Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

390
ARTS AND CRAFTS
and similar articles. The material of which their
mats are made consists mainly of pandanus or screw-
pine leaves, which they tear into longitudinal strips,
Malay fashion, by means of a short wooden holder in
which iron teeth are set.
The pouches are often decorated either by means
of raised ' or coloured rush-work, or by means of
coloured threads, which latter are stitched on to the
pouch, following the lines of the pattern required.
The Besisi, not only in Kuala Langat but through-
out the region inhabited by them, are very expert at
the building of small dug-out canoes {i.e. " chem-
plong "), some of which cannot be surpassed.^
Their paddle -blades are as a rule much longer
and narrower than those of the Malays, and are
consequently less trouble to make.
I cannot say that I remember ever seeing a
Jakun sail his boat, and am inclined to believe that
on the Selangor coast, at all events, they never
reached this point.
Iron-work.
Besisi.—The Besisi of Kuala Langat have, moreover,
made some advance in metal-work, of which they have
picked up some idea from the Malays. Thus in writing
of the fish-spears used by this tribe, Mr. Bellamy
remarks that they make them by their own unaided
ingenuity, and that in the jungle near Sungei Ampang
he once saw a small native forge, to which was
attached a rough species of bellows made of two
upright bamboos, each of which measured about three
inches in diameter, and that into each of these bam-
1 Like the well-known and beauti- are occasionally seen in this country,
fully made "Malacca baskets" which ^ Cp_ (j, c, Bellamy, p. 230.