POISONS FROM JUNGLE PLANTS 175 



poisoning of theii' blo\\'pipe darts. Upas poison is 

 essential to the jungle-folk of Malaya of the present 

 day when hunting for their food supphes. 



Dart Poison.— In a short paper entitled " The 

 Poisonous Plants of the Malay Peninsula Ridley has 

 given a good deal of information about Malay arrow and 

 dart poison, and has compiled a bibhography for refer- 

 ence up to the year 1898 (Ref. 18). Very much more 

 has been published by Skeat and Blagden in " Pagan 

 Eaces of the Malay Peninsula*' (Ref. 22). The 

 composition of Malay arrow and dart poison is complex ; 

 but the yellowish white sap of pokok ipoh (Antiaris 

 toxicaria) is nearly always an important, if not the chief, 

 ingredient. In the following Msta those plants, etc., 

 which are dealt with in this work are marked with an 

 asterisk : the various wild tribes of the Malay Peninsula 

 who use arrow and dart poisons in every-day hfe 

 speeiahse in it in different ways ; thus 



(1) The Negritos of the east coast (Pangan and E. 

 S^mang), according to di:fferent authorities, use, in 

 addition to the sap from the bark of the upas tree (A. 

 toxicaria, BL), the bark and sap of the upas climber * 

 and that of Strychnos piibescens, Clarke* ; the bark of 

 Gnetum edule, BL (S. tieut^-, Bl.) ; the bark and sap of 

 Roueheria Griffithiana, Planch. ; the fruits of Pangium 

 edule, Miq.,* and Epipremnum (Eaphidophera) gigan- 

 teum, Schott * ; the leaves of Laportea crenulata, 

 Porst.,* and Cnesmone Javanica, Bl.* ; the roots of 

 Amorphophallus, sp.,* and Dioscorea, sp.* ; the seed 

 capsules of Miquelia caudata, King ; the bark of half a 

 dozen unidentified plants of trees; the sap of two 

 unkno™ jungle vines (rotan) ; and poison from ^ the 

 scorpion, centipede, and any kind of poisonous snake. 



(2) The Besisi tribe of Selangor, according to Skeat 

 and Bellamy, use, in addition to the sap from the bark 



