Giovanni Battista Cerruti

Intellectual development?—?Sakais of the plain and Sakais of the hills?—?Laziness and intelligence?—?Falsehood and the Evil Spirit?—?The Sakai language?—?When the "Orang Putei" gets angry?—?Counting time?—?Novel calendars?—?Moral gifts.

Intellectual development amongst the Sakais of the hills is very limited and as a consequence requires little or no study but much more is to be met with amongst those of the plain for two reasons which I have already explained: one their traffic and consequent intercourse with more civilized races; and the other the mixture of blood from their parents' concubinage with strangers, thus destroying the purity of their own. After the establishment of the British Protectorate and the abolition of slavery in the Federated Malay States the Sakai men and women returned to their native places, the latter taking with them the children born of their masters and the former entered into business relations with their quondam owners by the exchange of forest products for trifles of little or no value.This explains why in the tribes dwelling on the plains we meet with certain cunning and malicious intents which are in strange contrast with their primitive ingenuity and sincerity. But although in comparison to their brethren of the mountains they might and do pass for artful, they themselves are continually cheated and deceived by their more skilful neighbours who barter inferior qualities of tobacco, iron, calico and other trash, worth nothing, for real treasures in rattan, cane, rubber, poisons, fruit and fishing gear which the Sakai of the plain is very clever in making.

Notwithstanding this sharpening of their intellect due to sojourn amongst their more astute neighbours or to the inheritance of insincerity, theirs by birth when born in exile, they are not yet capable of understanding what profit they might make by exciting competition between their covetous barterers, and the latter, each one for self-interest, are very careful not to open the eyes of those who are so ready to let themselves be cheated. Moreover, the ill-treatment to which they were once subjected, and the imperfect knowledge they still have of what the British Protectorate means, renders them timid and too much afraid of these rapacious merchants to dare resent, in any way, the prepotence which damages them.

In spite of the corruption which has infected them from their companionship or relationship with corrupted people the Sakai of the plain still preserves some of his original goodness and uprightness. Only too well it may be said that once he has rid himself of these moral encumbrances which leave him defenceless in the hands of the unscrupulous he will have taken a new step towards civilization but there will be two virtues the less in his spiritual patrimony.

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The Sakai who has taken refuge in the hilly part of the forest in order to escape from the influences of Civilization which may now be said to beset him on all sides, still preserves and defends the original purity of his race.

His intellectual development is inferior to that of his brother living in the plain because he keeps himself alien to everything that might effect his physical laziness and the utter inertia of his brain.

He lives because the forest gives him abundant food, and he lives idly, immersed in innumerable superstitions that AlÀ (the sorcerer) enjoins him to always preserve intact.

If, quite suddenly, a change should come in the life and conditions of these Sakais they would never be able to adapt themselves to a different regime until after extreme suffering and sacrifice had strewn the new path with many victims.

And yet, in spite of all, I believe him to be endowed with a fair amount of intelligence, dormant for the present, but susceptible of development when once awakened and with great patience he has, by slow degrees (almost imperceptibly) been taught to overcome his strange fears and to lose those curious ideas concerning life which the old forest philosopher revealed to me.

I say "almost imperceptibly"—as for some years I have been doing myself—that no suspicions may be raised and that AlÀ may have no cause to rebel against the introduction of modern sentiments by outsiders who insinuate themselves into the tribe, persons whom he does not view with benevolent eyes, especially if they are white. This sort of priest obstinately opposes every element of progress and obliges his people to do the same.

A group of Sakai

Preparing the supper.

p. 151.

I have my reasons for believing in the latent intelligence of the mountain Sakai as I have noticed in him a great facility in imitating sounds, movements and even the way of doing things and also of learning and remembering what he has been taught or has seen. I have perceived in him, too, a pronounced rectitude of judgment and a remarkable sharpness of observation when his superstitious terrors do not throw a veil over his mind.

But he is incorrigibly lazy and will not engage in any kind of work that requires fatigue unless it be by his own spontaneous will. The spirit of independence within him is so profound and indomitable as to induce him perhaps to renounce a benefit to himself for fear of obtaining it through satisfying the desire of another.

He is also very touchy; a harsh word or an impatient gesture is enough to offend him.

