First attempts at industry?—?The story of a hat?—?Multiplicity?—?Primitive arts?—?Sakai music?—?Songs?—?Instruments?—?Dances?—?Ball dresses?—?Serpentine gracefulness?—?An unpublished Sakai song.

Primitive, like their language and their agriculture, are also Art and Industry among the Sakais.

They make blowpipes, arrows and quivers from bamboo, strings from twisted vegetable fibres, ear-rings and ornamental combs for the women. Now, under my direction, they have begun to plait mats with dried grasses, as well as bags and even hats, using for the latter the fibrous part of the pandanus, and copying one of Panama which I gave them as a model. I cannot give an estimate of the time and patience I spent over this new branch of industry.

The first time I mentioned such a thing to the women I had the unenviable success of making them laugh heartily. And I laughed with them, remarking however, that as they were so good and clever they would have no difficulty in accomplishing the feat if they would only set themselves to try.Vanity is the great spring of a woman's soul that cannot resist the charm of flattery. This is proved by History from the time of Eve to our days and I myself proved it when I again spoke on the subject of hats. The laughter was not so loud and soon ceased altogether. At last the women answered me, with an annoyed and discontented air, that my insistance vexed them. Then I knew that the fortress was about to capitulate and re-doubled my attacks.

The day of surrender was near.

A girl, accompanied by a group of inquisitive, mocking companions, presented herself at my hut bringing with her something in the shape of a hat which was meant to be an imitation of mine. It was full of knots, puckers and other defects.

The little artist was very confused and mortified but I praised her work a great deal and after showing her the mistakes she had made I gave her several bead-necklaces.

In a few days the hats multiplied. The other girls and the women, seeing the presents I had given their companion, felt offended and devoted themselves with fury to the manufacture of the head-covering I desired, improving the form so much as to obtain an exact copy of the pattern one.

When some were finished they brought them to me and throwing them on the ground with a gesture of scorn cried:

"There! take your hats!". But a generous distribution of beads soon made their good-temper return.

Thus I was able to start this new industry by flattering the vanity of the Sakai females ("oh, Vanity, thy name is Woman" even among the savages) and the goods produced, after having been awarded a silver medal and a diploma at Penang were the object of general admiration at the Milan Exhibition of 1906.It is some time now that I have got the men to work in iron. I provide them with the raw material and it is really a wonder to see how well they manage to make knives without possessing any of the tools used in the trade.

When they understood the necessity of a very fierce fire for reducing the metal into such a state as to enable them to make it take the wished-for form, they attempted to put together a sort of bellows and at length succeeded in the following way.

At the bottom of a very big piece of bamboo, they cut a hole into which they inserted a smaller one, joining and fixing them together with gum that the air might not escape from the wrong part. Then at the extremity of a thick stick they fastened a bunch of leaves and grasses large enough to pass with difficulty into the bamboo tube. By working this as a piston the air was expelled from the lower bamboo cane and kindled a bright fire.

After the iron has taken the form required, whilst it is still red-hot, they throw it into a bluish-coloured mud which smells of sulphur and leave it there to temper.

In fact the metal tempers and becomes very hard but I could not tell anyone what properties this slimy earth contains or how the Sakais came to know its value in connection with iron. I only know that they have to dig very deep in the ground before getting at it, a thing that is not either easy or agreeable owing to the lack of necessary implements.

Steel being a very scarce article amongst my good friends they have learnt to make great economy with it using it solely for the blades of the knives and for other purposes. They mix the two metals with surprising skill.

This is the boldest and most intelligent step that the Sakais have made as yet in the field of industry.

That Art which expresses elevated thought and refinement of spirit, in whatever form it manifests itself, is at its lowest ebb among the Sakais and especially representative art, although it is curious to notice how much more they prefer (I speak of the male sex) this latter to that of sounds. Music may procure some moments of bliss to those who yield themselves to its charms but it is transitory and, with them, leaves no reminiscence for the performer or the listener; on the contrary representative art remains and can also give satisfaction to the self love of the artist. It is limited to some rough designs and still more rough incisions on the blowpipes, quivers and the women's combs and their earrings.

Bamboo is the principal material used in making their hunting requisites, their personal ornaments and their domestic utensils.

The combs are large and their teeth vary from 2 to 4 in number. Across them are carved, more or less deeply cut, various signs, some of an angular form that display a pretty correct geometrical precision and others in curved lines, all of which are intended by the several artists to represent birds' heads, snakes or plants. Sometimes this intention is expressed sufficiently clearly; at others there is need of interpretation.

