Journal of the Federated Malay States museums - Sabrizain.org

IV. NOTES ON THE SAKA1 OF THE ULU
KAMPAR. (Plates I— V).
By Ivor H. N. Evans, B.A., Assistant ( urator and Ethno-
graphical Assistant, F.M.S. Museums.
l'he toll.. wing notes are the results of rather over a
month's work among the Sakai of the Kampar River, above
Gopeng, in the Kinta district of Penik ; my visit to these
people having been made during the months of May and June,
rgi5. Starting from Gopeng on May 29th, a three miles walk,
chiefly through old and new tin workings, took me to
" Kampong Ulu Pipe," a Malay settlement, about three miles
distant from Gopeng, which is close to Messrs. Osborne &
Chappel's new pip -li ie. On the hills near this village can be
seen several Sak li clearings, so, with ihe idea of getting into
touch with their inhabitants and of learning something of the
ali irigines living round tin.; headwaters of the Kinta River,
I made a few days stay in this locality. With regard to
my second intention, I met with very small success. The
Malays of the settlement are all foreigners, Sumatra men, who
have come into the country within the last twenty years or so,
and know practically nothing of the district with the exception
of their own village and the road to Gopeng. I could not
even obtain from them the name of a conspicuous mountain,
which was clearly to be seen from the village. The information
I got from the local Sakai was almost as unsatisfactory
as that from th>' Malays, since they also seemed to move only
within a small radius in the region of the foot-hills. The
country of the Fahang border was to them unexplored
territory, and they seemed to have no intercourse with the
aborigines of that district. These tame Sakai inhabit the Kinta
Valley from about Gopeng to localities some little w#y above
the dam on the big pipe-line, and also those of the Guroh and
Geruntum (Kuntun on the map) Rivers, tributaries of the
Kinta, while they have some intercourse with the people
of Sungei Raia, who are said to differ slightly from them in
dialect. This particular section of the Sakai, which cannot
well be called a tribe, falls within the large division of the
Central Sakai. The aborigines who live near Gopeng have
adopted Malay fashions in dress, and the blow-pipe seems to
be falling into disuse among them, as do also their ancient
customs and beliefs.
Finding these people, therefore, too sophisticated to be
likely to afford me much of interest, I moved to a Sakai
settlement on the Kinta River, some two and a half miles
above the dam on the larire pipe-line, and some ten miles from
Gopeng. Here I staved for about a fortnight. Though the
inhabitants of this settlement had been to a considerable
August, 1916. 4