INHABITANTS OF SUMATEA. 105 



all speak freely, at times coming to blows. It is also usual to deliberate fasting, in 

 order to guard against the violent scenes that might be caused by the abuse of 

 palm-wine. 



Formerly an extensive traffic was carried on in Niassi slaves, whom hundreds 

 of praus came to kidnap round the coasts of the island. Sir Stamford Raffles was 

 even " censured " by the East India Company for obstructing this trade during 

 the British occupation. At present many of the islanders emigrate to take 

 service in Malay or European families, and amongst them are nearly always 

 chosen the carpenters, masons, and thatchers. 



The natives of the Mentawey Archipelago are also " savages," differing 

 greatly, however, from the other west Sumatran islanders. According to Yon 

 Rosenberg, who visited them between the years 1847 and 1852, they are not 

 Malays at all, but a branch of the East Polynesian race. Their idiom, remarkable 

 for its softness and abundance of vowels, appears to differ completely from the 

 dialects of Sumatra and neighbouring islands. Like the Polynesians, the Chaga- 

 lalegats, as they call themselves, delight in waving plumes, foliage, and flowers. 

 They deck their hair with bright corals, and cover the breast with tattoo markings 

 in the form of shields, like the Tonga and other Pacific peoples. Certain food is 

 strictly tabooed for the women, while the profane are warned off from certain 

 mysterious recesses of the forest. 



The Mentawey people do not blacken their teeth like most of the Malay 

 tribes, but file to a point the front teeth. The youth of both sexes join together 

 in all gjmmastic exercises, but after marriage the women keep discreetly apart. 

 Divorce is unknown and adultery punished with death. Like their neighbours of 

 the Pagah group, the Chagalalegats are extremely pacific, never warring amongst 

 themselves, nor fortifying their villages, which, however, they take care not to 

 build on the coast, but always on the bank of some small inland stream. Till 

 lately their arms were the bow and poisoned arrows. Although much dreading 

 the evil spirits, they at times consult them in the depths of the forest, where the 

 replies are uttered in a harsh, quivering voice. The souls of the dead, also greatly 

 feared, are supposed to become demons, and a neighbouring uninhabited island is 

 the special abode of these departed spirits. 



Even the little island of Engano, at the southern extremity of the insular chain, 

 has its peculiar race, on insufficient grounds affiliated by some writers to the 

 Papuan stock. These rude islanders were still in the stone age till the middle of 

 the present century, when they learnt the use of iron. They went naked, whence 

 the term Pulo Telanjang, or " Naked Island," applied by the Malay traders to 

 their little territory. The Kerikjéé, as they call themselves, were also un- 

 acquainted with tobacco and strong drinks, but were, on the other hand, scru- 

 pulously honest, theft being unknown amongst them. They bury their dead in a 

 fishing-net, doubtless to enable them to continue to procure themselves food in 

 the next world ; but the fruit-trees, field, and garden-plot of the departed are laid 

 waste, being henceforth useless to him. 



