Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

INTRODUCTION
other members of the brute creation, above the orang-outang, for
example, a comparison worth making because, according to native
tradition, a variety of it, called the " mawas," once inhabited the Peninsula,
as it still inhabits the neighbouring islands of Borneo and
Sumatra, to the latter of which at least the Malay Peninsula was once
(as already pointed out) geologically united. That it is not due to any
incapacity for such development, is clear from the immense number
and variety of ways, as in the blind, deaf and dumb (or in special
trades for instance), in which one or other of his senses becomes quite
abnormally developed through constant use, to say nothing of isolated
phenomena, such as the cases of web-foot connected with East Anglia
since the days of the Gyrvii. That it is not due to his late arrival
will appear when we reflect that the most wonderful development
does continually occur in the life-history even of a single individual.
Probably we should be quite safe in saying that of all animals man
is best able to accommodate himself to new or strange surroundings,
even to those which appear most certain to threaten his very
existence. But since he is able to obtain this end by the use of
special implements and devices, we shall find that (as might almost
be expected) it is these mechanical appliances that he improves
rather than his own members. Hence even in the Malay Peninsula,
which must certainly be one of the most densely wooded countries
in the world, although the Sakai has been driven by the dangers
that threaten him to build his huts in trees, he shows no tendency
to develop into a really arboreal type ; and although he is quite
capable of walking up the stem which forms the approach to his
aerial abode, he still prefers to make use of some rude kind of ladder
to go up and down by (just as, in Les Landes, the French fenlander
has kept to his stilts). So too the Orang Laut, although he has
lived in his boats from the cradle to the grave, as far back as history
will carry us, has never developed, however expert in diving he
may be, anything remotely approaching amphibious characteristics. It
is therefore not so much in the sphere of physical development, great
as in certain ways this undoubtedly is, that we must expect to find
the full effect of the wild man's geographical surroundings, but in
the use that he makes of those surroundings, and the development of
his character.
In what relationship, then, does the wild man of the Peninsula
stand to, and what use does he make of the flora and fauna that
have been described ? It is certainly owing to the dangerous
proximity of wild beasts, such as elephants and tigers, that he has
taken to living in the high tree-huts just referred to. For the wild
elephant of the Peninsula in particular is very rascally, and will
pull even a tree-hut to pieces if he can reach it (as, in one case
that I remember, an elephant in the Langat river demolished,
for sheer mischiefs sake, a Malay dug-out canoe). But nevertheless