In compensation he is hospitable, generous, sincere and averse to falseness and intrigue. If sometimes he tells a lie he does so from the dread of an imaginary or possible evil which might otherwise befall him or his, as for instance when somebody he does not know asks his name or seeks information about his place of abode. In such a case the Sakai, with something like childish impudence, will give a fictitious name or information quite contrary to the truth because he is convinced that every stranger brings with him an evil spirit to let loose upon the person or place he seeks, and that by not saying the truth he tricks both the man and the spirit that cannot injure him as he is not the person declared.

As can be seen, this their way of reasoning does not lack a certain ingenuity which leads one to think that the poor things' brains might be educated to more agility in thinking and understanding.

Unfortunately the means are very scarce for making new impressions upon the grey matter enclosed in the bony case of their thoughtless pates. The first difficulty to be met with is the incredible poverty of their language which impedes the communication and development of an idea.

I endeavour to remedy this deficiency by employing English words and phrases because this is the official language in the Protected Malay States, and the British Government wishes to make it popular.

The Sakais catch the meaning and make use of the terms the same as they often learn a word in Italian or Genoese that I sometimes utter when speaking to myself.

I remember well, one day, that in a moment of irritation about something that did not go right, I exclaimed "Sacramento" (I apologize to those who know what a naughty word it is).

My little servant boy who was present looked at me frightened, then began to cry and darted away as if mad, although he had nothing to do with my bad temper.

Well, what do you think? Now it has passed amongst the Sakai boys that when the Orang Putei gets angry he says "Sacramento!". And they repeat the oath with all the emphasis and air of a trooper, yet I had not taught them it nor should I have wished them to learn the exclamation.

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The Sakai language is, as I have said, very poor indeed, so much so that it is impossible to form a long phrase or keep up the most simple conversation because there are no means of connecting the various words one with the other.

An idea is expressed by a single word or perhaps by three or four together so that it requires a great deal of practice, attention and also a special study of the mimicry which accompanies and explains these terse vocal sounds, to enable one to follow out the thought.

A group of Sakai boys

A group of Bretak boys.

p. 156.

Their vocabulary is soon exhausted for it is composed only of those words which are strictly necessary to make known their daily wants, the necessity of defence and their superstitious feelings. They refuse to adopt any of those expressions that their brethren of the plain have learnt from other races, considering them as impure and perilous as the people themselves. This is an implacable application of the maxim "timeo danaos et dona ferentes" by folks who do not understand Latin and who ignore the existence of the Greeks but who know thoroughly well their stranger neighbours.

It is therefore vain to seek among the Sakais those poetical metaphors and that flowery, figurative style of speech which is attributed by us to all Orientals without distinction.

I am not a student or professor of glottology, contenting myself with being able to speak one or two languages without troubling my head over their origin, so I dare not judge upon the affinity more or less remote of the not too sweet Sakai idioms with others, but there seemed to me such a marked difference between the Malay and Sakai phraseologies that I should have declared them to be absolutely distinct one from the other.

However, the recent studies of the German, W. Schmidt, and the more profound ones of the Italian, A. Trombetti, have proved that all the tongues spoken by the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula as well as those to be heard in the neighbouring isles are in connection with each other.

The most part of the words used by the Sakais are of only one syllable, polysyllables being very rare, and the way in which these accents are shot out from the lips would make a foreigner decide at once that the best method of translating their talk would be by a volley of shots.

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For the curious and the studious I have here added a short list of the words commonly used amongst the Sakais but as their language is totally exempt from every rule of orthography I have tried as well as I can to give a phonetic interpretation of the same.

