Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. IX NEGRITOS OF PERAK 445
women on the same quiver. We also see that varieties
of quivers F and G are allotted to the women by way
of compensation for the fact that they have their
seventy main Disease -patterns (not reckoning the
varieties) on their combs, and that these latter only
include the Diseases which may attack them alone.
Should we not then infer that men and women as a
rule have always had different patterns for Diseases
common to both ? for it is scarcely to be supposed
that the seventy, or perhaps one hundred and forty.
Diseases of the women should be all absolutely different
from those of the men [cf. quiver H). So the patterns
of the quivers and blowpipes, if they were to be
efficacious for both sexes at the same time, must
possess two patterns, and these would be the tubes
with the centre panel left blank. In this connexion
quivers H and O are especially striking. In quivers
F, G, and H the pattern is called "hu-ju-weg."
Quivers F and G possess no dividing centre panel,
and have special quiver patterns for the women.
Quiver H has not got it, and therefore shows the
division alleged above. Quiver O has an emi)ty
centre panel, with exactly the same pattern at top and
bottom, though in reverse order.^]
Even, however, if this idea is right, it does not
help to make the signification of the patterns any
more comprehensible. The comb designs would,
however, appear to be an imitation of the men's
quiver patterns, with a broad incised centre panel.
[The signification of the latter was said to be explained
by the patterns of the ancient "gi." The
^ The patterns of the tubes are never only exception. It is a simple pattern,
directed against Diseases which by their Thus no proof of the point at issue
nature can only attack the man. Sr (apart fiom quiver Si) is possible in
against disease of the testicles forms ilic this direction.