Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

SAKAI OF PERAK 503
loans of knives, hatchets, and other objects which the
Sakai cannot make themselves and obtain from the
Malays ;
as well as loans of houses, clearings, or crops.
The Sakai are honest and always return a loan.
For all these contracts consent alone is necessary,
and no regular form is used.
The " contract of donation "
is chietiy applied to
some portable article, e.g. a knife. Similar presents
were those made by a son-in-law to his (prospective)
father-in-law.
Debts may arise, e.g., from failing to return a
borrowed article that has been lost, or from fines,
etc.
The debtor and his family work for the creditor
for one or two months (according to the Penghulu's
decision), the creditor finding them food. They then
retire into the forest until their plantation is once
more able to support them. A debtor is despised by
everybody, and is derisively given, when a monkey
is killed, the creature's muzzle as his portion of food.
Sometimes the creditor is put by the Penghulu in
possession of a debtor's crops.^
Property}
As has already been pointed out, the petty chief
of each Sakai village (Pelima or Penghulu) has, as
De Morgan states, every right but the capital one
over the members of his settlement. His authority
is enforced (like that of the father of a European
family) by means of the intluence derived from his
age and position in the tribe, rather than by that
of any legal sanction. The tribe, in fact, merely forms
(as it were) a rather larger family circle.
^ De Morgan, vii. 424. 2 n,i({_ p. 420.