ABORIGINAL THIBES: DIVISIONS OF RACE. 
2CJ 
THE JAKDX. 
Scattered about the State of Jolior are a number of 
small communities of people known genericallj as Jakt'jiy 
B^nna Jahun and Ommj Bhiua. Tbey are obWously the 
" Binuas Satyros " of the okl Portuguese mapSj but they 
have lost their language and most of their customs and 
have taken to Malay, except for a few doubtful words 
that liave puzzled etymologists. Schmidt failed to 
make anything of Jalcun ; and Blagdeti, in the absence 
of real data, elected to class the Jakon dialects in a 
linguistic group of their own, with euch reservations as 
** much doubt must remain whether it can be considered 
as a unity," and again (of one dialect) " Kenaboi must 
be regarded as the best specimen of Jakiin recorded or 
else as not being Jakun at all." Cryptic utterances of 
this sort are generally a scientist's way of classifying the 
unknown. 
Under the circumstances there was a good deal to be 
said in favour of the well-known old recipe, "First 
catch yotu- Jakun." He was not an easy person to 
capture. All tliat was known — oi* believed to be 
known — about bini was tliat he used a wooden blow-pipe, 
buried his dead in a characteris^tic type of gi'ave, and 
spoke a language that re]>resented one or more linguistic 
groups of its own. It was no use looking for him in 
Johor for, whienever caught there, he only spoke Malay. 
He was said to I'etain his native langiuige and culture in 
certain parts of the Negri Serabilan, on the Upper 
RompiUj on the minor rivers between the Rompin and the 
Pahang, and especially in tlie Kuan tan district. In the 
Negri Sembilan he was captured repeatedly, but w*hen- 
ever questioned he spoke a minor Sakai dialect classified 
by Blagden as a " South-Eastern Subdivision of Besisi," 
