Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

GENERAL REMARKS 251
lashings by means of which the adze-head is made
fast to the helve, for I was repeatedly assured by
Malays living in the Besisi and Blandas country
(on the Langat) that the difference between the
lashings of a Malay and a Jakun adze-head could be
detected without the least difficulty by the expert.
Firearvis.
All branches of the wild tribes now generally
possess some form of firearm, which most usually
takes the shape of an old Tower musket, and is not
unfrequently owned, or at least used, in common by
all the men of the tribe who claim it.
These guns are obtained by barter at extortionate
rates from friendly Malays or Chinamen.
The use of firearms by the Sakai and Semang
appears, however, to have been of extremely recent
date, as it is only since the establishment of a strong
government in the Malay States that there has been
any sort of peace between them and the Malays, and
before the establishment of this peace the Malays
were not likely to be willing to put such dangerous
weapons in the hands of their victims.'
The Bow.
The use of the bow in the Peninsula is confined
to those tribes which are (wholly or partly) of Negrito
origin. It is indubitably their chief tribal weapon, as
the blowpipe appears to be that of the Sakai,- and as
the spear is that of certain of the Jakun tribes.
There are, it is true, several references in old
writers to the use of the bow by Sakai and Jakun.
but upon examination it will easily be seen that they
* Scey. I. A. vol. i. p. 272. ' Cp. De Morgan, vii. 415.