THE WILD PEOPLE OF THE PENINSULA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4544, 13 October 1875, Page 3

THE WILD PEOPLE OF THE PENINSULA.

Mr. Swettenham, in his report on Salangore (says the Times of gives a description of the wild people of the interior of the Malay Peninsula, known to Europeans under the name of Jakoons, which is of so interesting a character, and differing as it does from previous accounts of them, that we publish it verbatim. In Salangore, but more especially in the Ulu Bernam and Ulu Slim, there are numbers of the “Orang Utan” or -‘Jungle People,” known also to the Malays as bakei, “Semang," “Orang Bukit,” and “Orang Eaiat,” and to Europeans as Jacoons. in the hills about Slim, there are said to be 3000 of these people, and there are on the Perak hills ef Batang Padang, Bidor and Songkei, as many as 10,000. The Jacoons of Shm have a head man of their own, with the title of Datu, and the Malays are obliged to consult him and ask his advice on all important matters; otherwise, it is said, the Jacoons would at once attack the Punghulu and his people, who dread the poisoned arrow of the “ Sumpitan.” or Blow-pipe, more than rifle bullets. The Jacoons are clever gardeners, and cultivate sugar-cane, plantains, sweet potatoes, and other vegetables in abundance. Rice they use but little. Tobacco they are very fond of, and grow it themselves to chew, not to smoke. Their own tobacco they use green, but they prefer Japanese if they can get it. "he solitary garment, or rather rag, used by them, is made of bark, the men wearing it in its simplicity, the women an additional fringe of grass. Like the natives of Bouieo, the Jacoons cover their arms with brass wire. A girl I saw, whose toilet had apparently cost her some trouble, had her arms covered with numberless brass rings ; she wore some dozen strings of colored beads, to which were hung more brass rings, round her neck, the beads fastened behind with a buckle of shells and hoar’s teeth ; through her nose she had a long porcupine’s quill, and her face was painted in stripes of black and red, beginning at her forehead and ending, m the shape of a pitch-fork, on her mouth and chin. Their men are above the average size of Malays, their women of the ordinary height, their hair is not straight, but long and fuzzy, and they all without distinction have their noses bored, and wear in them a bamboo, a folded plantain leaf, or a porcupine’s quill, and by far the greater part of them are afflicted with a fearful skin disease. The Jacoons can walk wonderful distances, and make their way with ease through a jungle which Malaya would not dream of entering, and through the jungle they will carry as heavy weights as a Chinese coolie. They are a wonderfully harmless and docile race, and often make themselves very useful to the Malays, who make but the poorest return to them. The language spoken by the Jacoons is totally different to Malay, and entirely unknown to the Malays ; and the further you go into the mountains the fewer Jacoons will you meet who understand any language but their own.