Journal of the Federated Malay States museums - Sabrizain.org

Igi6.] 1. H. N. Evans: Upper Perak Aborigines. ail
ordered a Sakai to fetch him some water, and the Sakai, much
to the surprise of the Malay turned round and told him that if
he wanted water he had better go and get it himself. Several
cases are known of the Hill Sakai of this region objecting to
the presence of strangers in their territories and ejecting them.
Tattooing, called by the Sakai chenul, was observed on the
faces of a number of individuals, both on men and women.
In no case did I see tattoo marks on any other part of the
body. Since, though tattooing has been recorded among the
Sakai by various observers, there seems to be some doubt in
Skeat's mind as to how far evidence with regard to tattooing
was to be believed, I will state here— I have already done so
in other cases where I have met with the practice— that in
speaking of tattooing I invariably mean tattooing proper, i.e.,
pricking colouring material into the skin by means of a pointed
instrument. Skeat sums up the evidence with regard to
tattooing, available at the time he wrote, as follows
" In spite of this apparently strong consensus of evidence,
I must still repeat the warning that (although there is clearly
soine form of real tattooing, i.e., skin-puncturation, practised in
the Peninsula), yet what many of the observers from whom I
have quoted, are wont to call tattooing, is certainly no more
than sacrificatioii * or even perhaps nothing but mere facepaint
after all."t
The Sakai told me that the operation was performed with
a bertam thorn and soot or charcoal. The resulting patterns
were generally rather faint, not very much pigment having
been forced in under the skin. In the men the most usual
tattoo marks found were three pairs of parallel lines on either
side of the face, the topmost line usually running slanting
across the face from near the top of the ear to the nostril, the
lowest from rather below the ear to the corner of the mouth.
In one case a man, besides having this arrangement of tattoo
markings, was also ornamented with two parallel lines from
the top of the forehead in the centre, to the root of the nose.
In the women the tattoo patterns were generally confined
to the forehead, one of the commonest forms being, roughl)^ a
reversed broad arrow composed of three pairs of parallel lines,
the centre pair reaching from the top of the forehead to just
above the root of the nose, the other two pairs from the top of
the forehead to above the eyebrows. One man, in addition to
the ordinary cheek pattern, had also this type -of forehead
design, but the two lines forming the shaft of the arrow
were prolonged to the tip of the nose. Several women,
whom I saw, had the face stained yellow with some vegetable
colouring matter resembling turmeric, which, they said, they
obtained from a fairly tall shrub.
The custom of boring a hole in the septum of the nose
was common, but not universal: porcupine quills were worn
* I have never yet seen scarification employed.
t Pagan Races: Vol. 2, p. 43.