The plants reproduced in this way are always medicinal or those to which superstition attributes some virtue, so that the primitive art is in a great measure due to the desire of possessing an amulet.

The same designs are repeated on the ear-rings, blowpipes and quivers. The Sakais are very proud of these incisions and he who has the most upon his weapon enjoys a certain fame. As a natural consequence this makes him somewhat jealous of his finely decorated cane, much more so than he is of his wife, that for her part gives him no motive for cultivating the yellow demon's acquaintance.

Up to the time I am writing the Sakais' artistic genius has not passed this limit, unless we reckon the horrible paintings upon their faces and bodies, but this branch of art—it may seem irreverent, though none the less true, to say so—brings to the mind dainty toilet-rooms and cosy boudoirs in other parts of the world, in the very heart of civilization, where its devotees think to beautify (but often damage) Nature.

Oh! what a chorus of silvery voices are calling me too, a savage!

The Sakais like music but nearly always the notes are accompanied by a dancing movement, sometimes lightly as if to mark the time, but at others they kick their legs about so furiously, at the same time twisting and writhing their bodies in such a strange series of contortions that an uninitiated looker-on would surely receive the impression that they were suffering from spasmodic pains in the stomach, whereas in reality they are only imitating the wriggling of a serpent.

The woman is particularly fond of dancing and with it she measures the cadencies of her own songs and gives point to the words themselves whilst her companions repeat a sort of chorus which completes the musical passage.

It must not be thought, however, that song as it is known among the Sakais is the melodious sound we are in the habit of considering as such. With them it is an emission of notes, generally guttural ones which are capriciously alternated without any variety of tune and which in their integrity fail to express any musical thought.

The women sing with greater monotony, but more sweetly, than the men. Often they join in groups singing and dancing, and this, I believe, is the gayest moment of their lives and to this honest pleasure they will abandon themselves with rapture, forgetting the fatigue of the day. Then feminine coquetry triumphs before the other girls and the young men.

When night falls the air becomes cool, and even cold later on. Having finished their evening meal the old folk and the children stretch themselves out to sleep round the fire which is always kept lighted. The women sit about weaving bags, mats and hats, their work illuminated by flaring torches composed of sticks and leaves covered with the resin found in the forest. To the extent permitted by their poor language they chat and jest among themselves, laughing noisily the while.

The young men are scattered around preparing their arrows for the next day's hunt, dipping them into the poisonous decoction when it is well heated.

It is not long before work gets tedious to the girls. They jump up and daub their faces in a grotesque manner. With palm leaves they mark out a space of some yards square that has to be reserved for the dancers, and then commences the women's song to which is soon added the stronger voices of the men. At times the chorus is accompanied by an orchestra of those instruments that the Sakais know how to play.

They will take two bamboo canes of six, eight or more inches in diameter, being careful to select a male and female reed. These they beat violently one against the other, the result being a deep note with prolonged vibrations which awake the forest echoes but not the old people and the children who are sleeping.There is also the krob a very primitive kind of lyre that consists of a short but stout piece of bamboo on which two vegetable fibres are tightly drawn. The plectrum used by the player is equally primitive being a fish-bone, a thorn or a bit of wood. The sound caused by grating the two strings is more harmonious than one might suppose.

But the Sakais possess besides a wind instrument that claims more study both in the making and the playing.

It belongs to the flute family and, of course, is made of bamboo. Like all its brothers in the world it is open at one end, with three or four holes on the top side.

Before playing it the performer carefully stops up one of his nostrils with leaves and then applies the other to the first hole into which he gently blows with his nose. From the instrument issues a sweet, melancholy note. By leaving all the holes open a clear sol (G) is obtained; by shutting them all a mi bemolle (E flat); the first hole gives the note mi (E) and the second fa (F).

The ciniloi[15] (for so it is called) is not artistic to the eye and loses all its poetry when one sees its owner blowing his nose into it but the notes emanating from it breathe a vague sense of melody and sadness not entirely unpleasant.

Some of the Sakais are quite masters of this instrument and the women too prefer it to the krob. They seem to find extreme delight in sending forth those long sustained and plaintive sounds as though lulled by a dream, or absorbed in some pathetic thought.

