Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

GENERAL REMARKS 255
which is confined to the Semang.^ It is in fact now
quite certain that the natural weapon of the Semang
is the bow, and that they only learnt the use of the
blowpipe from the Sakai. Hence even when they did
take to it, they adopted it quite perfunctorily, and at
no time took such trouble over its manufacture or pride
in its possession as the two other races mentioned."
In the islands of the Malay Archipelago (in
Borneo, for instance), the blowpipe consists of a long
wooden barrel or tube the interior of which has to be
bored out."' This method of manufacture is much
clumsier and more, laborious than that by which its
bamboo fellow of the Peninsula is made, and it
stands, I think, more or less to reason that if the
wooden blowpipe of Borneo (or that made by some of
the savage Malay tribes in the Peninsula) had had to
be invented before the idea of utilising Banibusa
Wrayi for the purpose had arisen, the bamboo
blowpipe as we know it would never have existed. On
the other hand, the sporadic existence of the wooden
blowpipe may reasonably be due to the rarity or the
absence of the particular species of long -jointed
bamboo [Bambusa Wrayi)* from which the wild tribes
of the Peninsula manufacture their blowpipes, for it is
inconceivable that any intelligent race that had once
' Cp. Swett. p. 228 : "The Sakai use that he has seen some beautifully made
no other weapons than the blowpipe, blowpipes among the Semani; of
but the Semang have a very powerful Upper Perak and Selama.
bow and iron -barbed arrows, with
which they can kill the largest game."
^
*
II. Ling Roth, vol. ii. pp.
Mr. Wr.iy writes me
1 84- 1 87.
that />.
Cp. also Dc Qualrefages, pp. 230, 231. IVrayi is only used by the Semang of
^ This remark applies especially to Upper I'erak and Selama, and the
the Semang tribes furthest removed mixed Sakai - Semang tribes of the
from Sakai influence, e.g. to the Plus district in Perak. In other
Semang of Kedah, and perhaps in districts of Perak another species is
some degree to the Pangan of Ulu used, of a kind not yet determined,
Patani and Ulu Kelantan. On the with internodes of 3 to 4 ft. in length,
other hand, Mr. L. Wray writes me Cp. Wray, Per. M. N. iii. pp. 54-5S.