A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

Western Star, 29 November 1935, Page 2

A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

LIVE LIKE APES LANGUAGE OF SIXTY WORDS. USE OF POISONED DARTS. A race of “peaceful” people who live “like wild animals and are the nearest thing to a chimpanzee in habits and custom s that man has produced” visited by Frank Buck, the “bring ’em back aljve” man, on an animal-trapping trip to the Malay Peninsula, from which he returned recently, “They are called Sakai and are to the Malay Peninsula what th e Indians ure, to America,” said Mr Buck. “They fought the inroads of the Javanese from, Java and Sumatra as the redmen fought the Europeans. They ended by retreating into the great jungle inland, where they are now so free from disturbance that not even the depression can get to them. The depression can’t becauase they are among the few people on earth who ar e entirely cut off from the rest of the world. Generation after generation, they live and die without the slightest knowledge of or concern for what happens outside their immediate field of vision.” The Sakai, Mr Buck explained, are a migratory people, following the trail of ripening fruits and herbs and the wanderings of animal herds through the jungles. They hunt with poisoned bamboo darts, shoot with remaikabl© accuracy through blow-guiig made of hollow tubes of highly polished bamboo. KILL PORCUPINES AT 100 FEET.

“The l>]ow-gun,s are beautiful jobs,’’ he said, “barrelled like a rifle and all smooth and shining inside The dart is sharp as a needle and shoots forward with terrific speed. Though there are no sights at all, I’ve seen them drop a porcupine with a single shot at 100 feet.

The dart is dipped in a poison made of the sap of the upas tree mixed with some herbs whose name and nature I could not learn. The poison is brewed, into a sticky mess. It ha s th e remarkable property of killing instantly where, ever it lands and yet it does not make the slain animal inedible. I’ve oatenanimals killed by these poison darts ami suffered no ill effects.” Mr Buck said he learned the entire language of the Sakai in less than an hour, “It consists of 60 words, and they can’t count higher than three. Their arithmetic goes ‘one, two, three, many. ‘Many’ can mean four or forty billion. But they get along all right. There are cases of Sakai who wandered out of the jungle and into Javanese homes or white homes and responded readily to» education,. They h-ave developed into good efficient house boys. That indicates some grey matter in the skull. I don’t know why they haven’t used it to raise their civilisation to a higher level,” NO FIGHTING AMONG GROUP,S. Ihe Sakai wander around in groups of six or eight families, ruled over by “Pangoola,” or head man. But neither the groups nor the h e ad men fight among themselves. “As in the case of wild animals,” said Mr Buck, “you are perfectly s afe in their company as long as you let them alone and are not food The last ‘war’ they fought was several hundred years ago, when the Javanese organised slave-raiding parties and went after them as we would wild beasts. The Sakai fought back with all sorts of ingenious traps. They dug pits and filled| them with poisoned bambo 0 spears, and tricked out the jungle trails with spear cet'pults released by innocent looking vines

“It didn’t do them much good because tile Javanese had krisses and guns, but if showed that the boys could drink when they had to. Generally, though, they prefer not to have t°. Generally they prefer just to sit.”

JURY AVERAGE. Wife (heatedly) ; ‘You’re lazy, you’re worthless, you’re bud-tempered, you’ro shiftless, you’ve a thorough liar.’* Husband (reasonably); ‘Well „, v dear, no man is perfect.’ A n American is said to have turned) three hundred somersaults i„ succession. —They should make a politician out of him. Lives of politicians oft remind us Of our confidence sublime. And of how wc lot them blind u? Rump! about election tinp?,-