2 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums. [Vox. IX, 
Jehehr of the Malays—at Tadoh, and the Menik Kensieu of 
Baling and of the Mahang River neighbourhood in Kedah. 
It is not worth while to give a lengthy description of the 
Negritos’ camp near the Damak River as this essentially 
resembled that of some Lenggong aborigines near Gelok, 
which I have dealt with in a former paper. It may, however, 
be noted en passant that the shelters were set in an oval and 
that the married people, bachelors, and unmarried females—~ 
maidens, divorced women, or widows—occupied separate divi- 
sions of them, the maidens being partly screened from the 
public gaze by a slight screen of palm-leaves on the inner 
side of their particular abode. As is usual among the Negri- 
tos, each shelter contained a small platform close to which a 
fire was kept burning all night in order to warm those sleep- 
ing there. The work of thatching and building the shelters 
is, I was informed, undertaken by the women alone. 
The Negrito Gods. 
Skeat tells us that Ta’ Pénn is the supreme deity of the 
Negritos of Siong in Kedah, whom he states that Vaughan 
Stevens disguises under the name of Tappern. Now though 
I have been unable to obtain any confirmation of much of 
Vaughan Stevens’s work, notably of his elaborate stories 
about the patterns on the combs worn by Negrito women, 
yet I have certainly found tbat there is some truth to be 
found in his writings, and in no case has more evidence of this 
come to hand than in the Ulu Selama Parish. Judging by 
what Skeat says--I have not Vaughan Stevens’s original 
papers in the Globus to refer to—he seems seldom to have given 
the localities from which he obtained his information. This 
makes it exceedingly difficult to judge of his accuracy, or 
inaccuracy, but he did, at any rate, work in the Ulu Selama 
region. 1 It will be found, I think, on comparing the material 
in this, and some of the following ’ sections—largely obtained 
from Tokeh, but also checked in part by questioning other 
Negritos—w ith what Vaughan Stevens, as quoted by Skeat,* 
wrote upon similar subjects, that it bears out his work to a 
considerable extent. Among the Negritos of the Damak River 
settlement I found that the principal god is called Tapern, 
and on one occasion I heard him alluded to as Tak (Ta’) 
Tapern. No doubt the difference between Ta’ Ponn and Tak 
Tapern is merely due to the fact that the dialect spoken by the 
Siong people differs from that of Ulu Selama. Tapern ap- 
pears to be a kind of deified tribal ancestor, for, according 
to Tékeh’s story, Tapern, his wife (Jalang), his younger 
brother (Bajiaig), and Bajiaig’s wife, Jamoi, escaped from the 
war between the Siamang and Mawas in which the Negritos 
1 Vide Papers on Malay ag! ee The Aboriginal Tribes, p. 4. 
2 Pagan Races, vol. II, pp. 202-225. 
