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Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula by W. W. Skeat; C. O. BlagdenReview by: W. CrookeFolklore, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Dec., 1907), pp. 451-456Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1254505 .

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RE VIE WS.

PAGAN RACES OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. By W. W. SKEAT and C. O. BLAGDEN. 2 vols. Macmillan & Co. 19o6.

THE contributions of Mr. Skeat to our knowledge of the popular religion and folk-lore of the Peninsula in his Malay Magic, Fables and Folk-tales from an Eastern Forest; his Progress Reports addressed to the British Association, describing the work of the Cambridge Expedition which visited the Siamese Malay States under his leadership in 1899-1900, and which provided the fine collection now exhibited in the Cambridge Ethnological Museum, raised high expectations of the book in which he proposed to sum up the final results of his studies among these interesting and little-known races. These expectations have been to a large extent realised in the present work, which appears in two portly volumes lavishly illustrated by admirable photographs. A curious omission, it may be incidentally remarked, is that of a good political map of the country, which should accompany each volume. The map appended to the second volume is obviously inadequate. Mr. Skeat might also with advantage have given us a short sketch of the adventures of his Expedition. Possibly, however, he is reserving this for another book.

Some exception may perhaps be taken to the title of the book-the " Pagan Races "-which is for various reasons unsatis- factory, and to that of one section-Natural Religion-which has an established connotation other than that with which the author associates it. He has, again, after much consideration,



452 Reviews.

adopted what he calls the "phylogenetic" system; that is to

say, he treats the three great tribes in distinct sections. This in some respects tends to clearness; but it necessarily involves much repetition, and it stands in the way of that general account of the whole population, their ethnology, folk-lore, and beliefs, which would enable the reader to grasp the relation in which

they stand to savagery in other parts of the world. The plan is, in short, more practical and scientific than artistic. But

when, as in the introductory chapter, Mr. Skeat " lets himself

go," he gives us a really delightful account of the influence of environment in a tropical jungle on human and animal life- a picture which will not suffer by comparison with the classical account by Dr. Wallace of the forests of the Amazon valley and of the Malay Archipelago.

The book may be most fitly described as an encyclopedia, a digest not merely of the results of personal investigations by the authors, but of all the contributions by earlier explorers which are mostly hidden away in publications not easily accessible to English students. This method of treatment has, it is true, the disadvantage of presenting the facts in a scrappy form, and it necessitates much criticism of the authorities. The work most largely utilised in this way is that of Hrolf Vaughan-Stevens, in his voluminous contributions to the Transactions of the Berlin

Anthropological Society and the Zeitschrift fiir Anthropologie in the years I89I-I899. The writings of this remarkable traveller

present many difficulties. He was ignorant of the tribal dialects and worked by the aid of Malay interpreters ; he was not careful to note the sources from which and the localities where he obtained his information; he failed to grasp the ethnological distinction between the various tribes; and, lastly, his Gilbertian

style of after-dinner talk threw much suspicion on the value of his work. Mr. Skeat, in his anxious desire to do the fullest

justice to the writings of his predecessors, has perhaps wasted

space in reproducing many of his statements and criticising his conclusions. In particular, his so-called "Flower" theory of the origin of Negrito decoration has been shown to be based

upon a series of misunderstandings. The native term for a

"pattern" was misinterpreted by him to mean "flower'"; and



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he thus arrived at the conclusion that the decoration of a bamboo comb represented in a series of panels all the portions of a flower- pistils, stamens, sepals-a system which would be natural to a botanic handbook being attributed to a race of semi-naked savages. " Vaughan-Stevens," as Mr. Skeat remarks, "by falling into the trap, has furnished us with yet one more of those awful

object-lessons which are provided from time to time by ethno- logists who rely too much upon the answers given by question- worried savages." With all these reservations Vaughan-Stevens is still our only authority for much of the culture and beliefs of these races; and while it is obvious that his work demands careful scrutiny, much of value remains.

The book is divided into three main sections-ethnography, religion and folk-lore, philology. For the first two divisions Mr. Skeat is responsible; Mr. Blagden deals with philology alone. The last essay, which it is beyond our province to discuss, if indeed any one but the author possesses the necessary knowledge, will rank with Dr. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India as one of the valuable contributions in recent years to our knowledge of the languages of Eastern Asia.

In the ethnographical chapters the most notable fact, which is vital to a comprehension of the inter-relation of these tribes, is the conclusion, based on anthropometry and other character- istics, that they can be divided into three distinct groups-that of the Semang to the north, who are brachycephalic, woolly- haired Negritos; the Sakai in the middle, dolycephalic, wavy- haired, probably an aboriginal Dravidian type; the Jakun to the south, brachycephalic, smooth-haired, probably with Mongolian affinities. These types have naturally to some extent inter- mingled, and all have been more or less affected by the dominant Malay culture; but, now that the problem has been solved in the present book, it is clear that in physical appearance, institutions, and language, they are easily distinguishable. The Semang, for instance, in the form of their huts prefer the long leaf-shelter and circular dwelling found among the Andamanese; while the Sakai and Jakun build upon lofty house-posts. The bow is the tribal weapon of the Negritos; the blowpipe of the Sakai; the spear that of certain Jakun sub-tribes. It is also in this



