Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

GENERAL REMARKS 245
any idea of their real use. They are found at various
depths below the surface, and although nothing cer-
tain is known about them in the Peninsula, yet as the
various wild tribes nevertheless assert that in former
days a race of men, differing both from themselves and
the Malays, lived in the Peninsula, it may be assumed
that it is to them that the use of stone implements is
tacitly attributed, though this evidence is altogether
too vague to rely upon.^
By the aid of the microscope traces of copper and
iron may be identified on these stones. The stones
showing such traces are used by the Malays to fur-
nish tips for the metal spurs of their fighting-cocks,
since they believe that tips thus furnished cannot be
blunted. The Malay children play with them, and
try to make them smoother than they were when first
found.- In no case did Vaughan- Stevens discover
them ill situ, the specimens being all obtained from
Malays during his twelve months' journey between
Johor and Kelantan.^
Stone implements are numerous in Pahang, Negri
Sembilan, Selangor, and South Perak, very rare in
Johor and Kelantan. Sometimes they occur in Kedah
and Trengganu, but are very rarely found in Patani.^
The arguments bearing upon this most difficult
suljject were excellently stated many years ago by
Wray, who, in an article on the cave-dwellers of Perak,
remarked that it had been somewhat too rashly taken
for granted that the cave-dwellers (of Perak, etc.) were
the makers of the stone implements which had been dis-
' V. B. G. A. xxiii. 832. obtained from the eastern sea-coast
•^ But their most iniporlant use among of the Peninsula, and llie abundance
the Malays is medicinal. of those found on the western coast,
' /'. B. G. A. xxiii. ^l},. \\o\n\ to the jw^sibility of their having
^ Vaughan- Stevens, iii. loi. The l)ecn introduced from some part of
comparative rarity of the specimens Sumatra.