Of the interior parts of the Malayan peninsula, which is the Suvarna or Gold island, one of the three sacred isles of the Hindoos[†] and the grand depot for souls after death,[†] there is little known even at the present day, and the researches which have hitherto been made, regarding the Aboriginals of this portion of the East, have as yet been exceedingly defective, and unattended with any satisfactory result. “In our present state of knowledge,” as a late author observes, “I fear we must pronounce that the origin of the nations which inhabit the Indian islands seems buried in unfathomable obscurity, and hardly appears less mysterious than that of indigenous plants and animals of the country they inhabit.”[†] Mr. Marsden, in the introduction to his Malayan grammar, has quoted the opinion of Sir S. Raffles, (then Mr. Raffles, secretary to the governor of Prince of Wales island,) who published a paper on the Malay nation, in the twelfth volume of the Asiatic Researches, relative to the Aborigines of the peninsula. “The Malays,” observes this author, “seem to have occupied a country previously unappropriated, for, if we except an inconsiderable race of Caffrees who are occasionally found near the mountains, and a few tribes of the Orang-Benua, there does not exist a vestige of a nation anterior to the Malays in the whole peninsula. As the population of the peninsula has excited much interest, my attention has been particularly directed to the various tribes stated to be scattered over the country. Those on the hills are usually called Semang and are woolly headed; those on the plains, Orang-Benua, or people belonging to the country; the word Benua being applied by the Malays to any extensive country, as Benua China, Benua Kling, but it appears to be only a sort of Malay plural to the Arabic word Ben or Beni, signifying a tribe.”[†] This hypothesis, however, is satisfactorily confuted by Marsden, who asserts that Benua is a genuine Malay word signifying country, region, land, and that a slight variation of the word, as Whennua or Fennua is found in the Bisagan dialects of the Philippines, and the languages of the South Sea islands, bearing a precisely similar signification. In my inquiries among the Malays, I have not been able, however, to discover that the term Orang-Benua (which is literally Aborigines or people of the land) is ever applied to any particular race of the Malayan peninsula, the supposed Aboriginal tribes being styled Sakei or Orang-Bukit, Orang-Laut or Semang. According to the Malayan legends, indeed, there is a race of wild people said to be found in the interior of Buman, the boundary between the states of Perak and Salengore, designated Tuah-Benua[†] by the Salagorians, and known at Quedah by the name of Mawas. They are represented as bearing a strong resemblance to the Mawa or long-armed gibbon, and instead of having a bone in the lower part of the arm, they have a piece of sharp iron which serves the double purpose of an arm and a cleaver for cutting wood. There is another savage race, according to the Malays, called Bilian, who are covered with hair, and have nails of extraordinary length. Their principal occupation is said to be tending the tigers, which are their peculiar flock, as the buffaloes are of the Malays. In rainy nights, they are represented by the Malays as sometimes coming to their residence and demanding fire, which those who are acquainted with their savage disposition, hand them upon the point of a sumpit or arrow tube, or at the extremity of a sword; as were the person to present it with his hand, he would inevitably be seized and devoured by the savage monster, a fate, which the credulous Malay firmly believes, has befallen many. It is admirable how the Mahometans of the present day even, assign to these regions inhabitants so aptly coinciding with the mythological superstitions of the Hindoos. Fitter subjects could not indeed be attributed to the sovereign of darkness, whose abode is said to be in the peninsula of Malacca, than the Mawas and Bilian races above described; whose appearance is quite consistent with what some intelligent Christians even, consider as the imps of the infernal regions, and it is still more remarkable that the supposed residence of the Mawa species is, according to the Malays, in the very neighbourhood of the city of the Hindoos, yama-pari, or the grand depot for souls after death. Another circumstance deserving of notice is, that the Menang-Kebans of Sumatra, supposed to be the primitive Malays, “deduce their origin from two brothers named Perapati See Batang and Kei Tumunggungan, who are described as being among the forty companions of Noah in the ark, and whose landing at Palembang, or at a small islet near it named Lauha Pura, (probably the small island of Lucepara) is attended with the circumstance of the dry land being first discovered by the resting upon it of a bird (Perapati is literally a pigeon) that flew from the vessel. From thence they proceeded to the mountain named Sigantang-Gantang, and afterward to Priangan in the neighbourhood of the great volcano, which at this day is spoken of as the capital of Menang-Kaban.”[†] There is a mountain called Gunon-Gantang in the Perak country, the supposed Yama-puri, and what is still more extraordinary, the king of Perak, in opposing the claims of the Siamese to a Boonga-Mas or Golden Flower, in a letter to a friend, says, “I am he who holds the royal sword and the dragon Betel Stand, and the shell fish which came out of the sea, which came from the hill of Segantang.” I do not profess myself to be sufficiently conversant with the subject, to reason farther on this singular coincidence, but it appears to me that many curious inferences might be drawn from it, and I shall leave the matter for the investigation of a more scientific pen.
