FASCICULI MALATENSES 
15 
gain a brownish tinge, which becomes so dark In time that it almost conceals 
the ornamentation. In the Serrdn quivers the darts are usually separated from 
one another by means of strips of palm leaf. The £ palm scurf,' used for filling 
up the aperture of the blowgun behind the dart whenever the latter is inserted, 
is carried tn a fold of the waist-cloth. 
Bamboos, not dissimilar to the quivers, but considerably wider and shorter, 
are used as receptacles for tobacco, flint and steel, nuts of the wild areca 
palm, and the like. Their ornamentation is often identical with that on the 
quivers, but in some specimens very curious representations of animals and men 
are scratched on the surface (Fig. 4). As may be seen from the figures, they are 
of a highly conventional character, only some particularly important or striking 
feature of many of the animals being portrayed. In the case of the i turtles,' 
for instance, only the carapace is drawn, while in that of the ‘Argus Pheasant 1 
—a pattern on which I will have more to say later, in connexion with the Pd- 
K 16 —the long tail feathers are the only feature that is at all recognizable. 
The pattern known as * hills * to the Semin is called by a variety of names 
among the different tribes of the Peninsula, but is very generally taken to re¬ 
present the young shoots of the bamboo or some other plant. The ‘calthrops’ 
that occur on one figured cylinder (Fig. 2), are apparently little, sharp-pointed 
pieces of iron or bamboo welded or tied together in such a way that, however 
they are thrown on the ground, one point always remains upright, to maim the 
feet of anyone who treads on it. Devices of the kind, called sudar in Malay, 
are still used by Malay and Siamese burglars, in order to prevent pursuit when 
they are escaping ; and in the State of Jalor we saw them kept by a Chinaman 
to scatter round his opium shop at night. Presumedly they are also used by 
the Sem&n, seeing that these people have in their own language an equivalent 
for the Malay word sudar entirely different from it. 
Fire is usually procured at the present day by means of flint and steel or 
Japanese lucifer matches, but the older men are still able to make fire by 
means of wood and rattan. The chief of the camp that had its head-quarters 
at Grit showed me how this was done. He took a billet of soft wood, about 
a foot-and-a-half long, and split it at one end so as to form a cleft of about 
six inches. Into this he inserted a small stick, which formed a peg separating 
the two halves and standing above the surface of the billet to the height of 
an inch or more. Beside this he placed some 4 palm scurf. 1 He then took a 
stout strip of rattan, about five feet long, and passed one end of it under the 
billet as it lay on the ground. To each end he fastened a stick, which acted 
as a handle. Then he grasped one of these sticks in each hand, and, holding 
down the cleft billet by means of his right foot, he began to draw the rattan 
