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 The Selungs of.me.Mer;9Ui,Archige^^^^^ 
 
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 THE SELF^GS 
 
 MEEGUI AECHIPELAGO, 
 
 JOHN ANDBESON, M.D., LL.D. Edin., F.E.S. 
 
 WITH FOUR PLATES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 TEiJBNEE & CO., LUDGATB HILL. 
 
 1890. 
 
u 
 
 
 BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 A/ 
 
/ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The observations on the Selungs of the Mergui Archipelago, 
 embodied in the following short notice of that people, were 
 made during my visit to the Archipelago in the end of 1881 
 and the beginning of 1882. Owing to my ignorance of the 
 language, all my inquiries had to be made through two inter- 
 preters, one a Burman, who knew Selungese, and the other 
 an Anglo-Burman, who understood English and Burmese, 
 both illiterate men. This circumstance rendered my task 
 most arduous, and I always felt, even after I had repeatedly 
 sifted and tested the information supplied to me, that, after 
 all, I might not have arrived at a correct understanding of 
 it. I have therefore confined myself to recording the simple 
 and evident facts that came under my notice. This little 
 treatise, however, will have served its purpose should it 
 prove the means of leading any on the spot to a more 
 exhaustive study of the Selungs, their origin, their tradi- 
 tions, and their speech. 
 
 My thanks are due to Professor Sir William Turner, 
 General Horace A. Browne, and Dr. Eost for the informa- 
 tion they so willingly gave me on the questions I submitted 
 to them for their individual opinions. 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023017977 
 
THE SELUJ^GS 
 
 MEEGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 
 
 Thomas Forrest, Senior Captain of the Honourable East India 
 Company's Marine at Fort Marlboro in 1770, and author of "A 
 Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas/' visited the Mero-ui 
 Archipelago in 1783. Nine years afterwards he published' the 
 results of his observations, and gave a very good description of 
 the islands so far as they were known to him ; but the only proof 
 of human inhabitants he saw was a fire which he observed at 
 night on James Island. 
 
 The first notice of the inhabitants of the Mergui Archipelago 
 appeared in the Calcutta G-overnment Gazette for the 2nd March 
 1826. The information contained in this account of the people 
 was doubtless derived from observations made on the spot by 
 the British ofiicers stationed at Mergui, immediately after the 
 capture of that town by the troops and fleet of the East India 
 Company. It was republished, in 1827, by Horace Hayman 
 Wilson,^ and, in the succeeding year, it was reproduced in a 
 slightly modified form by Walter Hamilton. ^ In this account it 
 is said, "A race of men, termed by the Burmese Chalome* and 
 Pase,5 are to be found scattered throughout the Mergui Archipel- 
 
 ^ Voyage from Calcutta to the Mergui Archipelago. 4to. London, 1792. 
 ^ riocuments Illustrative of the Burmese War. Calcutta, 1827. 
 ^ East India Gazetteer, &o. Vol. ii. p. 226. London, 1828. 
 * This is evidently the same word as Selung. 
 
 ^ The Burmese apply the term PasM or Pathi to the Malays. Maxwell, 
 Miscellaneous Papers relating to Indo-China (i886), vol. i. p. 187, f.n. Pase 
 doubtless a modification of it. 
 
2 THE SELUNGS 
 
 ago. But their dread of Malayan and other pirates has compelled 
 these poor creatures to adopt an unsettled mode of life. During 
 the north-east monsoon, they are obliged to remove from the 
 vicinity of those islands which are most frequented, to escape 
 being carried off as slaves by Siamese, Burmans, and Malays, who 
 then visit them in quest of the valuable commodities they afford. 
 They appear to be a harmless, and, from necessity, an industrious 
 race. The whole tribe consists of no more than four hundred 
 souls. They exchange mats and the produce of the islands for 
 clothes and other articles, conveyed to them from Mergui. Another 
 tribe of this race is thinly spread over the islands lying close in 
 front of Mergui. They all seem to have adopted the religion of 
 Buddha, and to have conformed, in a great degree, to the Burman 
 mode of dress. They scarcely know the value of money, and are 
 therefore losers in the bartering trade with the Chinese and others 
 who visit them. Perhaps they think themselves the greater 
 gainers, since they give away products of no use to them for 
 others of vital importance, and are, thereby, enabled to maintain 
 a degree of wild independence." 
 
