Preface
I N a previous book I expressed the opinion that the time had not yet come for the appearance of a comprehensive work on the pagan races of Malaya to take the place of the monumental tomes of Messrs Skeat and Blagden. This is still the case in so far as the Sakai and Jakun are concerned. The present volume is an attempt to bring up to date, and put into handy form, our knowledge of the Negritos only. I have, by giving plentiful references in footnotes, attempted to avoid over-loading the letterpress with detail.
The chief work among the Negritos of recent years has been done by Father Paul Schebesta and myself. The former studied them in 1924, devoting the year to this purpose, while his expedition to Malaya and Sumatra lasted from January of that year until September 1925, most of the remainder of his time being spent in visiting Sakai and Jakun groups in the Malay Peninsula and the Orang Kubu of Sumatra. His visit was undertaken at the behest of Prof. Dr. Schmidt and financed by Pope Pius XI. The results of his researches have been given in two books of a somewhat popular nature, both published originally in German, and in a number of papers scattered through various scientific and other journals.
Almost all the papers deal with the Negritos or the mixed Negrito-Sakai groups, while of the two books the first treats of the Negritos, the second of the Sakai, the Jakun and the Orang Kubu. The volume on the Negritos has also been published in English under the title of Among the Forest Dwarfs of Malaya, having been translated by Arthur Chambers.
My own work among the Negritos extends, at intervals, from 1913 to 1932, in which year I left Malaya. Recently, however, when the greater part of this book had been written, I paid a short return visit to our Malayan Negritos for the purposes of taking photographs and getting further information about certain points which were not sufficiently clear. Where fresh information has thus been added I have stated the year in which it was obtained. My results have appeared from time to time, chiefly in the Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums, while in sections of my two books, Studies in Religion, Folk-lore, and Custom in British North Borneo and the Malay Peninsula and Papers on the Ethnology and Archaeology of the Malay Peninsula, I have given, with the exception of other details about two groups and two papers on Negrito combs in the last-named work, only material dealing with religion and custom, etc.
The present volume may, therefore, be regarded as a compilation of Schebestas and my own work, plus that of Skeat and his authorities.
Apart from his book on the Negritos, mentioned above, a considerable difficulty exists in dealing with Schebestas material. Some of the papers that he has published on Negrito religion tread one upon the tail of the next, part of what is recorded in paper I re-occurring in paper 2, part of paper 2 in paper 3, and so on, and sometimes these appear to be contradictions between the different accounts, but they are chiefly in minor matters. He has added very materially to our knowledge of the Negritos, as he spent a considerable time with them, enduring, as I can bear witness from my own experience, much discomfort in doing so.
His account of jungle life, as given in his book, is somewhat highly colouredno doubt for popular consumptionbut this is scarcely in consonance with the scientific material that it also contains. Two bad faults are to be found with his work in general, one, which betokens at the least considerable carelessness, is that he occasionally lays claim to discoveries previously recorded as being his own and new, and that he usually gives the impression, by very rarely indeed referring to the work of others, that nothing happened in regard to Negrito research from the days of Vaughan Stevens until his own advent.
With regard to the preparation of this book I have to thank the Government of the State of Perak, the Perak Museum having now again become a State, instead of a Federal, Institution, for permission to reproduce certain photographs taken by me, or for me, in former years, and used as illustrations in various papers of mine, and also for allowing me to have photographs taken of specimens in the Perak Museum, the majority of which were collected by me when visiting Negrito groups.
I have, too, to tender my most grateful thanks to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and to certain officials in the Colonial Office for obtaining for me a subsidy of 150 towards the cost of printing and publishing this volume, while thanks are also due to the High Commissioner for the Malay States and to the Government of the Federated Malay States for providing the aforesaid sum.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Mr. F. H. Nash, late of the Mines Department, Federated Malay States, and now of Northlea, Yarmouth Road, Lowestoft, for his work in preparing the map and the Negrito Chart of the Heavens and the Underworld for me, while I have to thank Mr. M. R. Henderson, of the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, for the gift of a photographic negative and Mr. E. la M. Stowell, Director of Education, Kedah, for material assistance during my visit to Malaya in 1935 and for furnishing me with a picture of a Negrito.
Dr. C. O. Blagden, too, has helped me greatly in various ways, especially by lending me copies of many of Schebestas papers which it would have been difficult for me to obtain otherwise, while Mlle. Cuisinier kindly gave me a copy of her book on the magical dances of Kelantan. I have also to thank Mr. T. R. Hub-back for a note on the wild tribe that frequents the Tanom River, Pahang.
While the manuscript of this book was in the hands of the Cambridge University Press, awaiting the answer of the Government of the Federated Malay States with regard to a publication subsidy, there appeared a useful compilation by Dr. Walter Nippold entitled Rassen-und Kulturgeschichte der Negrito-Vlker Sdost-Asiens and, in the Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums, a report by Mr. H. D. Noone on the Pleh-Temiar Senoi. Of the first I have not been able to make much use, but in regard to the latter I have added an appendix to the present work, as Mr. Noone puts forward certain suggestions which have some bearing, even if not very directly, upon subjects with which I deal.
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