Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

532 DEALINGS WITH OTHER RACES i'art it
British power in the Peninsula " and for the most part
gone back to their hunting of monkeys and wild
pigs."^ Their wonderful knowledge of the jungle
and instinct in finding and capturing game has been
referred to elsewhere.
It cannot be denied that they are, generally speak-
ing, dirty to an extreme as compared with the Malays,
scarcely any of them bathe except when caught in the
rain, and a great number of them, more especially
the members of the inland tribes, suffer from some
more or less advanced stage of skin disease, which
is due, no doubt, entirely to their way of living.
There is, however, a good deal of difference in this
respect between the inland tribes and those near the
coast who have come to a greater extent under Malay
influences.
They are also often very lazy, and, as might be
expected, improvident, both characteristics being due
to the life which they lead.
In many respects the Sakai of Kuala Lumpur are
far better off than their forefathers were in the days
when Malay influence was predominant in the Pen-
insula. In those days, as Letessier says," they had no
fixed abode. Hunted by the Malays, who stole
their children, they were forced to leave their dwell-
ings and fly hither and thither, passing the night in
caves or in huts (" pondok "), which they burnt on their
departure. "In those days," they say, "we never
walked in the beaten tracks lest the print of our
footsteps in the mud should betray us." For wherever
the Malay perceived any indication of their presence,
he would build himself a small shelter, and never |
I Letessier, p. lOO. Cp. Maxwell, y. R. A. S., S. B., No. i, pp. 112, 113.
^ Letessier, p. 1 00.