Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/196

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jungles. Sakai who have spent all their lives among Malays, who have learned to wear clothes, to count up to ten, or it may be even twenty, are hardly to be distinguished from their neighbours, the other primitive upcountry natives. They are not afraid to wander through the Malay villages; they do not rush into the jungle or hide behind trees at the ap- proach of strangers; a water-buffalo does not inspire them with as much terror as a tiger; and they do not hesitate to make, comparatively speaking, long jour- neys from their homes if occasion requires. In all this they are immeasurably more sophisticated than their kinsmen, the semi-wild Sakai of the centre of the Peninsula. These folk trade with the Malays, it is true; but the traffic has to be carried on by visitors who penetrate for the purpose into the Sâkai coun- try. Most of them have learned to speak Malay, though many are familiar only with their own jerky, monosyllabic jargon, and when their three numerals have been used, fall back, for further arithmetical expression, upon the word kerp", which means "many." For clothes they wear the narrow loin- clout, fashioned of the prepared bark of certain trees a form of garment which only very partially covers their nudities; they go, not without reason, in great terror of the Malays, and are as shy as the beasts of the forest; and never willingly do they quit that portion of the country which is still exclusively inhabited by the aboriginal tribes. It was to semi- savage Sâkai such as these that Chêp and her people belonged.