Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
The noose is pulled tighter and the boa constrictor fights furiously to get free. But the more it resists the closer the knot becomes. The struggle between captor and captured is not soon finished. The monster pulls, jumps, writhes, sometimes giving such sudden springs as to make the tenacious Sakais run here and there to keep their equilibrium and to stay out of its reach.
A real village, such as we understand it to be, does not exist among the Sakais, but I have been obliged to make use of the word for want of a better one to explain the meaning. Each hut is some hundreds of yards distant from the other so that altogether a village covers an area of from twenty to forty miles.
It is an accepted fact that as far back as the 8th century Arabian merchants traded with the inhabitants of the Peninsula and that a very remote intercourse existed between these and Hindostan, and although there is no substantial proof, no analogies of language, customs or creed upon which to base such a conjecture, neither, as yet, has anything been proved to the contrary whilst many primeval superstitions prevalent amongst the Sakais are still to be found in other tribes living in proximity with believers in Buddha and Brahma.
Woman, who has been compared to nearly every sort of animal that flies, creeps, swims or runs by poets and others of chivalrous sentiments, amongst the Sakais is simply a woman. These three virtues, if they were better known in our parts would spare poor, suffering humanity a great deal of prose, as well as poetry, without the least damage to Art.
This, kind reader, is my modest conviction as, from their method of proceeding, it is also of the English, who are Masters in everything that concerns colonization. My baggage being ready it only remained for me to find some carriers who would be useful to me, if not as guides to the country of the Sakais, at least as interpreters between me and its inhabitants.
It has broad, shiny leaves something like those of the magnolia, and numerous species are to be found in the Malay Jungle. When the season is not too damp and there is a full moon the Sakais make some deep cuts in the bark of this tree and place some bamboo tubes around it in order to catch the sap which flows out abundantly.
I made up my mind to go to the bottom of the affair if only to discover why the Sakais, by nature so far removed from falsehood, had denied the truth.
I have proved its utility in destroying insects and particularly the larva of mosquitoes and the little worms that ruin fruit and vegetables. The ipok called "upas" by the Malays and "antiaris toxicaria" by botanists is a tree which supplies a poisonous juice to the Sakais of the plain. It is a colossus of the forest, and belongs to the nettle family.
On the contrary, I have the highest esteem and respect for all three, especially those who faithfully follow the ways of Progress, and have certain virtues peculiarly theirs. After this rapid glance into the past it is not difficult to understand with what inquietude and uneasiness the Sakais saw their little settlement invaded by those they feared.
Grandchildren give the title of "father" also to their grandfather and great-grandfather and that of "mother" to their grandmother so that these two words which have such a sacred significance to us, to the Sakais are but common appellations. They are only upon simple friendly terms.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking