Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

340 C UL TI VA TION vart i i
as they would never work unless they were in a
humour to do so. Their favourite method of felling,
when a large area had to be cleared, was to select
a tree of the largest size, and then to fell it in
a particular direction so as to bring down with it a
number of smaller trees in its fall.
In the earliest stages of cultivation, the first kind
of grain to be planted by the aborigines is a kind of
Chinese millet, which is grown together with a few-
light catch-crops, more especially by tribes living
among the hills of the Peninsula at a considerable alti-
tude. The last mode of cultivation introduced is
usually rice, and even when this latter is cultivated, it
is generally on so small a scale and with such hopelessly
inadequate implements, that it could hardly be ex-
pected (when the various "enemies" of the rice had
taken their toll) that there would be any substantial
harvest left to gather.
Magic rites play a large part in the rice-planting
customs of the Sakai and the Jakun, but less so, I
believe, in those of the Semang, who seem to be less
superstitious than their neighbours,
Mr. Blagden has shown that there are several non-
Malay aboriginal names for rice in the Peninsula, and
this fact, coupled with the existence of varieties of the
grain special to the aborigines, and with the generally
aboriginal character of the harvest -rites, argues
against such words being borrowed by the civilised
(Mohammedan) Malays. The line between pagan
and Mohammedan Malay is drawn at irrigation.
The fact that there have been cases in which the
Jakun have taken even to the cultivation of coffee
shows, however, that they are by no means incapable
of improvement.