Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP, viii SAKAI OF PERAK 387
among the Sakai.^ For carrying water the Sakai employ,
says De Morgan,- the largest bamboo stems they can
find, the smaller ones, when green, being reserved for
cooking purposes. The water-vessels of the Sakai
were frequently well decorated, and sometimes pro-
vided with a loop for ease in carrying them over the
shoulder.'^ Glutinous substances, such as grease, wax,
the viscid sap of certain trees (used as bird-lime), and
even poison, they kept in the shells and husks of big
nuts or fruits. For poison, however, they generally
employed a small bamboo internode, which they corked
with a small section of the leaf-stalk of the " bertam "
{Eugeissona tristis), which is very abundant in these
forests.
Boat- and Raft-building.
Perak Sakai.—The inland Sakai of Perak, accord-
ing to Mr. Hale, were essentially landsmen, and
living as they did near the upper reaches of rivers,
where it was quite impossible to navigate them,
they knew nothing of boat-building, not even to the
extent of making a bamboo raft.^
This statement, however, does not necessarily
apply to all the Sakai of Perak (probably not to
those living some way down-stream), for we are told
by De la Croix that when they were driven to travel
by water, they would make a rough kind of raft con-
structed of bamboos, which were lashed together with
rattans or creepers. M. De la Croix continues that as
they were naturally idle, they would not expose them-
' De Morgan, /,'//. ii. 612. "Many of our Sakai made boxes of
- De Morgan, vii. 414. these bamboos ('bululi belong') and
^ For an instance of the application crammed into them all their clothes, and
of the big internodes of the bamboo henceforth appeared clad only in a two-
called " buluh bdtong," see Wray in inch wide strip of bark-cloth." See also
J.R.A.S., S.B., No. 21, p. 154: p. 121, ;/. 5, d/t/f, * Hale, p. 286.