FASCICULI MALATENSES 
55 
The gait of the Samsams is not that of jungle folk, offering no peculiarity. 
Their movements are inclined to be deliberate and stately ; but the children 
are noisy and quarrelsome. 
The majority of the men wear loose trousers, generally of a dark blue 
material ; but a coloured waist-cloth is often worn in addition. The upper 
part of the body is frequently left uncovered, but a thin, tight-fitting vest of 
European manufacture is worn, for the sake of comfort, when it can be procured. 
The use of turban handkerchiefs is not universal, but wreaths and other head- 
dresses of flowers rarely take their place. The women wear the Malay sarong , 
reaching from the waist to the ankles. As a rule, they cover the breasts with 
a cloth, but the long jackets worn in Perak are not common. 
The most characteristic weapon of the Samsams of Trang is the pellet 
bow (Plate XIV, fig. 2), which has reached a higher development among 
them than in any other tribe we saw in the Malay Peninsula. The bows are 
formed of strips of bamboo or palm-wood, about one or one-and-a-half inches 
wide and four feet in length. A thumb-guard formed of palm-wood is lashed 
to the inner surface of the bow by means of split rattan, taking the form of a 
crescent or of a highly conventionalized bird, in the specimens collected either 
a ‘woodpecker’ (burong pelatok) or ‘turtle dove’ ( tekukur ). The different birds 
are distinguished from one another by the shape and positions of their heads, 
and their tails are the only part really effective as a guard : in one specimen 
only the tail is represented. The bow-string consists of a piece of rattan, which 
is split in the centre for several inches, so as to admit of a shallow pocket, 
plaited out of strips of the same material, being inserted between the two 
strands. In this, the pellet, a small ball of sun-dried clay, is placed before 
being shot out. The string is fastened to the bow at each end by means of a loop 
of twisted vegetable substance, which fits into a notch in the bamboo or palm- 
wood. The pellet bows are usually hung up in the houses just above the fire, 
so that they become smoked and black. They are said to be really formidable 
weapons, though they have the appearance of being little more than toys. 
The Samsams do very little iron-work, but obtain the blades of their 
jungle-knives, daggers, and kris from Patani and the other states on the East 
Coast of the Peninsula. They outrage all Malay convention in the way which 
they fit the blades to the handles and provide them with sheaths, so that it is 
often possible to find among them a dagger with a blade of one recognized 
type, a handle of another, and a sheath of a third. The tail-stings of rays, 
which are reputed to be very poisonous, are also used as dagger blades 
(Plate XIV, fig. 1, on right), though I have not seen them so employed in other 
parts of the Peninsula. Occasionally even kris handles are fitted with these 
