38 
PAPERS ON MALAY SVByECTS. 
is a reliable autliDrity and his vocabularies carry weight ; 
but a most careful investigatiou ba^ failed to confirm 
thera. The people who live in tlie Kenaboi valley and 
who go by the name of Ommj Kenahoi^ have been 
(piestioned and supplied vocabularies of their language, 
which turns out to be Mantx^a. Nine vocabularies in 
all have been collected for or by me in the localities where 
Hervey's Kenaboi might be found ; yet none of these 
vocabularies bear ont his informants* statements. Under 
the circnmsfcances we must suspend judgment. It would 
be unsafe to base upon those two doubtful lists of 
words inferences that woidd modify very materially the 
present data about the wild tribes of the Peninsula. 
A " doubtful " dialfect of vet another sort is the 
so*called Pmifanrj Kaimr of Johor. This is an aitificial 
language that may or may not contain traces of older 
tongues. The popular account of this, form of speech is 
that it is used by camphor-seekers to deceive the spirits 
of the jungle wherein they work. These spirits under- 
stand Malay and would conceal the camphor if they 
overheard the plans of the seekers. All this sounds 
plausible and has been accepted — ^far too widely — as 
truth. Bub there is evidence that this explanation is due 
to the incurable Malay habit of romancing. The Pautang 
Kapur is spoken in one locality only, a locality in which 
little camphor is found. The language is worth investi- 
gating perhaps as an example of an artificial form of 
speechj but it does not possess much ethnological value.* 
Certainly there is nothing of special racial interest either 
in the words or in the people who use them. 
' I havD since obtained in Jelcbu iome words of an aitificia] lanfpiaj^c (of a 
ty]io quite different to the pantajnj kapur) ffom an aboriginal Oravrf Tanjoi^g who 
tiimg from Buutong in Fabnng. 