 In 1838, Captain E.. Lloyd, who had surveyed the Mergui coast in 
 1827-30, contributed a short paper to the Asiatic Society of Bengal 
 on the " Mergui Coast-Line and Islands," ^ in which he gave some 
 particulars about the Chilloms, which he stated was the term 
 generally applied to them. He described them as a roving tribe, 
 who passed from one island to another, living partly in their 
 boats, and in temporary sheds which they erected with a few 
 sticks and leaves on the little sandy beaches interspersed among 
 the islands. They appeared unacquainted with the art of cultiva- 
 tion, and subsisted chiefly upon shell-fish and turtle, and other 
 productions indigenous to the islands, disposing at Mergui and 
 other places of the turtle-shells, bSche-de-mer, and other articles 
 they collected, in barter for a little rice and coarse cloth. He 
 further stated that they were to be found chiefly amongst the 
 outer islands during the fine season, and on the setting in of the 
 rains, they returned to the inner ones, and for the right to 
 frequent and live upon the islands, he believed they paid a small 
 tax to Government of one rupee per head annually. . . . He 
 understood that there were three or four divisions or families of 
 them, known under different names, according to the part of the 
 
 ^ Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. vii. pt. ii., 1838, pp. 1027 and 1038. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 3 
 
 Archipelago they confined themselves to. They were a harmless 
 race, badly clothed, miserable in appearance, and probably not 
 amounting to more than a thousand persons altogether ; they 
 were found to be extremely shy of strangers. 
 
 Captain M'Leod, who frequently visited the islands, and felt 
 interested in the people, drew the Rev. Mr. Kincaid's attention 
 to them.^ This missionary made a tour in their Archipelago, and 
 writing from their midst in 1838, he observed: — "The scenery 
 is uncommonly fine and picturesque. The ocean on every side, 
 spotted with a thousand green islands and islets, all densely 
 wooded, and of all sizes and forms. Some low and very level, 
 others with bold rocky shores, rising into mountain ridges. The 
 climate too, must be delightfully pleasant. One cannot help 
 exclaiming, ' this is a beautiful world ' — ' man alone is vile.' . . . 
 I am now surrounded by about three hundred souls, men, women 
 and children, entirely free from all religion. They have no God, 
 no temple, no priest, no liturgy, no holy day, and no prayers. 
 In their domestic habits they are free from all conventional rules. 
 They are very poor, too, having no houses, no gardens, no culti- 
 vated fields, nor any domestic animals, but dogs. I never saw 
 such abject poverty, such an entire destitution of all the comforts 
 of life." 
 
 Dr. John William Heifer,^ a young Austrian physician and 
 naturalist, who had been impelled by an irresistible love of ex- 
 ploration to visit the East, was employed by the East India 
 Company, on his arrival in Calcutta, to explore the province of 
 Tenaaserim and report on its resources. A paper written by 
 him, in 1839, on the inhabitants of Tenasserim* contains a de- 
 scription of this people, whom he mentions under the name of 
 Seelongs. He describes them as a race distinct from the 
 Talaings, Burmese, Siamese, and Karens, all of whom are found 
 in the province of Tenasserim, and as a tribe of wandering fisher- 
 men inhabiting the islands of the Archipelago, and "building 
 temporary huts of reeds, palm-leaves, and bamboos during the 
 inclemency of the monsoon, and passing the rest of the year 
 either in boats or on the sea-beach under the shade of trees ; " 
 
 ' Burma, its People and Natural Productions, &o. By Rev. F. Mason. 
 Rangoon, i860, p. 99. 
 