Arm	—	glahk
Arrow	—	grog
"(poisoned)	—	grog mahng tshegrah'
"(not poisoned)	—	grog pe' m tshegrah
Bamboo	—	annahd'
Banana	—	tellah'e
Betelnut	—	blook
Bird	—	chep
Body	—	brock
Born	—	egoy (alphabetical sound of e)
Blow-pipe	—	blahoo'
Brother	—	tennah'
"(elder)	—	tennah' bop
"(younger)	—	manang se ne (e sounded as in met, men)
Child	—	kennon
Cigarette	—	rockÒ
Come	—	hawl aghit (a as in father)
Cover	—	tshenkop
Day	—	e eah top
Dead	—	daht
Death	—	daht
Dog	—	chaw
Ear	—	garetook
Earth	—	in noos
Evening	—	danwee
Evil	—	ne' ghne' e' (alphabetical sound of e)
Eye	—	maht
Father	—	abbay', abboo', appah'
"(in-law)	—	tennah' amay
Fear	—	sayoo neot
Female	—	knah
Fish	—	kah
Flute	—	tshinelloi
Foe	—	pay kabaad
Foot	—	jehoo
Forest	—	dahraht
Fowl	—	poo
Fruit	—	pla'
Good	—	bawr
Good	—	abbawr
Hail	—	tayho oontoy
Hand	—	tahk
Harm	—	ne', ghne' e' (like evil)
Head	—	kovey
Heart	—	noos
Hen	—	poo
Hill	—	loop
Hot	—	baykahk
Hunger	—	chewahr
Husband	—	care lore
Hut	—	dop
Illness	—	nigh
Leaf	—	slah
Leg	—	kaymung
Lightning	—	bled
Malay	—	my gope
Male	—	crahl
Man	—	sing no
Mandoline	—	krob
Mangosteen	—	play semmetah
Many	—	jeho e
Medicine	—	penglie (ie as in lie)
Moon	—	ghecheck
Monkey	—	dak
"(with long tail)	—	raoh
Mouth	—	eneoong
Morning	—	pawr
Mother	—	amay, kennen, kenung
"(in-law)	—	tennah abbay
Mountain	—	lot, loop
Night	—	sin oar
No	—	pay neay'
Noon	—	dahjis
Nose	—	moh
Old	—	din grah
One	—	nahnaw
People	—	my
Plain	—	barrow
Pond	—	tebbahov
Poison	—	chingrah
Quiver	—	lock
Rage	—	roh
Rain	—	mahny
Rat	—	hay loy
Rice	—	bah
River	—	tayhoo
Season	—	moosin
Sing	—	jeoolah
Sister	—	kaynah
"(elder)	—	taynah kaynah
"(younger)	—	mennang kaynah
Sky	—	sooey
Sleep	—	bet bet
Slumber	—	n' tahk
Snake	—	teegee
Sorcerer	—	ahlah
Spirit	—	ghenigh nee
"(Evil)	—	ahtoo
Star	—	pearloy
Storm	—	poss
Sun	—	mahjis
Thunder	—	nghoo
Thunder	—	nahkoo
Tiger	—	mah moot, mah noos
Tobacco	—	bahkoo
Tree	—	jehoo oo
Two	—	nahr
Valley	—	wawk
Water	—	tayhoo
"for drinking	—	"engot
Wedding	—	ba' kaynah
Wife	—	kay el
Wild	—	loo
Will	—	engot
Wind	—	poy
Woman	—	knah, caredawl
Yes	—	aye aye.[12]

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This poor language that seems to be composed of short coughs does not even lose its roughness in song, if I may so term the musical (?) sounds that proceed from the Sakais' mouths, because real songs they have none. They are accustomed, however, to improvise something of the sort in which they always allude to facts of the day but as there is nobody to collect these fragments of extemporaneous ballads they disappear from the world of memories as quickly as they have been put together.

It is for this that all my endeavours have been in vain to find amongst them some song transmitted from father to son which by referring to an event more or less remote might serve as a clue to the legends or history of this mysterious people. But nothing of the kind exists and not even in talking can they narrate anything farther, back than three or four generations. They could not tell you if the sun and the forest were in existence before their great-grandfather lived. One cannot wonder much at this, though, when it is known that these poor inhabitants of the wildest parts of the jungle can scarcely reckon beyond three and have no means of counting time.

With them the first three numbers are not followed by a series of others which always increase by one but from neer (three) it is rare that they pass to neer nahnÒ (three one) jumping instead to neer neer (three three), and by this addition they express number six. They use the words neer neer nahnÒ for seven and then jump again to neer neer neer which means nine.

