ABORIGINAL TRIBES: THE CENTRAL SAk'Af. 4Q 
between one family and another, and keeps peace 
generally in his tribe. The foreign relations . of the 
community are looked after by a hepala amig. A I'f'pafa 
uouij is a sort of go-between or interpreter who guides 
sti»angers thi ough his own tribal area and sees that they 
do not get caught in any of the man- traps that beset the 
path ; he also knows Malay and is known to tlie Malays 
to wliom he goes on trade- missions with the produce of 
his tribe. This official is the one link between a ^^akai 
community and the great world outside ; his work enables 
the rest of the tribe to maintain a perfect isolation. A 
trespasser, if caught in a strauge country, used to receive 
scant mercy ; he was sold into slavery among the Malays. 
There was indt^ed a fixed price for siicli slaves in the 
days when the first British officers came to Kinta : two 
rolls of coarse cloth, a hatchet,* a chopper ^ and an iron 
cooking-pot. 
Within the family-group ' property was held in 
common ; and the unsuccessful hunter who did not 
contribute his proper quotum to the family cooking-pot 
received food from the others and a sufficiency of bad 
language as well. Sakai legends contain tales of idle 
prentices who were left by their industrious relatives to 
starve in the jungle, but the tone of the atory condenms 
such a policy as unnatural and tells us how the idle ones 
were helped by syTupathetic spirits till they triumphed 
over those members of tbe family who prized their 
dinner more highly than their family love. Communistic 
ideas are strong among the Sakai, At the same time, 
their communism does not imply liberty, equality and 
fraternity. There is a vast amount of ceremonious 
family etiquette and a host of technicalities regulating 
' The Malay Wimig, - Tlie ihilny paroiiff. 
