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The paths are rough, the trails are blind The Jungle People tread; The yams are scarce and hard to find With which our folk are fed. We suffer yet a little space Until we pass away, The relics of an ancient race That ne'er has had its day. The Song of the Last Sĕmangs.
A curious group to look upon we must have been could any one have seen us: I, the European, the white man, belonging to one of the most civilised races in the Old World; the Malays, civilised too, but after the fashion of unchanging Asia, which differs so widely from the restless progressive civilisation of the West; and, lastly, the Sĕmangs, squalid savages, nursing no ambitions save those prompted by their empty stomachs, with no hope of change or improvement in their lot, and yet representing one of the oldest races in the world a race which, though it first possessed the East, with all its possibilities and riches, could utilise none of them, and whose members carry in their eyes the melancholy look of dumb animals, which, when seen on the human countenance, denotes a people who are doomed to speedy extinction, and who, never since time began, have had their day or have played a part in human history.
Thus it was that upon this evening, as we clustered round the fire in this camp of the Sĕmangs, the aged patriarch, who had praised the 'sweetness' of my salt, lifted up his voice and spoke in this wise. 'The jungles are growing empty now, Tûan, and many things are changed since the days when I was a boy roaming through the woods of the Plus valley with my father and my two brothers.
'I have heard tell that it is only the men of Korinchi who have this strange power, interposed Äbdollah, in the tone of one who longs to be reassured. 'Men say that they also possess the power, rejoined Che’ Sĕman, 'but certain it is that He of the Hairy Face was born a Sĕmang, a negrit of the woods, and when He goeth forth in human guise he is like all other Sĕmangs to look upon.
The Negritos and the Semangs agree very closely in physical characteristics with each other and with the Andaman Islanders, while they differ in a marked manner from every Papuan race. A careful study of these varied races, comparing them with those of Eastern Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Australia, has led me to adopt a comparatively simple view as to their origin and affinities.
There is nothing, I think, to show that the Muras had a different origin from the nobler agricultural tribes belonging to the Tupi nation, to some of whom they are close neighbours, although the very striking contrast in their characters and habits would suggest the conclusion that their origin had been different, in the same way as the Semangs of Malacca, for instance, with regard to the Malays.
The Malay Peninsula contains in Perak hill tribes called "savages" by the Sakays. These tribes have not been seen by Europeans, but are stated to be pigmy in stature, troglodytic, and still in the Stone Age. Farther south are the Semangs of Kedah, with an average stature of four feet ten inches, and the Jakuns of Singapore, rising to five feet.
There remain to be noticed the black woolly-haired races of the Philippines and the Malay peninsula, the former called "Negritos," and the latter "Semangs."
The Semangs of Malacca are jet-black in color, with thick lips, flat nose, and protruding abdomen. In regard to the characteristic of prognathism, it is possessed in various degrees, the most pronounced instance being seen in the photograph of one of the Kalangs of Java, a tribe which has recently become extinct. The face of this individual is strikingly ape-like in profile.
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