When a birth, a death or any other event takes place which requires the exact period of seven days for the accomplishment of certain ceremonies according to their habit, the Sakai takes a strip of reed or rattan (splitting it into parts to make it flexible) with which he ties two groups of three knots each and a single one apart. Every day he undoes one of these knots and so knows when the time prescribed is finished.

If you ask him whether it would not be better for him to learn to count at least as far as seven, a number that for one thing or another is frequently necessary in his life, he answers you invariably:

"We know nothing. Our fathers did so and we too will do the same without being too fantastical".

Thus we see that the saying: "My father did so", may be an inveterate enemy of arithmetic whilst it establishes a close relationship between those who in civilized society put it into practice and the savages dwelling on the heights of Perak.

The Sakai renounces all attempts at counting more than nine, and his total abstention from commercial persuits permits him to spare his brain this fatigue.

Two more solid huts.

p. 166.

Returning from a day's shooting, if they have had luck, my good friends do not trouble themselves much over counting the heads of game they have brought home. They will perhaps begin by placing their victims in groups of neer (three) until they amount to three threes but should the number exceed nine they simply declare them to be jeho e (many) and do not care about knowing anything more precise as they are satisfied at the fact that they, and any of their relations who like to partake of the feast, can live upon game until it is all finished.

Many times I have amused myself by asking a prolific father or mother how many children they had. My friends would get as far as three but then becoming confused would beg me to count them for myself, and their offspring had to pass in front of me whilst they called each by name, for example: Roy (boy) No (boy) Taynah (girl) Po lo (boy) Tay lep (girl) Betah (girl).

Counting them upon my fingers I would tell the parent or parents that they were six, to which they agreed with:

"If you say they are six, they are six".

It is more difficult still for the Sakais to count time. They imagine pretty nearly what hour it is by the position of the sun overhead or from the various sounds which come from the forest announcing, as I have already said, morning, noon, and evening, and during the night the crescendo and diminuendo of the wild beasts' roaring proclaim the hours before and after midnight.

The shortest measure of time that the Sakais understand is that employed in smoking a cigarette.

They observe, although not with much precision, the phases of the moon that they gladly greet at her appearance but they do not feel any curiosity in knowing where she has gone and where she remains when they do not enjoy her soft light at night and during their dances.

The flowering of certain plants and the ripening of certain fruits gives the Sakai a faint idea of the longest period of time they are capable of imagining and which is about equal to our year. The seasons, which cannot here be recognized by diversity of temperature, are distinguished by the gathering and storing away of those fruits that supply them with food at regular intervals of time, such as the durian season, that of the buÀ pra, the dukon and the giÙ blo lol.

I think it would be quite impossible to find out the right age of a Sakai. Sometimes after the birth of a child its parents will cut a notch in the bark of a tree every time the season when he was born returns. But these signs never continue very long because even if the father or mother have not been compelled to abandon their tree-register to follow their clan to another part of the forest, after the third or fourth incision they easily forget to keep up the practice.

When as often happens a Sakai has to undertake a journey of more than three days as in the case of seeking a wife or of making a large provision of tobacco for all the encampment, both he and those left behind have recourse to a novel calendar in order to remember how many days he is absent. They pick up some small stones or little sticks and dividing them into threes the traveller carries away a half with him leaving the rest with his family. At the end of every day those at home and the one who has departed throw away one of these stones or sticks. When the little stock is finished the Sakai is sure to return because he knows very well that any further delay would be the cause of grave apprehensions and anxiety to his dear ones which he is eager to spare them.

Some of them adopt the same system on this occasion as when counting the days of traditional ceremonies, that is by the tying and untying of knots in a strip of scudiscio.[13]

Amongst those Oriental peoples not yet civilized the Sakais are the least known, and yet I firmly believe that they could surpass the others in intelligence—as they undoubtedly excel them in solid moral qualities—if they were to be made the object of assiduous care and benevolent interest.

Once these poor jungle dwellers could be brought to have full confidence in their white protectors, it seems to me that the best thing which could be done for them would be to induce them, by degrees, to dedicate themselves to agriculture.