 2 Travels of Dr. and Madame Heifer in Syria, Mesopotamia, Burmah, and 
 other Lands, vol. i., 1878, preface. 
 
 3 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. viii. pt. ii. pp. 973-1005. 
 
4 THE SELUNGS 
 
 and, after making a statement about their food similar to that 
 made by Lloyd, he adds that they never cultivate the ground, 
 and have a " peculiar language, but too little is known of it 
 to determine whether it is a mixture of the languages spoken 
 around them, or a peculiar tongue." 
 
 In Heifer's day they were as timid as they are now, for he 
 states that it was very difficult to meet them among the islands, 
 as they hid themselves away whenever they saw a strange sail 
 approaching. He succeeded, however, on the ist July, 1838,^ 
 in getting among an encampment of seventy persons, who, when 
 they found that the stranger was a white man, welcomed him, 
 and behaved with remarkable civility and decorum, which was 
 exactly my own experience when I was among them. He gives 
 a short account of their mode of life, of the structure of their 
 boats and dwellings, their food, their occupations, beliefs, and 
 method of disposing of their dead. His short notice of them, 
 however, is disfigured by an erroneous statement regarding their 
 physical features, as he says " the curly hair of some of them 
 especially speaks in favour of a negro origin ; " and hints that 
 this might be explained by their having had communication with 
 the Andamanese. He also errs in describing as seaweed the 
 substance of which their mats are made ; and it may be as well 
 to point out that Heifer is the only author who has recorded 
 amber as a product collected by the Selungs. 
 
 I cannot accept the statement made by him that they are an 
 indolent people, as it is opposed to all my observations, and to 
 all I learned from themselves and from the Chinese traders re- 
 garding their mode of life. Their poverty Heifer attributed to 
 indolence, but in the sentence immediately preceding that in 
 which he makes this charge he says that " by all who have to do 
 with them (Chinese and Malays) they are provided with toddy 
 in the first instance, and, during the subsequent state of stupor, 
 robbed of any valuables thejr possess." That this vile course 
 was occasionally resorted to by traders visiting the islands is an 
 undoubted fact, but there is no evidence that it was distinctive 
 of all their intercourse with the Selungs, whose poverty was to 
 be explained not merely by the depredations committed on them, 
 but by the system of barter by which they disposed of their goods, 
 
 ^ Dr. Johann Wilhelm Heifer's " Gedruckte und Ungedruokte Schriften 
 iiber die Tenasserim-Provinzen den Mergui-Archipel, und die Andamanen- 
 Inseln." Wien, i860, p. 183. 
 
OF THE MER6UI AKCHIPELAGO. 5 
 
 and whicli gave to dishonest traders the opportunity to fleece 
 them. This state of things, however, is now much improved, 
 but so long as the barter system exists — and it is still prevalent 
 — and so long as their love of strong drink is pandered to by the 
 traders who deal with them, the Selungs will remain poor. 
 
 Five years subsequent to Mr. Kincaid's visit, the Rev. Mr. 
 Wade directed the attention of the public to the Selungs.^ 
 Writing from Mergui during the time that Major Broadfoot, the 
 hero of the "Illustrious Garrison" of JaUlAbdd, was Commis- 
 sioner of Tenasserim, Mr. Kincaid says : — " I will here record 
 the kindness of our Commissioner to the poor Selungs, a race of 
 people dwelling in the islands between Mergui and Penang, far 
 below the Karens in knowledge and civilisation, despised, abused, 
 and robbed by Chinese, Malays, and all the surrounding tribes ; 
 whose only means of livelihood is fishing, and fabricating a 
 species of mats. The Commissioner gave them a supply of rice, 
 did everything in his power to inspire them with confidence, 
 particularly with the view of inducing them to learn to read, 
 and gave a thousand rupees from his own purse, to aid in re- 
 ducing their language to writing and in the establishment of 
 schools among them." 
 