At Perak, the principal tin country of the peninsula, there are two distinct races of wild people in the interior, the one called Semang, resembling those of Quedah in personal appearance, but speaking a different dialect, somewhat more civilized, and fond of collecting silver and gold, with which they ornament their spears and knives, which they obtain in exchange for the products of the wood; the others are called Orang-Sakei by some, and Orang-Bukit or hill-people by others.[†] They are much darker complexioned than the Malays, but fairer than the Semangs, and speak a distinct language of their own. They are not so timid as the Semangs, and sometimes come down to the Malayan villages to amuse the inhabitants by their peculiar dances and music. Their ordinary dress consists of pieces of bark beat out, tied round their middle, but in their woods they are frequently met quite naked. Both tribes are reported to be pretty numerous on the hills which divide the Perak from the Patani states, and they are often engaged in hostilities with each other. They are not so untractable as the Semangs, and some of their children are trained up as domestics in the Malayan families.
The Orang-Laut is a race of people resembling the Malays in appearance, who live almost entirely on the water; they are certainly the Ichthyophagi of the East, and they subsist wholly upon fish. Dr. Leyden supposes the Battas of Sumatra to be the Ichthyophagi described by Herodotus; but there are several circumstances in his description which would seem to contradict such a supposition. The same author also, in alluding to the Batta Anthropophagi or cannibals of Sumatra, says:[†] “This inhuman custom is not however without a precedent in history, for Herodotus positively asserts that the Padang or Pedasi, about five hundred years before our era, were not only addicted to the eating of raw flesh, but accustomed to kill and eat their relations when they grew old.” Now it is curious that Batta or Battey, for the name is written both ways, seems to be the very word which in Greek, is rendered Padasi, the letter P being almost always pronounced B among several of the Indo Chinese nations, as in the word Pali, which is almost always pronounced Bali. The following is the account which Herodotus gives us of the Paday or Padasi:—“Another Indian nation, who dwell to the eastward of these, (the Indian Ichthyophagi,) are of Nomadic habits and eat raw flesh; they are called Paday and are said to practise such customs as the following: whoever of the community, be he man or woman, happens to fall sick, his most familiar friends, if it is a man, kill him, saying, that by his pining in sickness, his flesh will be spoiled for them, and though he deny that he is sick, they do not attend to him, but put him to death and feast on him. When a woman falls sick, she is treated in like manner by her most intimate female associates. They also sacrifice and feast on him who arrives at old age, and this is the reason that so few ever attain it, for they kill every one who falls sick, before that period.”[†] Although this account corresponds in some particulars with the habits of the Battas, yet it differs materially in others. The Battas, it is well known, inhabit the central parts of Sumatra and but rarely approach the seashore; they could not therefore be termed Ichthyophagi, as they scarcely see fish. The Orang-Laut of the present day are not known to be addicted to cannibalism, though it is extremely probable they were in former times, as they yet retain all the characteristics of the most savage life. They rove about from one island to another, and are found in greatest numbers about the Lancavy group of islands opposite Quedah, and likewise in the straits of Singapore, Dryon, Banca and Belitong. They subsist wholly by fishing, and are very expert at striking fish with the spear; they live principally in small canoes: sometimes when the weather is boisterous, or their little barks require repair, they erect temporary huts on the seashore: they are almost all covered with ring-worms and scorbutic eruptions, and have altogether a most squalid, wretched look; they are sometimes, when chance throws them in the way and they have become a little civilized, employed by the Malays to pull an oar, at which from their continual practice, they are very expert; “their religion is,” (as Symes says of the Andamaners,) “the genuine homage of nature,” offering up a hasty petition to the sun and moon. Of the origin of that most singular and curious race called Semang,[†] the Malays possess no tradition: certain it is, however, that the tribes of them which inhabited various parts on both sides of the peninsula, were much more numerous before many of the Malayan colonies were founded by emigrants from Sumatra. The Semangs are designated by the Malays Semang Paya, Bukit, Bakow and Bila. The Semang Paya are those who reside on the plains and borders of morasses; the Semang Bukit whose abode is on the hills, and the Semang Bakow are so called from their frequenting the seashore, and occasionally taking up their quarters in the mangrove jungles; the Semang Bila are those who have been somewhat reclaimed from their savage habits and have had intercourse with the Malays. A similar race of people are said to have formerly inhabited all the islands of the Archipelago, and small parties are still to be found on many of them. To the eastward they are called Dyake, and on the east coast of the Peninsula, Pangan. They are at present most numerous in the interior of Jan, a small river to the northward of Mirlow, near the lofty mountain Jerei, in the Quedah territory. There are small parties also in the mountains inland of Jooroo and Krian, opposite Pinang. Their huts are temporary dwellings, (for they have no fixed habitations, and rove about like the beasts of the forest,) consist of two posts stuck into the ground, with a small cross-piece, and a few leaves or branches of trees laid over to secure them from the