ABORIGINAL TRIBES: DIVISIONS OF RACE. 
The Besisi are found in small communities scattered 
about the coast of Selangor and l^egvi Sembilan where 
thej have been for centuries under JIalay domination. 
They have copied Malay houses and modes of life and 
retain very few of their primitive characteristics. 
Were it not for their very distinctive language it would 
be difficult to identif}^ tliem at all. Moreover, the 
irreligion or agnosticism of tlie Besisi has taken all 
racial colour out of his customs. His funorals are 
unceremonious interments and he denies the possibility 
of a future life. As for evil spirits, " I wish we could 
see them," said a Besisi to me, ** as we could avoid them 
and escape illness altogether.'* Here wo have the 
widespread theor}- of the ghostly origin of disease — even 
a Malay accepts that view — ^but we have none of that 
horror of the supernatural which is apt to accompany 
a belief of this sort. 
The Besisi living by the .southern slope of the 
great Selangor mountains are a shy un warlike people 
who have accepted without resentment the terrible 
wi'ongs inflicted on them by past generations of Malays. 
Ask for the family history of many of these aborigines 
and you will be told a harrowing tale of the cold-blooded 
and unprovoked murder of their parents^ — narrated 
calmly as though such murders were the most natural 
thing in the world. There is something almost uncanny 
in the patience with which such injuries were borne. 
There is something pitiful, too, in the uncomplaining 
manner with which these men accept their lot of 
inferiority to the petty traders who exploit them 
ruthlessly from day to day. Kxcept for their tree- 
huts and their tribal pattern of blow*pipe and quiver the 
Besisi of the foot-hills seem to have no distinctive culture 
