Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. IX GENERAL REMARKS 415
The following is Vaughan - Stevens' statement
as to the alleged origin of the Sakai charm-
patterns :
—
As he (Vaughan-Stevens) was anxious for further
explanation (about the patterns) he took a bamboo
(" tabong ") belonging to one of the men, and asked
to be shown which were Tuhan's finger-prints. In-
stead of replying, the man seized a piece of firewood,
rubbed his finger on the charred end, and pressed
his blackened finger-tip upon the bamboo, thus
producing a triangular pattern.^
Further inquiry elicited the information that for
the interior portion of this figure no fixed rule
existed, and that (e.g?) dots might be introduced
instead of lines. It was further asserted that the
more complicated patterns were only so many varieties
of the simple triangle or V-pattern, duplicated and
arranged X-wise instead of side by side."
Of pure Jakun {i.e. Malayan) designs very little
seems yet to have been written, and specimen illus-
trations of Jakun patterns seem hardly less rare than
descriptions thereof The decorative art of the Besisi,
so far as I have observed (like their language), so
closely resembles that of the Sakai as to be almost
indistinguishable. It is therefore among some of
the Johor and Kuantan tribes (probably among those
who still manufacture the wooden blowpipe) that we
must look for purer specimens of " savage Malay " art-
work. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that
much decoration of Malayan origin that was probably
indigenous in the first place among the Jakun or
* Vaughan-Stevens, iii. 130. This collected his information. Can we say
passage exhibits, unfortunately, the un- that the mark made by a blackened
critical spirit (which in some respects finger-tip suggests a triangle ?
wasamerit!) in which Vaughan-Stevens '' Vaughan-Stevens, iii. 130.