40 
FASCICULI MALATENSES 
twigs, when not in use, are stored in bamboo receptacles resembling the 
quivers of the Semin, except that they are far less ornamental, rarely having 
more than a few simple lines engraved upon them. 
Bows and arrows are not used in this district, and we did not see the 
prickly cudgels observed among the Hami and the Selangor Sakais. Pellet- 
bows, though common in the northern half of the Peninsula, appear never to 
be made by the jungle tribes. 
In a Sakai house at Telom we saw fish-traps of several patterns, which 
differed in no respect, as far as we could judge from a superficial examination, 
from those in common use among the Malays of the less civilized parts of 
the Peninsula. On one occasion a whole camp of Mai Dardt was surprised 
fishing on a pebbly bank in the middle of a rapid stream. They had dammed 
one branch of the river and were scooping out the fish from the pool thus 
formed in a baling-basket very much like that used by all races of the 
Peninsula for catching the small fry of the flooded rice-swamps. Unlike the 
Semin of Upper Perak, the Sakais of this district appear to be unacquainted 
with the use of hook and line ; but this ignorance may be due to the fact 
that they do not practice navigation of any kind, either in the Batang 
Padang district or near the headwaters of the Telom, though they are said 
to be expert raftsmen on the Jelei and Tenom, of which the Telom is a 
tributary. One fish-trap, collected near Bidor, is worthy of a brief description, 
as it differed somewhat from any other seen. It consisted of a funnel-shaped 
basket, about four inches in diameter, with a fringe of springy twigs forming 
the apex of the funnel. A fish would be forced by the current of the stream 
among these twigs and would not be able to move either forwards or 
backwards. 
A Sakai camp is usually well supplied with household implements and 
utensils, but by far the greater number of these are obtained directly or in¬ 
directly from the Malays. Water is carried and stored, as among all the more 
primitive inhabitants of the Peninsula, in bamboos, which may measure as 
much as eight feet in length. The septa dividing the nodes are roughly per¬ 
forated, and (at any rate in the larger specimens) a spout is formed by cutting 
the bamboo diagonally to its axis. Sometimes these large water-vessels are 
decorated with painted and incised patterns, but this is probably a sign that 
they have been used for ceremonial purposes. A pair were obtained near 
Bidor which had been used in the ceremony of purifying a woman after child¬ 
birth'—a custom not improbably derived from the Malays. They were 
ornamented with longitudinal straight lines, zig-zags, and spots of white and 
pink paint, which corresponded roughly with incised lines, and were confined 
