THE ABORIGINAL TIUBES. 
PAJiT I.— DIVISIONS OF BACE AND CULTURE. 
word Seaiatttj is a term applied by tlie Malays 
of Kedah to tlie negyito aborigines who live in 
their country. Like most names given by a dominant 
to a subject people it has come to be regarded as 
contemptuous, so that no wild tribesman will answer 
to it. " Wd are not Semang," say the negritoes of 
Ijok, " we are Sakai of the Bwamps ; if you want 
Semang you will find them on the hills behind us." 
" Not sOj" say the negintoes of the hills, " we also are 
not Semang, but if you cross the valley of the Perak 
to the main rauge of the Peninsula you will find Semang 
on the heights behind the vivevs Pi ah and Plus/* 
Should the traveller carry out these directions he will 
find in the Plus mountains a fairer race of aborigines 
who likewise repudiate the designation of Semang. A 
name that is rejected or misapplied in this way is a 
fruitful source of error and confusion, especially among 
authropologlsts of the excursionist type who accept 
uncritically everything that they hear. Paradoxical as 
it may sound, the man who calls himself a Sakai is 
never a Sakai. That name also is contemptuous ; and 
no true Sakai will own up to it — he prefers to call 
himself a ** mountaineer " or " man of the forest.'* But 
the negrito, who belongs to a lower plane of culture, is 
flattered when he is taken for a Sakai, and accepts the 
word at once. "Whence more confusion; but for 
the purposes of this paper the word Semang may bo 
taken as the tribal equivalent of " negrito." 