But their aversion to any kind of labour cannot be overcome by coercive means or evangelical preaching. They would rebel as much against one as the other for they wish to be absolute masters of their own will and their own conscience. And this liberty of thought and action must be left them whilst very slowly and with great patience, by force of example and gentle persuasion, they are made to understand that by doing what we want they are giving us a pleasure which will be largely compensated with tobacco and with the numerous trifles that are the joy and vanity of savages.He who would dream of redeeming them from their present ignorant state by treating them arbitrarily and thereby hurting their feelings and insulting their beliefs would find his undertaking not only fruitless but also dangerous because he would be immediately considered an enemy and the AlÀ would not fail to incite vengeance upon him in the troubled spirits of the tribe.

I think the method most promising in its results is that which I myself have proved. I slipped in amidst them, living the life that they live and respecting their opinions and superstitions, at the same time seeking indirectly to cure them of their natural laziness.

The Sakais are nomadic for two reasons: first, because when they have exhausted, by their prodigality, the edible treasures that the forest soil produces for them without need of toil, in the tract of land within reach of their settlement, they change their residence to a fresh quarter where this uncultivated product is for a long time in superabundance; secondly, because when somebody of their number dies they believe that an evil spirit has entered their village and that to free themselves from its malignant influence it is necessary to fly to another part.

Well, more than once I have made a point of sleeping in a hut lately visited by death to show them how absurd the idea is. At first they stood afar, looking at the forsaken spot and believing that I, too, was dead, but afterwards finding, to their immense wonder, that I was still alive and well, they began to doubt their own superstition and to build their huts a little more solid so that they might be of greater durability.

Overthrown in a definite manner one of the motives of their wanderings the other would cease to exist from the moment they were taught to work the ground. With this scope in view, from time to time, I make a distribution of padi or maize and am glad to see that little by little the miserable plots once rudely sown with corn are now becoming ample fields.

Like the old philosopher I found in the forest, the other Sakais have never thought, or rather let themselves think, what a boon it would be for them to grow the things they like best, around their huts, instead of feeling obliged to get it from others, and they evidently shared his dislike to torturing the earth with iron, for before my advent and sojourn amongst them they simply burnt the pith of the trees and plants they felled and into the bed formed by the ashes they cast indiscriminately bulb and grain, covering up both with their feet or with a piece of wood, and afterwards they took no more care of it.

But this pretence of cultivation was nothing less than a greedy caprice and did not in any way help their domestic economy. The products of the planting which had cost them so little fatigue was deemed surplus food and they would eat up in a few days what might have lasted them for months, inviting friends even lazier than themselves (who had not taken the trouble so much as to imitate this rudimental mode of agriculture) to take part in the gorging feast.

It would be a real blessing to those Sakais who have already begun to cultivate their fields, to work with me in the plantations I am making, to help me in gathering in jungle produce and to apply themselves to some simple industry, if a few good-hearted, thrifty families of European agriculturists were to come and dwell amongst them. In this way my forest friends would make rapid and immense progress for they have already shown their aptitude and ability and the British Government would in a very short time have a flourishing colony by thus bringing them into direct contact with a wholesome civilization consisting of kindness, rectitude and honest work without their losing any of their characteristic integrity through the contaminating influence of spurious evolutionary principles.

It is true that the wide dominions of England claim an immense amount of care and energy but her rulers display sufficient activity and wisdom for the need and would have no cause to regret, but rather rejoice, if they were to extend their beneficence to the far off worthy tribes of Sakais now wandering over Perak and Pahang.

Returning to the character of my no-longer new friends I must really repeat that we should be fortunate if we could find similar traits in many of the persons belonging to civilized society.

Whether I am prejudiced by the sympathy I feel for this people amongst whom I live, and who have granted me hospitality without any limit, I will leave you to judge, kind reader, you who have the patience to peruse these modest pages written, not from an impulse of personal vanity, but in all sincerity, and whose only aim is to do good to the poor Sakais, unknown to the world in general and slandered by those who know them and who are interested in preventing any sort of intercourse with other outsiders besides themselves.

Nobody has ever been to teach the Sakai to be honest and as no kind of moral maxims are known by them it stands to reason that this honesty which speaks in their looks, words and acts depends upon their natural sweet temper and their way of living.

The real Sakai recoils from everything approaching violence and never assaults a fellow creature unless he believes himself or his family seriously menaced or badly treated.