 Mason states that Sir Henry Durand, when he held the Com- 
 missionership of these provinces,^ also took a deep interest in the 
 welfare of this people, and he quotes the following interesting 
 communication from his pen, written in 1846 : — 
 
 " When proceeding from Mergui to the Pakchan, I gave per- 
 mission to the Eev. Mr. Brayton, of the American Baptist Mission, 
 to embark on board the Honourable Company's Steamer 'Pro- 
 serpine,' and on passing the island of Lampee, he was landed in 
 Marble Island Bay. 
 
 " The object of this gentleman's visit to the island of Lampee 
 was of a purely missionary character, with reference to the 
 Salones ; and I took advantage of his visit to request that he 
 would have the goodness to assemble as many of the Salones as 
 could conveniently be brought together, in order that on the 
 return of the steamer I might have an opportunity of communi- 
 cating with them. 
 
 ' Mason, op. eit., p. 100. 
 
 2 Captain Henry Marion Durand, in after years Sir Henry, was apparently 
 appointed Commissioner of Tenasserim in 1841. Life of Major-General Sir 
 H. M. Durand, K.C.S.I., C.B., R.E., vol. i., 1883, p. 89. 
 
6 THE SELUNGS 
 
 " On my return from the Pakchan to Marble Island Bay, I 
 found forty Salone boats assembled. Each boat ■was said to 
 contain on an average ten individuals, men, women and children. 
 The boats were excellent, and the appearance of the people 
 neither so savage nor miserable as from their mode of life might 
 have been anticipated. They were decently clad, and seemed 
 not at all deficient in intelligence. The humane exertions of my 
 predecessor to induce these people to enter upon a more civilised 
 mode of life, and to attempt cultivation, and the formation of 
 villages failed ; but encouraged by the example of a Salone 
 family from one of the islands to the southward of our territories, 
 the Lampee Salones are now meditating the establishment of 
 two small villages, one of six, and another of five houses. The 
 Salone who has set the example has cultivated between two and 
 three acres. The family state that the islands to the southward 
 of the British territories are frequented by Salones in greater 
 numbers than those in the Mergui Archipelago, and that some of 
 the southern Salones have taken to cultivation, and form perma- 
 nent villages. . . . 
 
 " One of my objects in assembling the Lampee Salones was to 
 ascertain whether they had, during this dry season, been visited 
 by Malay boats, their great dread. I was happy to learn that 
 these timid, unresisting people had, during the dry season, been 
 free from molestation, and carried on their sea-slug collections 
 undisturbed and successfully. 
 
 "Formerly the Salones paid a tax to Government of three 
 rupees a boat, but the tax was discontinued by my predecessor, 
 and I have not imposed any new one upon them, nor do I intend 
 it. Their sea-slug collection is not unproductive, the slug sell- 
 ing at the rate of thirty to the rupee ; but, with the exception 
 of a few mats, the making of which is the south-west mon- 
 soon occupation, the sea-slug forms their only wealth; it is 
 caught, or rather dug up, during the north-east monsoon, at 
 the period of low water in spring tides, and it is from the value 
 of this article in the Mergui market that they obtain the means 
 of purchasing rice, salt, and clothes. Their food is rice, fish, 
 and shell-fish; a few hogs are also caught and killed by the aid 
 of their numerous dogs, and some of the Lampee Salones had 
 fowls with them. When, as frequently occurs, the Salones have 
 expended their rice, they have resort to a wild root which 
 grows in abundance, and which, after much maceration in 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 7 
 
 water, parts with its poisonous matter, and becomes safe and 
 edible. 
 
