42 EAELY INDO-CHINESE INFLUENCE 



which, I fear, very little positive help can be expected from the 

 present paper. It is to be regretted that the compilers of most 

 of the vocabularies here drawn from give little or no ethnological 

 information regarding the people who speak the dialects they 

 illustrate. It would have been better, if, while giving the name 

 by which a tribe distinguishes itself and that by which it is known 

 to Malays, they had added also a careful description of its 

 physical characteristics. The names "Semang" and "Sakai" 

 are conventional terms-*' and have no fixed ethnological meaning. 

 "Semang" in Malay (according^ to Favre) merely means "debt- 

 slave" and "Sakai" "servant," "dependent." According to 

 D.F.A.H. in J.S.B.R.A.S. No. 19 p. 35 (note) Sakai means " dog " 

 in which case it might perhaps be connected with the Cambojan 

 cM^-^, which also has that meaning. Mr. Clifford in J. S. B. R. A. S 

 No. 24, p. 14, applies " Semang" to the Negritos and " Sakai" to 

 the fairer race of jungle-men, and that appears to be the usual 

 terminology ; yet an anonymous author quoted in No. 1, p. 111. of 

 the Journal does precisely the reverse, and Mr. Clifford himself (I.e. 

 p. 18) speaks of a tribe calling itself " Semang" which was cer- 

 tainly not Negrito in character, while Miklucho-Maclay does not 

 distinguish between Sakai and Semang as ethnical types, styling 

 both of them "Melanesian" races.^'' All this makes it clear that 

 these terms have no definite meaning ; and as that is the case, 

 there is an additional reason why caution should be shown in 

 attempting to draw any positive ethnological conclusions from 

 such data as are now under consideration. 



But even to assume that the aboriginal dialects are cognate 

 languages which should be classified in the Mon-Annam family 

 would be going further than our evidence justifies us in doing. 



S6. The same is true of most of the other names of these tribes : the 

 Sanskrit origin of '' Mentra'^ is well known, and I suspect that Jakun 

 represents the Pali YaJckha, (demon) and was therefore like Mentra an 

 appellation given to the jungle-men by their Hinduized neighbours. The 

 same applies to Gargasi, I believe the Avildmen of Ceylon are similarly 

 dubbed Yokkho by the Singhalese. 



27. 1. c. No. 2 pp. 208-9. « ' I have come to the conclusion that the 

 Orang Sakai and the Orang Semang are tribes of the same stock ; that 

 further, in their physical habitus and in respect of language they are closely 

 connected with each other and represent a pure unmixed branch of the 

 Melanesian race. " 