On festive occasions when the solemnity of the entertainment increases in proportion to the noise made, there is a full orchestra. The choruses bawl, the bamboos deafen one with their loud noise like that of huge wooden bells, the krobs sob desperately at the way they are treated by the plectrum, the ciniloi whistles and laments, and all without any fixed measure of time or modulation of tones, in a confusion of sounds so discordant as to recall a very, very faint echo of the infernal nocturnal concerts of the forest.

The orchestra prompt and the singing begun the female dancers advance by twos and threes into the open space confined by palm leaves. Their features are incognizable so disfigured are they with stripes and daubs in red, white, black and sometimes yellow.

Their ball costume is exceedingly simple. They just lay aside the girdle of beauty or chastity which they ordinarily wear and present themselves to the public as Eve did to Adam; or like so many brown-skinned Venuses with variegated masks.

They are however, profusely adorned with flowers.

The first time I saw a similar sight I was struck with surprise but then remembering the cut of some of the evening dresses worn by our Society ladies I came to the conclusion that comparing the clothes with which the latter and the Sakai women are habitually covered there was nothing to be said about the difference made in the toilet on grand and festive occasions.

But to return to the dancers. They hold in their right hands a bunch of palm leaves and begin their performance with curtsies, skips and the contortions I have spoken of; then follows an undulating movement of the flanks as they hurry forward, something in the same position as "cake-walk" dancers, lightly beating the leaves in their hand against others of the same kind they have fastened on their right hip.

The dance is a continual exercise of the joints and muscles, but its swaying motion is not without grace and displays all the seductive beauty of the girls whose freshness has not been destroyed by love and maternity.

A little innocent vanity may be found in this Terpichorean competition because every movement, every jump and contortion receive the greatest attention and are followed by admiration and applause, when worthy of the demonstration, from those who have danced before or have to do so afterwards.

The men sometimes take an active part in the dance but their steps and their movements are always the same as the women's.

The strange thing is that they take the serpent as their model of gracefulness and elegance and seek to copy as closely as possible the flexibility of its body and the gliding motion peculiar to that reptile.

A malignant person would perhaps find here the subject of a witty sarcasm thinking that in the forest serpents in the guise of women dance alone but with us, if we wish to dance at all, we are obliged to embrace them!

These dances will often last until dawn, just as it is at our own evening parties.

Neither song, nor dance, nor the sound of those primitive instruments ever take the character of a religious demonstration.

Only on the nights enlivened by bright moonlight, whilst dancing in the open air, their impromptu songs contain a greeting to the shining orb that presides over their festivity and with its silvery rays enhances its enjoyment. But in this there is nothing to suggest a special cult.

Over yonder they do not dance with any intention of intrigue in their minds, or with the pretext and hope of meeting young persons of opposite sexes in order to kindle the fatal spark that will lead them to matrimony; there they dance for the pure pleasure of dancing, for sincere, hearty enjoyment without any other scope or desire, because, as I mention in another place, the young men and maidens of the same village being all relations, marriage is not permitted between them; the wives must be chosen from a different tribe. This wise custom was evidently established to exclude consanguineous unions (with their degenerating consequences) and perhaps also to consolidate the brotherly ties between people of the same race.

I think if Mantegazza had ever been present at one of these dances of the Sakai girls, he would have added another beautiful page to his estasi umane ("Human Ecstasies") because at these little festivals, whether they are held in the hut or outside, one never sees pouting faces, frowning brows or any other indication of preoccupation or passion. Everybody is merry and their delight can be read upon their countenances (notwithstanding the frightful way they are besmeared with paint), and shines in their eyes; happy are the women who blow into the flute or grate the krob or beat the bamboo sticks; happy are the girls that dance; happy are the youths who join in the chorus. It is an innocent amusement for innocent souls.

To finish off this chapter I here give a very free translation of a song, whose words I was able to catch and remember, which came from the lips of my dear friends upon my returning among them after a long absence:

"O'er mountains and rivers you have passed to come amongst us as a friend, as a friend who will not hurt us, and behold we are here to meet you bearing with us all that the forest has yielded us to-day.

"The clear and beautiful mountain announced the good news and now you have returned to us who rejoice at seeing you again".

The form was not so but I have given the thought exactly, a thought, as you see, full of affection and with a very faint perfume of poetry about it. You will not accuse me, therefore, of being too optimistic when I affirm that the Sakai, in spite of his semblance to a wild man of the bush, savage, suspicious and superstitious as he is, is susceptible of rapid intellectual progress whenever the right means are used in his favour, and towards that end.