Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

GENERAL REMARKS 169
later visitors. The reason for this use of these caves,
moreover, is in this instance known, viz. : the fact
that they afforded protection against wild elephants.
At the same time it is only fair to add that this is the
only exception I know of.
Although, however, the practice of utilising such
natural refuges as are afforded by the geographical
features (such as trees and rock-shelters) of the country
they live in appears to be common to all the wilder
members of the three races alike, and although it may
be possible to trace certain similarities in the methods
by which their more settled fellow-tribesmen succeeded
in evolving a hut-type which, at first of the pile-hut
type common in S.E. Asia, became gradually assimi-
lated to that of the Peninsular Malays, it is neverthe-
less quite possible in certain respects to differentiate
the various types of hut, and even to specify with
almost complete certainty to which of the three races
these types should be assigned.
The Semang huts, for instance, frequently resemble
(as might almost be expected) the huts built by the
Andamanese, and the circular (and semicircular) huts
formed by planting a number of palm-leaves upright
in the ground, with their tops drooping over to a
common centre, appear also to be only recorded in
districts where Negrito inHuence is either certain or
to be suspected. The long leaf-shelter, too, that I
visited in Kedah was certainly of a type apparently
confined exclusively to the Semang or Negrito. It
may be added, moreover, that the Semang appear
(speaking broadly and generally) to be on the whole
more given to the use of tree-shelters and huts on
ground-level than the average Sakai or the Jakun,
and that both of the latter races seem especially fond