My Friends the Savages Part 24

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.s 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 _bua pra_, the _dukon_ and the _giu 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 surpa.s.s the others in intelligence--as they undoubtedly excel them in solid moral qualities--if they were to be made the object of a.s.siduous 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 _Ala_ 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 superst.i.tions, 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 superst.i.tion 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 apt.i.tude 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, rect.i.tude 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.

n.o.body 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 a.s.saults a fellow creature unless he believes himself or his family seriously menaced or badly treated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A young man procuring food with his blowpipe.

_p._ 169.]

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:

Ripa.s.si l'Alpi e tornera fratello.[14]

Even if their gentle, peaceable characters did not disincline them for a deed of crime, if their indolence and lack of pa.s.sionate 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 Oth.e.l.lo-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 h.e.l.l 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, a.s.sumed.

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 grat.i.tude, 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 pa.s.s 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 grat.i.tude 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?