Malayan Bark-cloth. 



65 



"According to De Morgan," the Perak Sakai, when the}' wished to manufacture 

 bark cloth, commenced by making incisions in the bark of a full-groAvn Ar/ocarpiis, so 

 as to mark out a broad band or strip of bark, the size of which varied according to the 

 object for which it was required, an average size being from three to four metres by 

 from sixt}' to eighty centimetres. 



"When the required strip had been thus marked out, the bark itself was ham- 

 mered /;/ s/'/n until it was loosened and detached from the trunk. This strip was then 

 taken and laid upon a tree-stump or anything else that might serve, and was then 

 pounded with a wooden mallet, and (occasionally) decorated with designs in j-ellow 

 paint (as among the Semang). 



Fig. 26. CLOTH From upas bark. 



"The Sakai of Batang Padang (Mr. Wray informs me) employed mallets made 

 of a piece of hard heavy wood about 13 in. (33 cm.) long, b}' i^^ in. (37 mm.) in 

 diameter. The side of the mallet with which the bark is beaten is grooved trans- 

 versely, the grooves extending about half-way round the stick. [I, p. 3S4.] 



" I have seen the Semang of Kedah make cloth of Upas-bark b}' cutting down 

 young saplings of the Upas tree (whose diameter was perhaps no more than 3 or 4 

 inches). These they 'ring-harked' a few feet from the root-end, and then loosened 

 the bark in sitii by hammering it with a mere rounded (hardwood) cudgel, and then 

 turning it back by hand in the way that a sleeve is rolled back, or a stocking taken 

 off, the process being continued until all the bark on each sapling has been similarly 

 treated. As soon, as the last of the bark has been thus stripped off it is thoroughly 

 washed to remove the poisonous sap contained in it, dried for a short while in the sun, 

 and is then ready for use without any further preparation. [I, p. 380.] 



'^ Morgan, J. De. — Mceurs, cnutumes, et languages des Negritos de I'interior de la presqu'ile Malaise. Bull, de 

 la Societe Norm mde de Oeographie, tome vii, 411. 

 Memoirs B. P. B. Museum, Vol. III.— 0. 



