The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. XXXII, 1940 - Khamkoo

46 Huao Anou· BmtNA'l'ZIK (VOL. XXXII
some wild herd, crashing through the undergrowth regardless of
thorns, and so rapid that all he could gtcther of them waH that they
were pmcticnJly unclad, with unkempt hair.
Twelve years later, Mr. '1'. Wergeui, a Swedish officer in the forest
service of the East Asiatic Company at Prae, actually met some uncouth
hillsmen who, so he learnt, were Ye!Jow-leaf Folk come clown
from the deep forest to do barter with squatters near his carnp. 'l'hey
were not so shy, however, as Mr. Yates' savages, and Mr. \Vergeni
was able to meet them openly; but the reviewer gttthered from his
account-subsequently published in this Journal 2 -that owing to
frequent intercourse with Klmmn squatters they had lost some of the
wildness as8ociated with those seen by Mr. Y a,tes. It now appears
that those discovered by the author in 1936 in the Nam Wa hills
south-east of Nan are also less acquainted with the outside world than
were Mr. Wergeni's Yellow-leaf Folic
The author is well equipped for ethnological field work, since in
addit.ion to his chair of Ethnology at Gratz he possesses two valuable
assets for the field-worker :-llrstly, the company o£ a lady, his wife,
herself an expert in psychology testR, whose help must be invaluable
in apprmwhing the women-folk; secondly, his own medical know ledge,
which was instrumental in overcoming the repugnance of his Yellowleaf
Folk for the company of a European. In addition, both partners
are inured to the hardships of travel in tropical forests by previous
experiences in Africa and Melanesia. 'l'o the pluck, perseverance
and patience expended upon obtaining the facts and pictmes presented
in this book the reviewer desires to offer his tribute of respect. In
one particular the author is at a disadvantage owing to the neces~:~ity
of recourse to English-a language foreign to both parties-as tlHJ
medium between himself and the interpreter through whom he communicates
with third parties. For this reason allowance must be
mnde for a certain minimum of error and misunderstanding inevitable
under the circumstances.
Of the four sections into which the book is divided the firAt, comprising
one-third of the whole, contains accounts of a visit to the
Moken (otherwise Selung) of the lVJergui islands, followed by a visit
to the negrito Semang on the rmtinland between 'rrang and Patalung.
With the latter, excellent relations were established through the
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2 JSS .XX, 1. pp. 41-8.