Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. VI SAVAGE MALAYS OF MALACCA 327
flattish four-peaked cap made of woven pandanus-leaf,
which is made fast to a double ring of plaited rattan
or Calamus (which encircles the body of the quiver)
by means of a short cord of plaited tree-bark (A7'io-
carpus ? or Eugeissona tristis ?). The usual waistcord
of twisted tree - bark is attached to the same
rattan-rings. The exterior of the quiver is decorated
throughout by the usual incised patterns (which are, how-
ever, unusually rough and irregularly executed), and
there are traces of resin at the bottom of the quiver/
The interior is fitted with the usual rolled-up
reed- bundle, the number of reeds being sixty- five.
Of these, however, only five contain darts, and there
is one loose dart of which the butt-end has been lost,
making six darts in all. All of these darts have
broken or (as I think more probable) blunt points, and
have very probably been used for knocking over small
birds. Only one (the loose one) has traces of a coat-
ing of poison upon it, and even of this one the extreme
tip of the point is blunt like the rest."
Of the darts the longer ones measure 7J in. ( 1 9 cm.
in length, and the shorter about 7J- in. (18 cm.), and their
butt-ends are made of some very light pith-like wood
and are of irregular length, two being about i in. (2.5 cm.)
long, and the other three being only half that length.
But they are all very incompletely rounded, are all
cut off square at the lower end, and are all pretty
much of the same diameter throughout, instead of
tapering towards the shaft, as is the case with the
better -made darts used by the Sakai, Besisi, etc.
Another distinction is that in two of them the upper
end of the dart-shaft is driven right through the butt-
end, emerging at its extremity beyond the upper end
' Skeat, he. cit. - Ibid.
)