Paolo Mantegazza has written that the nature of a weapon indicates not only the technical ability of a race but also its degree of ferocity. All those arms which serve to make suffer instead of to kill are certain signs of cruelty.

Well, the Sakai inflicts no suffering upon his foe. The terrible poisons with which he tinges his fatal arrows cause almost immediate death, and his sole motive for killing is to rid himself of one whom he thinks will do him harm, but should his enemy run away before he can hit him he would neither follow nor lay an ambush for him. He might almost take as his motto the celebrated line by Niccolini:

Even if their gentle, peaceable characters did not disincline them for a deed of crime, if their indolence and lack of passionate feelings were not safe-guards from evil-doing the entire absence of incentive power prevents them from committing a guilty action. Why should they rob when their neighbours' goods are also theirs? When everything is everybody's, be it a rich supply of meat, fruit, grain, tobacco or accomodation in a sheltered hut? And why should they kill anybody?

For pure malignity? Because there is no other reason to prompt such a wickedness. They have no excuse for jealousy, even if they were capable of entertaining it, for when two young people are fond of each other no pressure is ever made upon them to suffocate their love or to fix their affections upon another through ambition or some sort of hypocritical respect for the usages of society. If the enamoured swain can manage his blowpipe ably enough to procure animal food for his wife their amorous desires are at once contented. And so is the custom among more mature couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his wife or a woman for her husband (which seldom befalls) or should they have met with somebody else that they like better, no demoralizing love-intrigue, or guilty flirtation is the consequence; they simply announce their change of feeling to their conjugal half and if the latter still cherishes a sincere attachment for the faithless partner in wedlock he or she will hasten to make the other happy by giving up all claim upon the loved one and they agree to part upon the best of terms, as also they do when by chance they are reciprocally tired of one another's company. The fact does not give rise to drama, tragedy or Othello-like fury.

Now tell me under what impulse can the Sakai become a criminal?

He is honest and sincere from the kindness and indolence of his character, because of the free life which is his, and the society of people like himself, not because he fears being punished or has any hope of a prize in Heaven.

Will not this strange fact induce some genius of the State to meditate the subject, there being full proof that the alliance of Prison and Hell does not succeed in eradicating the seeds of corruption and crime in civilized nations?

This innate honesty of the Sakai is especially revealed in the manner he respects whatever engagement he has, of his own accord, assumed. Mistrustful in dealing with others, violent and apparently overmastering from the vivacity with which he speaks and gesticulates, as soon as the bargain is fixed he will keep it faithfully to the very letter.

In conformity with the custom that both the Sakai of the hills and his brother of the plain have of not providing for the future, he will consume even beforehand his share of the exchange agreed upon, but all the same he will perform his duties towards the other with the most scrupulous punctuality.

Many times I have intentionally left outside my cabin such articles as would excite in the Sakais a desire of possession, but upon my return I have always found them intact and in their right place. My habitation is always open, even when I am far away but I have never missed a single object.

A little from habit, a little from the virtue I have frequently mentioned, and a little, very likely, because he is too lazy to be otherwise, the Sakai is a just and upright man. He has a great respect for the old, seeks their advice, and—what is much more—follows it; he has a deep sense of gratitude, is unselfish, open-hearted and open-handed, and ever ready to do a service to those who belong to his own village. And this exclusiveness is one of the curious contrasts that may sometimes be noted in human nature.

Meeting upon his road a person who is evidently suffering and has need of aid, if he does not recognize in him, or her, one of his own tribe he will pass on with indifference and grumble out cynically: "All the worse for them". But if the same person were to make an appeal to his charity on the threshold of his rude home, he or she would receive hospitality without being known, and in the event of an accident or any other misfortune which has occasioned grief or trouble to a kinsman, however distant, he will share in their affliction, and do all he can to relieve them in their distress.

After all this, that close and continual observation permits me to affirm, may I not ask the public, or at least those who have followed me in my rambling notes until now: might not this type of savage be held up as an example of perfection to many of our acquaintances in the civilized world whose boundary line of honesty is where it ceases to bring profit, who scorn the thought of gratitude for a favour received as being inconsistent with their "spirit of independence" and who never lose an occasion for exemplifying the tender brotherly love of Cain?