22 
FASCICULI MALATENSES 
ex-Raj a Muda of Rhaman in return for aid given in elephant hunting. The 
other Semin headmen do not recognize him as their superior. The head- 
man of each camp appears to be appointed by the Malay whom the men 
of that camp recognize as their master. The camps are exogamous, the men 
being obliged to choose a wife from one other than their own. They buy her 
from her parents. The Malay master of a camp has much the same relations 
with that camp as the old man at Mabek, in Jalor, had with the Hami, though 
under British administration his position is not a legal one. As the Semin 
practice no form of agriculture on their own account they are necessarily to 
some extent nomadic, ranging the jungle in search of wild fruits and roots 
and game ; but it is probable that each camp has a very definite hunting- 
ground, upon which the men of other camps hesitate to trespass. At the 
season of the rice harvest, which was that in which I visited Upper Perak, 
the Semin congregate in the neighbourhood of the villages of their masters, 
whom they assist in reaping and storing the grain. In return for their services 
he gives them tobacco, clothes, knives, and the like. 
The range of the Seman is determined in a south-easterly direction by 
the course of the Perak River, which they cross, however, to trade with the 
hill Sakais on the other bank. They state that they are closely related to the 
Semangs of Rhaman, whom they regard as their own * kind ; 1 but they do 
not appear to have heard of the Hami, or to know anything of the State of 
Jalor. Northwards, they claim kindred with the jungle folk of Baling, in 
Kedah ; sometimes, according to their own statements, crossing over into that 
state. 
( B ). Sakai Tribes 
The first two tribes to be dealt with under this heading are so closely 
related to the Semang stock, that the wisdom of separating them from it may 
be doubted. It is hardly controversial to state that they are Semangs with a 
slight admixture of either Malay or Sakai blood, supposing that it is legitimate 
to speak of a definite Sakai race y which is very doubtful at the present stage 
of our enquiry. Still, it has seemed better to make the division, seeing that 
the differences, though inconspicuous, most certainly exist, and that the tribes 
of Upper Perak, other than the Seman, include persons among their numbers 
whose hair is nearly straight and whose complexion is very much paler than 
chocolate. 
The Malay nomenclature also of these tribes is confusing, but it is 
necessary to explain it, for many authors have been obliged to give Malay 
names to the jungle tribes they describe, simply because they can learn no 
