Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/500

 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 southeast 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