CURIOUS MALAY RACE.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 22, 19 September 1911, Page 8

CURIOUS MALAY RACE.

POISONS THEIR HOBBY.

Away among the deep forests in the heart of the Malay Peninsula there dwells a singular people whose curious habits are only partially understood. An Italian explorer found them so interesting that he spent 15 years in studying their habits and customs, and has some wonderful stories to relate about the Sacai.

They live in a barbarous state, spending most of their time in gathering poisons from plants, which they. prepare according to secrets known .only to themselves, for protection against their enemies and for bringing down their quarry in the chase. They hunt game, and birds and gather the fruits on which they subsist. Natuie is particularly rich in her bounty, and abundance of berries and foodstuffs is found on the bushes and giant trees, among which fly birds of rare and gorgeous plumage. But what proves most attractive to the natives is the great variety of poisonous plants. They speak about the different poisons as familiarly and as often as we speak about the weather, and the discovery of a new kind or combination is hailed as an even* of thf greatest importance.

The reason for this is because the poison is used in killing game and catching fish and for the preservation of their independence, the various concoctions being mixed according to the resisting power of the object for which they are intended. Thus; for instance, the hunter would never think of wasting a strong poison on a small animal he considered unworthy of such an honorable distinction. Besides, he must study to bring down such game as he afterwards uses for food with poisons which will in no way affect him.

Growing among the rank grasses and on the trunks of the trees, and mingling with creeping flowers, are so.many poisonous plants that the traveller must be constantly on the look-out to avoid them. Some are so deadly that even the odor arising from them is overpowering, causing serious illness; others cause skin diseases and painful swellings of the body if their leaves chance to touch ever so lightly the hands or other exposed parts. Tn spite of his extraordinary passion for concocting poisons the Sacai is a thorough gentleman in the chase and a worthy foeman to meet. He is a bighearted fellow, having none of the barbarous methods of other inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, whose greatest Dleasw< is to torture a fallen foe. When I-.e poisons an' arrow his object l is to <}. use death as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Ho seems to be particularly happy in. his domestic affairs. Husband and wife* live happily together, and quarrelling: or ill-treatment is practically unknown: among them. In the event of a mother-in-law upsetting the peace of the home* by interfering with its arrangements' the young couple adopt the wise plan of pulling down their hut and building a, new one at a respectable distance front the cause of disturbance.—' Chambers' Journal.'