice comes later, but while the folk are 
still semi-nomadic, and to it is added small catch-crops 
such as bananas, tapioca, and sweet potatoes, and 
among the Sakai who have reached this stage of 
agriculture the preparation of the ground and the 
sowing and harvesting of the crops are alike accom- 
panied by magic ceremonies and formula. 
A full description of the weapons and implements 
at present used provides Mr. Skeat with the oppor- 
tunity of discussing the origin of the stone adze 
blades found all over the Malay Peninsula. Unlike 
the up-country folk of Borneo, who highly value 
these and hang them in the verandahs of their houses 
among the skulls they have collected, the Semang 
and Sakai pay no attention to them, and it seems 
that these tribes ‘‘ were not the manufacturers of 
the stone axes and chisels found in the Peninsula,” 
whieh may perhaps be attributed to a race described 
by the jungle follk as once inhabiting their country, 
though different from themselves and the Malays. 
Among all the jungle tribes of the peninsula, the 
marriage rite consists largely of a form of purchase, 
usually followed by the ritual sharing and eating of 
food by bride and bridegroom, but among some 
Jakun tribes a part of the marriage ceremony con- 
sists of a procession or race by the bride and bride- 
groom around a_ specially erected mound, while 
among the Benua of Johor a canoe race, in which 
the bride is given a considerable start, is substituted. 
No less than a hundred pages are devoted to the 
subject of decorative art, i.c. to the art of the Semang 
and Sakai, described by Mr. Skeat as “by far the 
most difficult of the many difficult subjects that have 
had to be faced in compiling the description of these 
tribes,’’ for it is necessary ‘‘to face the fact that 
with reference to part of this subject an edifice has 
already been reared upon a foundation of sand, and 
that though the bricks of which it was composed 
may to some extent be useful in laying the found- 
ation of the new building, the original edifice is none 
the less inevitably doomed to irremediable destruc- 
tion.’’ This, of course, refers to Vaughan-Stevens’s 
flower theory ; and in spite of the no less generous 
than skilful editing and pruning to which the latter’s 
work has been subjected, it is impossible to believe 
that Mr. Skeat would not have done better to have 
omitted by far the greater part of his account of 
Vaughan- Stevens’s work, and_ this notwithstanding 
the writer’s very hearty recognition that no one is so 
fit as Mr. Skeat to determine the value of Vaughan- 
Stevens’s observations. The feeling that Mr. Skeat’s 
modesty and desire to give the fullest credit to other 
0. 1948, VOL. 75] 
once run away with much of 
his critical faculty becomes stronger as the chapter 
is studied, and ends in the quite deliberate convic- 
tion that it was a mistake to reproduce pages of the 
patterns on combs copied from the Zeitschrift fur 
Ethnologie, while the decorated dart quivers, combs, 
and boxes collected by Mr. Skeat himself are repro- 
duced on so small a scale that it is impossible in 
most instances to see the designs at all clearly. 
Further, although the meaning of some of these is 
given on p. 419, it is by no means clear to which 
objects these refer, or whether pp. 416-8 are in fact 
workers have for 
descriptions, as they appear to be, of the quivers 
figured in the plate facing p. 414. Very little indeed 
is known about Jakun art. The two realistic zoo- 
I, representing a centipede 
and a lizard, occur on a Besisi flute and blow-pipe 
respectively, while two highly conventionalised 
patterns, said to be derived from the young shoot of 
plants, are also given. 
The difficulty of obtaining information concerning 
the religious beliefs of these jungle-dwelling tribes 
was very great; it was only after many conversations 
with both eastern and western Semang concerning 
the existence of any supreme being, of whom they’ 
morphs shown in Fig. 
long professed entire ignorance, .that one of them 
exclaimed, “Now we will really tell you all we 
know,’’ and proceeded to tell Mr. Skeat about Ta 
who 
” 
Pénn, a powerful and benevolent, if otiose, deity, 
made the world and who was ‘like a Mal: av Raja 
in that ‘‘there was nobody above him.’’ Although 
Ta Pénn is obviously identical with Vaughan- 
Stevens’s ‘ Tappern,’’ nothing could be discovered 
concerning Vaughan-Stevens’s superior deities of the 
Semang called by him Kari and Ple, although Mr. 
Skeat witnessed a ‘‘ blood-throwing ’’ ceremony 
among the eastern Semang resembling that by which, 
according to WVaughan-Stevens, Ple was appeased. 
As already stated, the Semang have little fear of 
ghosts, and their religion shows comparatively few 
traces of demon-worship and animism. The Sakai 
beliefs, on the other hand, although admitting a 
‘© god’? Tuhan (or Peng), who in company with .the 
giantess ‘‘ Granny Long-breasts ’’ inhabits the upper 
heavens, are almost entirely animistic, as are those 
of the Jakun, and for both peoples there are numerous 
demons to be propitiated. 
It is particularly interesting to note that the two 
savage races of the peninsula that stand furthest 
apart, namely, the Semang and the Jakun, both have 
the idea that man at first multiplied so fast as to 
overcrowd the earth. When this occurred they were 
slain by the fiery breath of the Thunder Spirit 
(Semang) or turned into trees by the “high” god 
Tuhan Di-bawah (Jakun), but in both stories these 
checks do not suffice, and so death is instituted, and 
Mr. Skeat again suggests that such common features 
are mainly due to the ‘‘ same savage Malay element 
of which there are such abundant traces in the dialects 
of both races.” 
As among Malays, so among these jungle tribes, 
the accredited intermediary between men and spirits 
is the medicine man or sorcerer. Among the Semang 
he is usually the chief, that is to say, the poyang 
is, by virtue of his office, chief. Among Sakai and 
Jakun the offices are sometimes separated, though 
the chief is usually a medicine man of some repute. 
In the last part of the work, devoted to the 
language of the jungle folk, Mr. Blagden points out 
that most aboriginal dialects have been for some 
generations in a process of decay, and that Malay 
is so widely known as to have become the lingua 
franca of the peninsula, so that many of the 
aboriginals are now bilingual, while others speak 
