ABORIGINAL TMIBES: THE CENTRAL SAk'AI, 5 1 
this way of settling veracity is probably more talked 
about tbaii practised. 
* The Sakai have many industries: agincidture, shoot- 
ing and trapping for the men ; plaiting and bark-cloth- 
making for the women. They are learning more. The 
Mai Miloi, for instance, are said to rear fowls for sale to 
tlie Malays. They use no fowl houses or runs ; the fowls 
roost on tlie neighboiu^ing trees. " But what of hawks 
and civet-cats?" is the natural enquiry of anyone who 
knows how poultry-farming oE this sort would fare 
in bis own less-favoured plains. The answer is simple : 
the M(ti Milol does not take to pouUry'roariug till lie has 
eaten every hawk and civet-cat in his neighbourhood. 
Indeed all the Central Sakai domesticate animals — -wild 
pigs, wild dogSj rats and jxingle-fowl — but they never eat 
their pets. The Mai Ikirai have taken kindly to rice* 
planting and have already ui vented a vocabulary of 
technical terms describing the various stages in the 
growth of the grain. The Mai Milol and Mai Bertah 
are more conservative ; and even the older men of the 
Mai Darat sometimes refuse to eat rice. They prefer 
their own foods : millet, sugar-cane, gourds and tubers, 
which they plant in the most primitive way* A growing 
crop is not watched by the more primitive tribes : they 
plant it, fence it and surround it with traps, and then 
they go away ; when the right season comes round they 
return to the clearing and gather the crop. Duiing the 
interval they support themselves by shooting, by trap- 
ping and by finding wild fruit. Of course they are 
improvident and never store up food for the future; 
a Sakai may starve while his crop is growing, for there 
are seasons of famine when no wild fruit is in season and 
when birds and animals are scarce. The only Sakai 
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