The aboriginal tribes of Perak
W.E. Maxwell, a British Resident in Perak, presented this account to the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in October 1879, drawing on a single day’s observation of five Sakei and Semang men who visited the British Residency at Kwala Kangsa to recover children stolen from their tribes. The article addresses the practice of Malay slavery of aboriginal children, the material culture and beliefs of the forest tribes, and the social dynamics between the Sakei and their Malay neighbours.
Summary
Maxwell’s account is anchored in a specific administrative event: a police investigation that recovered seven Sakei children from Malay villages in Ulu Perak and resulted in the punishment of six Malays convicted of dealing in aboriginal children. Five men from different tribes—Kota, Bancha, Bunga, Belling, and Naga—came down to the Residency to take the children back. Maxwell uses this encounter as a springboard to discuss the broader system of aboriginal slavery, noting that adult Sakei were considered untameable and of no market value, while children were prized because, raised among Malays, they lost the language and forest knowledge that would motivate escape. He records a Patani Malay’s confession that he cultivated relationships with “tame” Sakei specifically to have them steal children for him, sometimes sending them as far as Ulu Kelantan or Ulu Pahang.
The article then shifts to ethnographic observation. Maxwell describes the blowpipe in detail, noting his surprise that darts were loaded at the muzzle and shaken down through the tube rather than from the breech as he had previously assumed. He records the tribes’ belief in pelisit or bajang (evil spirits), illustrating how a man was killed by his own tribe’s consensus after being blamed for a series of deaths, and how his child was sold to Malays for fear the spirit would transfer to her. Thunder rituals, in which women cut their legs and cast blood skyward, are also noted.
The most substantial portion of the article concerns a musical performance by the five men, whom Maxwell observed singing in a circle accompanied by bamboo percussion instruments. He identifies four songs: the Lagu Gias (an enumeration of fruit trees and sacred mountains, which he speculates may preserve tribal traditions), the Lagu Chenaku (concerning the tiger-spirit or Blian, a form of lycanthropy), the Lagu Prah (sung at the ripening of the Prah fruit), and the Lagu Durian. The performance was monotonous, with a range of only three or four notes, but the men showed no difficulty in recalling the words.
Key Findings
- Six Malays were punished for dealing in Sakei children in Ulu Perak; seven children were recovered from various Malay villages by police action (p. 46).
- A Patani Malay confessed to employing “tame” Sakei to steal children, sometimes dispatching them for two months to Ulu Kelantan or Ulu Pahang, compensated with “a few trifling articles” (p. 47).
- The blowpipe was loaded at the muzzle, with darts shaken down to a mouthpiece fitted with a soft fungal plug to prevent air loss; the mouthpiece was taken fully into the mouth (p. 48).
- A Sakei man was killed by tribal consensus after being identified as possessed by a pelisit responsible for multiple deaths; his brother carried out the execution, and the man’s child was sold to Malays to prevent the spirit from transferring to her (p. 48).
- The musical performance comprised four songs—Lagu Gias, Lagu Chenaku, Lagu Prah, and Lagu Durian—accompanied by bamboo percussion (striking tubes on a log, and cherachap-style beating), with a vocal range of only three or four notes (pp. 49–50).
- The term bersempul (a gathering of Sakeis for music and dancing) was recorded as unknown to the compilers of Malay dictionaries at the time (p. 49).
Conclusion
Maxwell’s definitive takeaway is methodological: reliable knowledge of the Sakei cannot be obtained through Malay intermediaries, who regard the aborigines only as useful labourers for jungle-clearing, gutta procurement, or child-stealing. He argues that trustworthy accounts require direct observation of the tribes in their forest habitat, a position reinforced by his account of a Sakei man being publicly ridiculed by Malay children at Sungei Raya, which he cites as evidence of the contempt that drives the aborigines to maintain distance from settled communities.
Context
- Maxwell was a British colonial administrator (Resident) in Perak; the article reflects the administrative concern with aboriginal slavery as a matter of public order and the moral legitimacy of British governance over the Malay states.
- The study’s historiographical value lies in its rare first-hand ethnographic detail on Sakei music, blowpipe technology, and the pelisit belief system, recorded at a moment when the practice of aboriginal child-slavery was being actively suppressed by the colonial administration.