Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

342
CULTIVATION
all, however, with a minimum expenditure of time and
trouble. The rice that they grow, at this stage, is
always "hill-rice" (Mai. " huma "), a fresh plot of
forest-ground (usually the sloping side of a hill)
being selected and cleared annually. The branches
are then lopped off from the fallen trees, the debris is
burnt, and the rice sown in the interstices between
the remaining tree-stumps, this latter process always
necessarily taking place during the more rainy season.
A good instance of this culture of " hill-rice " was
to be seen at Siong (in Kedah), where the Semang
had cleared a great part of the slope of Bukit Temesu,
and planted it with rice and the light catch - crops
mentioned in the foregoing list, with the exception,
however, of tapioca, which, for some reason unknown
to me, they did not plant.
At the time of my arrival their scanty stock of rice,
which was of very poor quality, had all been harvested,
and they had stored it in a tiny hut or barn, built
upon very high posts and no bigger than a box
(4 feet by 4 feet), in order to remove its precious
contents beyond the reach of small mammals.
Perak Semang*.—These remarks apply equally to
the Semang of Perak.
II.
—
Sakai.
Fruit-gathering.
Perak Sakai. — The Sakai method of gathering
wild tree-fruit is to climb the trees in which ripe fruit has
been seen, and then to lop off the fruit-laden boughs,
so that the fruit itself may be picked off the boughs
(as they lie on the ground) and eaten at leisure.^
' De Morgan, viii. 284. This method is also practised by the Malays.