Journal of the Federated Malay States museums - Sabrizain.org

1916.] i. H. N. Evans: Upper Perak Aborigines. 213
floor stringers, and many of the supplementary posts were
all of bamboo, and sheet bamboo was used for the floors,
walling, and for covering the bamboo sleeping benches or
platforms. The height between floor and the cross beams
(about four feet) was so little that in walking about it was constantly
necessary to dodge under timberings. Most of the
sleeping platforms were arranged along the walls, but some
jutted out at right angles. There was, however, sufficient room
left to allow passage from one end of the house to the other.
The dwelling contained four earth hearths, these being built
close to the sleeping platforms. As far as I could find out,
there were no very definitely allotted sleeping places, but the
unmarried of either sex were kept apart. The Hill Sakai are
hard workers, and, for an aboriginal tribe very good agriculturalists.
Each community has several large clearings planted
with different ciops, but padi does not seem to be grown on the
Perak side of the main range. The headman of the village at
which I stopped told me that his people had four clearings in
use at the time of my visit, one planted with sengkuai (millet),
two with ubi kayji (tapioca) and one with a mixed crop of kaladi
(caladium) and keledek (Convolvulus batatas). It appears that
the work of clearing and planting is performed by the whole of
the settlement in common, and the crops are also common
property.
I had imagined, chiefly owing to the size of the house I saw,
that the Sakai w^ould probably only have watching huts on the
other clearings, and w^ould go to and return from them the
same day; hence I omitted to ask them whether they had any
kind of dwellings on them, but after my return to Temengoh,
the Malay Gembala Sakai * Pak Lebai Ishak, informed me that
they usually had a large communal house in each clearing and
the whole community moved from one abode to another whenever
there was any necessity for doing so.
The tribe plants a fair amount of tobacco, for though I
did not com.e across any growing I saw a considerable quantity,
cut into shreds, drying on rectangular frames made of loosely
plaited strips of beniban. These were placed on the low cross
beams above the fire places. The Sakai told me that the
tobacco was generally smoked as soon as dry, but occasionally
they stored it in joints of bamboo to mature.
With regard to weapons, blow-pipes were of the usual
Upper Perak type, i.e. weapons with a one-piece outer tube
consisting of a single internode. The mouth pieces, which
were of wood, were oblately spheroidal. The outer tube
was never sufficiently long to enclose the whole of the inner,
which is of course the important part of the blow-pipe, the
reason probably being that bamboos of sufficient size and
with internodfts long enough for the purpose could not be
obtained. To get over this difficulty a cylindrical piece of
• Herdsman of the Sakai, a name frequently given to any Malay who has
gained authority over the aborigines.