Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

268 WEAPONS AND JMPJ.EMENTS i-art ii
Andira Horsficldi, Lesch. {PapilionacecB), as well as
certain indescribable emetics such as that referred to
by Friar OdoricusJ
To these may be added the plant called " crab's-
fat " (" lemak kepiting ") ^ mentioned by Newbold, and
common salt, which is also (according to De Morgan)
occasionally referred to as an antidote. According to
the Malays, a particular kind of black maize if applied
to the wound will act as a remedy. Some such
substance may possibly be of use as an absorbent
where a very mild preparation of poison is used, but as
a rule the aborigines declare that the only remedy is to
cut out the part affected immediately, whenever the
strongest preparation of the poison (for which there
is no known antidote) is used. This, however, is
seldom possible, because even at a distance of from
20 to 30 yards the aboriginal can drive his dart into
the flesh up to the butt.^
1.
—
Semang.
Stone I77ipleme7tts—Knives and Hatchets.
The attempt of Vaughan- Stevens to identify
certain stone implements, of which he obtained models,
with tools of East Semang or Pangan workmanship,
can hardly be sustained, for the reasons already set
forth, and it may, I think, be taken as a certainty that
no branch of the Negrito race in the Malay Peninsula
has ever arrived at a sufficiently advanced stage of
civilisation to enable them to produce the highly
finished neolithic implements that are so common in
the Peninsula. On the other hand, it is exceedingly
probable that the Semang, like their Andamanese
1 Odorici Lib. p. 21. ^ Newbold, ii. 403.
•^ Vaughan- Stevens, ii. 128.