XXXVI. ETHNOGRAPHICAL MISCELLANEA 
By Ivor H. N. Evans, M.A. 
Some Aboriginal Customs and Beliefs from Pahang. 
The following information was obtained in October, 
Ig21, from a Kérau River Sakai-Jakun, who was then 
living just below Jeram Ampai on the Tembeling River, 
Pahang. 
The Kérau River people—speakers of a Sakai dialect — 
came, according to tradition from Johore. The head of the 
tribe is the Batin. There was formerly only one officer of 
this rank ; now there are two. 
For offences against tribal morals or custom fines were, 
or are, levied in spears or plates. The fine for murder was 
sixty-six spears, while incest in the worst degree, between, for 
hice father and daughter, is said to have been pu unish- 
able by a fine of one hundred and sixty spears. Other minor 
fines gets stealing crops, one spear and one plate; 
unfaithfulness on a woman’s part, two plates and six spears. 
Probably, judging by the abatements given below, payment 
in full of the largest fines was never enforced. 
Plates and spears also form a part of the bride-price. 
Thus the nominal payment by a suitor to a father for the 
hand of a virgin daughter is sixty spears, but actually only 
from three to six are paid, the number varying according to 
the quality of the weapons. The bride-price for a widow is 
less, the nominal number of spears being fifteen with two 
china plates. Only one spear and the two plates are paid. 
When a man divorces a woman he gives her one spear 
and one plate, while, if the woman asks for a divorce, she 
must pay back her bride-price. 
Plates and spears appear to have a sort of currency 
value 
For three days after a death, seven little fires, contained 
in cocoarut-shell are kindled at the grave each night, and 
another seven, in similar receptacles, are placed on the dead 
man’s mat within the house. 
If a cat walks over a body which is awaiting burial, it 
is thought that the dead person will arise, kill the inhabi- 
tants of the house, and will then return to the burial mat 
and again become a corpse. It is also said that the dead, if 
et alae before burial, will arise and tear the living to 
ik dead person before burial, and for three nights after, 
is a Remoit ; after this a bes. A bes has the appearance of 
