THE ORANG LATJT OF SINGAPORE. 249 



Kit/ oh, far off. 



Sika, come here, eg-., Sika makan come here and eat. 



The following words are probably all of Malay origin : 

 Jengkeng or bidah, a boat (sampan or koleh). 

 Lanchang, a sailing vessel. 



O-neh or O-ne, friend or comrade, used in addressing other mem- 

 bers of the tribe whether young <,r old, e.g., O-neh Nan 

 Kamana? Where are you going, friend? The in Oneh 

 may be merely inter jectional. 

 Diio =engkau, also used in addressing other tribesmen, but 



less polite or less friendly than O-ne. 

 Pohon was used instead of Poko, tree, as on the East 

 Coast and el&ewheie. 



The pronunciation was said to be peculiar, thus : s was pro- 

 nounced like a soft z, e.g., Nazi for Nasi ; r like /*, e.g., Parang 

 for Pahang ; k like kh, e.g., Khuin for Kain ; Khaklii for Kaki. 



Too much stress however must not be laid upon these ex- 

 amples of pronunciation, as although what was heard is faith- 

 fully recorded, the personal equation enters too largely into this 

 sort of questions for them to be accepted without repeated 

 checkings. A Sakai, for instance, will occasionally pronounce 

 one and the same word in two distinct ways, probably through 

 nervousness at being questioned by an European. 



Slight as these traces are, if taken in conjunction with the 

 important fact that the constitution of these tribes corresponds 

 fairly closely to that of Sakais (as is shown by the Sakai names 

 of the chiefs) they appear to suggest the theory that the Sea- 

 gypsies of Singapore owe their origin largely from Sakai hill- 

 tribes in the Riau-Lingga Archipelago ; that these, whether 

 through pressure of the Malay immigration or from other causes, 

 took to the sea, and reinforced probably by more than a sprink- 

 ling of mere Malay adventurers, developed into the famous 

 piratical race which under the generic name of Orang Laut 

 became for a space the terror of all who sailed these Eastern seas. 

 Such an evolution of one of the mildest mannered and most 

 timid races of the earth would certainly appear unaccountable, 

 but if it is to be rejected, it involves us in still greater difficulties. 

 The evidences may be briefly enumerated as follows. 



(1.) The constitution of the tribe under Jinang and Batin. 



