48 ABORIGINAL TRTBES OF PERAK. 



of these people. One of thein had brought his blow-pipe and poi- 

 soned darts with him, and willingly exhibited the manner of using 

 them. The dart is dropped into the muzzle of the weapon and 

 allowed to fall down to the mouth-piece, where a piece of some soft 

 substance resembling fungus is inserted, in order that none of the 

 force of the air may be lost. The mouth-piece is taken into the 

 mouth, not merely applied to the lips. A small bird on the leaf of a 

 cocoanut tree was the object aimed at. It was not struck^ but tho 

 silent operation of the projectiles was evinced by the manner in 

 which the intended victim remained in its place, while dart after 

 dart passed close to it, evidently unconscious that it was being 

 aimed at. I had always regarded the blow-pipe as a breech-loader 

 and was somewhat astonished to see the darts inserted at the muz- 

 zle and shaken down through the tube. I should mention, how- 

 ever, that the marksman was in perfectly open ground. In the 

 forest this method of loading has obvious disadvantages. 



As an illustration of the superstitions of these people and their 

 belief in, and dread of, the powers of evil, I may state that a message 

 reached me from some of the headmen of a tribe in Ulu Perak 

 stating their unwillingness to receive back two of the children 

 known to be at the British Residency. Both were believed to be 

 the inheritors of evil-spirits (pelisit or hajang), which had possessed 

 their fathers. The father of one of them had actually been killed 

 by the general consent of the tribe in consequence of the numerous 

 cases of sickness and death which had occurred in a particular 

 place, all of which were traced to the pelisit, which was believed to 

 possess him. The man chosen to carry out the sentence was the 

 brother of the doomed man. His child was sold to Malays from 

 fear that the pelisit, compelled to change its quarters, might have 

 found a dwelling place in her. 



Thunder, I was told, is greatly dreaded by the wdld tribes, 

 When i-t thunders the women cut their legs with knives till the 

 blood flows, and then catching the drops in a piece of bamboo, 

 they cast them aloft towards the sky to propitiate the angry deities. 



Singing and dancing are arts which are not unknown among 

 the aborigines, though, as may be supposed, they are still in a very 

 early stage of development. Dancing is confined to the female sex, 

 which was not represented among the Sakei visitors at the Residency. 