454 Reviews.

connection worthy of note that these tribes do not appear to have completely passed through the Stone Age culture. Neither the Sakai nor Semang seem to have been the manufacturers of the stone axes and chisels which have been found in the Peninsula. In this they resemble the Andamanese. On the other hand, they have passed or are still passing through a Wood and Bone Age, though they possibly used stone anvils and hammers, whetstones, chips of flint as scrapers, and cooking stones. The wild Orang Bukit of the hills, who have no iron

implements, rely almost entirely upon wood and bone for the blades of their weapons and other implements. It is no wonder that previous writers, unaware of the vital distinctions between these three races, should have fallen into serious error. With reference to certain recent theories on the ethnology of India, it is noteworthy that such a skilled anthropologist as Dr. Duck- worth lays down that in dealing with forms transitional between the Semang and Sakai types, "the cephalic index fails con-

spicuously to differentiate the two, whereas the stature is the more reliable characteristic, and it is from this, with the skin- colour and hair-character, that evidence upon which the distinction is based is to be obtained " (Vol. i. 97).

In religion, again, these race types are clearly differentiated. That of the Semang, in spite of its recognition of Kari, a thunder

god, and certain minor so-called "deities," has little in the way of ceremonial, and consists mainly of mythology and legends. There is little demon-worship, little fear of the ghosts of the

dead, and still less Animism. The Sakai religion, on the other

hand, is mainly demon-worship, and largely assumes that form

of Shamanism which is so widely prevalent in south-east Asia. The religion of the Jakun is the pagan or pre-Mohammedan shamanistic creed of the Peninsular Malays, with the popular side of whose religion, as distinct from the Islamic element, it

has much in common. It shows no trace of the tendency to

personify abstract ideas found among the Semang, and its deities, if they deserve the name, are either quite otiose or form a body of glorified tribal ancestors, round whom a cycle of miraculous

legends has accumulated. As might be expected, these primitive religions, wherever they come in contact with the intrusive Islam



Reviews. 455

of the Malays, are reaching a stage of decadence; and there seems little reason to doubt that, as in parts of India and Africa, Mohammedanism will ultimately swamp the aboriginal faiths.

Perhaps the most interesting contribution to our knowledge of these primitive beliefs is the account, which we owe to Vaughan- Stevens, of the method by which the Semang provide the living but unborn child with a soul. This account, though it still awaits corroboration by other observers, is regarded by Mr. Skeat as none the less credible, particularly as the idea of comparing the soul to a bird is world-wide, and is familiar to the Malays. Putting it briefly, the method provides that the expectant mother should visit a tree of the same species as her own birth-tree, and lay an offering of flowers at its root. " Even though the real birth- tree itself may be many miles distant, yet every tree of its species is regarded as identical with it. The bird, in which the child's soul is contained, always inhabits a tree of the species to which the birth-tree belongs; it flies from one tree (of the species) to another, following the as yet unborn body. The souls of first-born children are always young birds newly hatched, the offspring of the bird which contained the soul of the mother. These birds obtain the souls from Kari" (the thunder god) (II. 4.).

Mr. Skeat deals exhaustively with the beliefs and folk-lore of these races. As might have been expected from the author of Malay Magic, he has paid special attention to the numerous charms and incantations employed in the collection of jungle produce and in the elementary processes of agriculture which they practise. These he has recorded in the original dialects, with neat metrical translations. Among other matters of interest it may be noted that though there are cases found of skin puncturation, what some observers have been accustomed to call "tattooing" is only scarification, or even perhaps nothing more than skin-paint. As regards marriage, the curious rite of circling round a mound or ant-hill deserves further investigation; and the exchange of wives at the annual harvest carnival of the Besisi, which Mr. Skeat classes with the annual universal wedding- day of the Peruvians, might perhaps be more aptly compared with a similar mimetic charm to promote fertility among some of the Indian Dravidians. In the funeral rites the Semang use



456 Reviews.

of the funeral bamboo is remarkable. One of these is provided for the dead man by the minor chief of his village; if a person is buried without the bamboo, it is afterwards lowered through a hole into the grave. "The soul must in that case remain in the body until the burial bamboo arrived, as it is conscious that it has done nothing which might cause the latter to be refused. It is true, however, that if the soul does not leave the grave soon enough, Kari is sure to become impatient, and send thunder and lightning to hasten the tarrying soul; and although the exact effect of this is uncertain the Pangan think the soul must expiate this" (II. 94). A still more extraordinary practice is ascribed to the Samang, that when a tribesman dies the body is eaten and nothing but the head interred. This custom does not prevail at present, but the tradition seems to be based on some rite which has now become obsolete (II. 95)-

It is one of the best features of this book that the authors are careful to explain that in the present state of our knowledge the present monograph can be regarded only as provisional, needing everywhere verification, correction, and extension. It is clear that the Colonial Government is bound to start without

delay a well-organised Ethnographic Survey. Such a Survey would enable us to link in a manner which is impossible at

present the culture and beliefs of these tribes with the wild races of Burma to the north, and with the Dravidians of the Indian

Peninsula, the Andamanese in the latter case providing the intermediate link. The way to such a Survey has been cleared

and the foundations have been laid by Messrs. Skeat and

Blagden, who deserve hearty congratulations on the success of

their labours, which we may guess owed little to official support. They have produced an admirable account of a little-known

people, which contains a vast amount of trustworthy information for students of ethnology, primitive religion, and folk-lore.

W. CROOKE.



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