10 
PAPERS ON AfALAY SUBJECTS. 
To puzzle tlie ethnologist still more the negrito k 
nomadic and trades with the fairer or " Sakai tribes. 
Many a Sakai blow-pipe, bow or quiver must have found 
its way to Ijok or Selama or Siong, there to be sold to 
some confiding collector as an example of negi'ito culture. 
Under such circumstances controversy becomes endless ; 
there is always a host of eye-witnesses to impugn any 
statement about the " Semang," Eor the purposes of 
this paper the expression " Semang" when applied to a 
l)low-pipe, for instance, refers to a type of blow-pipe 
that is found exclusively among negritoes; it does not 
preclude tlie possibility of other types being also bought, 
borrowed, or imitated. On the other hand, the Sakai 
with his higher culture is not likely to copy the 
wretched appliances of a humbler race. 
The characteristics of the Semang in his most pi-i- 
mitive state may be summarised as follows. He is a 
short lightly-built person of vei^y negroid type, nomadic 
in his life, lax in his moral ttVf and filthy in his habits. 
He plants little or nothing, preferring to live on wild 
fruit, roots and the produce of the chase. He does 
not build permanent houses, but is satisfied with a 
mere screen -shelter, or at best a " bee-hive '* hut 
made of palm-branches. In sexual matters he has 
no race- jealousy. Of his religion very little is known. 
He seems to be free from that all- pervading terror of 
ghosts and of the dead that is so marked a feature of 
Sakai beliefs. On the othei' hand, he fears lightning 
and thunder to such an extent that observers have 
cJ'edited him wnth the possession of a thundei'-god. 
He seems to have some sort of faith in a future life. 
In the Federated Malay States, negrito communities 
are still to be seen in the sul^-districts of Selama and 