weather; some of them indeed, in the thicker parts of the forest, where the elephants, tigers, and other wild animals are most abundant, make their temporary dwellings upon the cliffs, and branches of the large trees; their clothing consists chiefly of the inner bark of trees, having no manufactures of their own; a few who have ventured to approach the Malayan villages, however, obtain a little cloth in exchange for elephant’s teeth, gahru, dammer and canes, which they procure in the forest, but of the intrinsic value of which they possess little knowledge, and are imposed upon by the crafty Malay. From the Malays also, they procure their arms, knives and tobacco, of which last they make great use; they in turn frequently impose upon the superstitious Malays, when they have no products to barter and wish to procure a supply of tobacco, by presenting them with the medicines derived from particular shrubs and trees, which they represent as efficacious for the cure of headaches and other complaints. The Semangs subsist upon the birds and beasts of the forest and upon roots; they eat elephants, rhinoceroses, monkeys, and rats, and with the exception of the partial and scanty supplies which they obtain from the Malays, they have no rice nor salt: they are very expert with the sompit, and poison their darts with the ipoh, procured from the juice of various trees, which are deadly poison; they handle the bow and spear with wonderful dexterity, and destroy the largest and most powerful animals by ingenious contrivances. They seldom suffer by beasts of prey, as they are extremely sharpsighted, and as agile in ascending trees as the monkeys. Their mode of destroying elephants, in order to procure their ivory or their flesh, is most extraordinary and ingenious; small parties of two and three lie in wait, when they perceive any elephants ascend a hill, and as they descend again, (which they usually do at a slow pace, plucking the branches as they move along,) while the hind legs are lifted up, the Semang, cautiously approaching behind, drives a sharp-pointed bambic or piece of weebong, which has been previously well hardened in the fire, and touched with poison, into the sole of the elephant’s foot, with all his force, which effectually lames the animal and most commonly causes him to fall, when the whole party rush upon him with spears and sharp-pointed sticks, and soon despatch him. The rhinoceros they obtain with even less difficulty. This animal, which is of solitary habits, is found frequently in marshy places, with its whole body immersed in mud, and part of the head only projecting. The Malays call them bodak tapa, or the recluse rhinoceros. Toward the close of the rainy season, they are said to bury themselves in this manner in different places, and upon the dry weather setting in, and from the powerful effects of a vertical sun, the mud becomes hard and crusted, and the rhinoceros cannot effect its escape without considerable difficulty and exertion; the Semangs then prepare themselves with large quantities of combustible materials, with which they quietly approach the animal, who is aroused from his revery by an immense fire over him, which being kept well supplied with fresh fuel, soon completes his destruction and renders him in a fit state to make a meal of; the projecting horn on the snout is carefully preserved, being supposed to be possessed of medical properties, and highly prized by the Malays, to whom they barter it for tobacco and other articles.
A more simple and natural mode of bestowing names cannot well be imagined, than that adopted by the Semangs: they are called after particular trees: that is, if a child is born under or near a cocoa-nut, or durian, or any particular tree in the forest, it is named accordingly. They have chiefs among them, but all property is in common; they worship the sun. Some years ago, I am told, the bindahava or general of Quedah, sent two of these people for the inspection of some of his English friends, at Penang; but shortly after leaving Quedah, one of them, whose fears could not be appeased, became very obstreperous, and endeavoured to upset the small boat, in which they embarked; the Malays, therefore, with their usual apathy and indifference about human life, put the poor creature to death, and threw him overboard; the other arrived in safety, was kindly treated, and received many presents of spades, hatchets, and other implements, which he appeared to prize above every thing else. On his return to Jan, he built himself a small hut, and began to cultivate maize, sugar-cane, and yams, and it is said that he is still there, and is a quiet inoffensive man. This man was, at the time of his visit to Penang, according to report, about thirty years of age, four feet nine inches in height: his hair was woolly and tufted, and of a glossy jet-black;[†] his lips were thick, his nose flat, and belly very protuberant, resembling exactly the natives of the Andaman islands. The Semangs are found also at Tringand, on the eastern side of the peninsula. I am informed by the Malays that the dialect of that tribe is different from those of Quedah, but much the same as of those near Malacca: they are not of such a jet-black, glossy appearance as the Semangs from Quedah, nor as the Andamans. There is little doubt that the degenerate inhabitants of the Andaman islands, in the bay of Bengal, are descended from the same parent stock as the Semangs, and it is extraordinary that they have preserved the same uniformity of manners and habits, through such a series of ages. It will be seen by a reference to the following specimen of the Semang language, that there is a very material difference in many of the words collected by Colonel M’Lunes, (late Malay translator at Penang,) from a Semang or Jan, and published by Mr. Crawfurd, and those collected by Mr. Maingy, the president of Province Wellesley, (government of Penang,) from the Semang of Jooroo, and that the Andaman language bears no resemblance to either.