64 
FASCICULI MALAYENSES 
(Plate XIV, fig. i), one of which I found in a coffin, while the rest had 
already been appropriated by Chinamen, who had set them up, together with 
pieces of stalactite naturally having a more or less close resemblance to human 
figures, on ledges of the rock, and had burnt joss-sticks before them. The 
Orang Laut youths who accompanied me told me that these daggers were 
always placed with dead men, in order to enable them to fight the/)/, 1 2 or spirits; 
and that women were given rice-stirrers instead. 
The other cemetery of the Orang Laut Kappir was on the sea-shore, 
under an overhanging cliff about a hundred yards above tide-mark. Though 
the coffins had here decayed as completely as the bones in the cave, and 
though I was told by Samsams that this cemetery had not been used for ten 
years, the condition of some of the skulls leads me to believe that bodies had 
been placed there more recently. Several conical mounds in the sand made 
it seem probable that interments had taken place, but I was unable to investi- 
gate them, and the bones from coffins left on the surface were scattered about, 
together with a large number of vessels of pottery and Chinese porcelain that 
had evidently held offerings of food. 
An old Orang Laut Kappir man on Pulau Mentia told me that his people 
now buried their dead, placing with them a bottle of water and a cocoanut, 
and inserting a dollar in the mouth ; but that formerly corpses were always 
deposited in the cliffs of Chau Mai, even if they had to be brought for a con- 
siderable distance. Their chief cemetery was now on Pulau Lontar, some 
little distance to the north of Pulau Mentia. The placing of a silver coin in 
the mouth of a corpse is, Mr. Steffen tells me, also a Siamese custom in 
Trang ; but in the case of the Buddhists it is always abstracted, with the tacit 
approval of the relatives, by the man who superintends the cremation. 
I was also informed by the Orang Laut of Pulau Mentia, whose statements 
were confirmed by the Samsams encamped near them, that their people never 
have more than one wife, whom they cannot divorce except for wrong-doing — 
a contingency which appears to be practically unknown. Two youths on this 
island had been engaged for two years to girls living on Pulau Lontar, and 
hoped to marry them shortly. They told me that the bride did not appear at 
the marriage ceremony of their people, which consisted in her father 
eating betel with the bridegroom, and that the reason why they could not cast 
off their wives was that ‘ her parents give the woman into the charge of her 
husband ’ ( ma pa perempuhan kasi chelaki juga did). 
With regard to their religion, the Orang Laut told me that they feared 
the spirits of dead men, and made offerings to ‘persons’ {orang 1 ) in the sea and 
I. The word is Siamese, being the equivalent of the Malay hantu. 
2. The word is, of course, pure Malay 5 its common equivalent in the dialect of the Orang Laut Kappir being 
serntah , though they do call themselves Orang Laut. 
