53 
PAPERS ON MALAY SUBJECTS, 
practice that eiiggesta foresigbt is tlie cnrious one of 
making large fenced traps and grniind- baiting them, 
perhaps for raonths, till the animals in the %ncinitj gain 
confidence with impunity and make the place a habitual 
resort, A trap of this sort would not be worth the 
trouble that it entails but for the fact that it enables a 
Sakai family to invite the whole country-side to a 
wedding or dinner without the haunting fear of tlie^ 
larder running dry. The family meals are catered for 
by less pretentious traps — noose-traps, apring*traps, pit- 
falls, and weighted spears that are dislodged by a catch 
and fall on an animal from above. It is said that the 
fine scent of an animal protects him until time has 
e:ffaced completely the odour of the hands that made 
the snare. Old traps are therefore best ; and the forest 
is full of them. 
All shooting is done wit h the blow -pipe ; the bo w is 
known by name but never used. As a means of killing 
game the blow-pipe owes its efficiency to the fact that its 
darts are poisoned. Now poison inspires terror, and 
terror leads to exaggeration. The legend of the deadly 
upas-tree has reached Europe in a most sensational form, 
and even Sign or Cerruti, who knows the Bakai wellj 
expresses incredulity when his samples of poison do not 
prove very deadly on analysis. The facts are these. 
The principal poisons used by the Central Sakai for their 
darts are the sap of a large tree {anilaris toximrta) and 
of a small creeper {slr)/ckuos tiente)* The latter, as its 
name indicates, is a form of strychnine and is the more 
fatal. Besides these poisons tlie Sakai use other 
deadly things — ^the venom of tlie cobra, the sting of a 
centipedcj scorpion or wasj> — but use them so clumsily 
that their efficacy may be discounted altogether. The 
