76 SOME ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES. 



enter and can then be sent away to sea? On the day it is 

 sent off the pawang's house will be under a pan tang (tabu) 

 to Europeans and all strangers/' 



My acquaintance also said that once these objects pass 

 from the charge of their makers their superstitious attributes 

 end and no one who takes possession of them is affected in any 

 way. He observed that Europeans called his people idiots for 

 practising such ceremonies. " But," I asked, " what does the 

 Imam say ? " " Oh he laughs at us or is angry and says 

 that we are idiots too, for such hantvs don't exist and such 

 practices are not compatible with Islamism. But our pawang 

 tells us otherwise and as it is a thing we have always done we 

 shall continue to do so." 



Mention has been made of the Orang Senimba (Sa- 

 bimba). They are the people of whom Logan (Jour. Ind. 

 Arch. Vol. I. p. 295) records that a portion were trans- 

 ferred from Batam Island to Johore and settled on the 

 Tebrau Biver. In Johore all trace of them as a distinct 

 tribe has now disappeared and the names seems forgotten 

 also. Such also I found to be the case with the Biduanda 

 Kallang settled once on the Pulai Biver. Nevertheless, all 

 the creeks of the Old Straits and of the Johore Biver estuary 

 are occupied by people who, although now Islamised, are still 

 primitive in habits and appearance and quite distinct from the 

 dominant Orang Malayu by whom they have been absorbed. 



These are the people once known as Orang Seletar (J. I. 

 A. Vol. I.) and they, with all the above, belong to the Sea- 

 Jakun, or Orang Laut, branch of the Proto-Malays. Except 

 for a small party on the Sungei Masai, merely brought down 

 by a Chinaman to cut fire-wood, I could ascertain no traces of 

 the inland division south of a line drawn between the Batu 

 Pahat and Sedili Bivers. In this latitude they are to be 

 found on the Lenggiu and Sayong streams, the head waters 

 of the Johore. In this connection the cropping up of the 

 parong legend given above is interesting as it shows that the 

 state of affairs was other in the past. 



The remaining Orang Senimba live on. the shores of 

 Senimba Bay, behind Pulo Sambu — though Logan speaks of 



Jour. Straits Branch. 