 " I have no means of ascertaining or estimating the number of 
 Salones in the Mergui Archipelago. Any guess must be a very- 
 random one. At Lampee, a favourite Salone place of resort, I 
 suppose that instead of forty, with timely warning, nearly a 
 hundred boats might have been assembled, but it is their best 
 frequented place of wandering. What the forests are to the 
 Karens, the sea and the coasts of the islands of the Mergui 
 Archipelago are to the Salones. The latter, having boats, dis- 
 pense with houses altogether, and are therefore still more 
 migratory in their habits than the Karens. These are habits 
 which it will require much time and favouring circumstances to 
 break.'' 
 
 By the efforts of the missionaries in 1846, it would appear 
 that forty-six Selungs were baptized in that year, and that a 
 school was established among them. 
 
 In the year 1850, J. E. Logan published a short account 1 of 
 this people. He says they are closely allied to the races of the 
 adjacent south-eastern peninsula, and are a mild, peaceful, and 
 honest race, little given to crime, and states that " they believe in 
 ndts or spirits that dwell in the sea, land, air, trees, and stones, 
 but do not invoke or sacrifice to them, nor are they symbolised." 
 This statement, however, as will afterwards appear, is not quite 
 in keeping with our present knowledge, as they not only address 
 the great ndt, but also make offerings to another spirit. Their 
 nomadic habits, their boat life, their squatting under trees, or on 
 the beaches till the monsoon becomes severe when they construct 
 slight huts, their subsisting entirely on turtle, fish, and shellrfish, 
 and their timidity and reserve, Logan mentions as characteristics 
 possessed by them in common with most of the Orang Laut or 
 sea-men who frequent the creeks, islands, and solitary shores of 
 both sides of the Malay Peninsula and the Johore Archipelago. 
 The Selungs, however, cannot be said to confine their diet to the 
 products of the sea, as rice forms an important part of it, and is 
 correctly placed first in Sir Henry Durand's account of the food 
 they eat. 
 
 Lieutenant Burn, writing in 1858 to the Deputy Commissioner 
 of the Tenasserim provinces at Mergui, called the attention of 
 
 ^ Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (Singapore), vol. iv., 
 1850, pp. 411-412. 
 
8 THE SELUNGS 
 
 his superior officer to the circumstance that the abject poverty 
 said by Mr. Kincaid to have been distinctive of the Selungs in 
 his day was equally true of them in 1858. In view of this, it is 
 remarkable that while Lieutenant Burn was thus deploring the 
 miserable condition of the Selungs, he should have proposed to 
 add to their burdens by imposing a tax of five rupees a head on 
 their fishing operations, and that their feeble attempts at culti- 
 vating the land — a labour confined to a few families in one of the 
 islands near Mergui, doubtless King Island — should also be taxed. 
 Notwithstanding Durand's abolition of the taxation of this 
 neglected race, Lieutenant Burn's unreasonable and heartless pro- 
 posals met with the support of his superior officer, but were 
 happily considerably modified. 
 
 In i860, Mr. H. 0. Menzies, a more enlightened Deputy Com- 
 missioner of Mergui, took a lively interest in the Selungs, and 
 communicated a number of facts regarding their customs and 
 ways of life'^ to the Commissioner of Tenasserim, and urged that 
 Chinese traders should be prohibited from selling either opium 
 or samshu to them ; but if his recommendations were ever carried 
 out, they were not in force during my visit to the island^, in 
 1881-82, as will appear from what will be stated farther on. On 
 my return from the Archipelago, I felt it my duty to do exactly 
 as Mr. Menzies had done, and whose action in the matter was 
 at the time unknown to me, and to advocate that the barter of 
 spirituous liquors to the Selungs should be prohibited ; but I am 
 not aware what success, if any, attended my efforts. 
 
 The following islands are the headquarters of the Selungs, 
 viz. : ist, St. Matthew and St. Luke ; 2nd, Sullivan and Clara ; 
 3rd, Loughborough ; 4th, Owen and Malcolm ; 5 th, Bentinck ; 
 6th, Elphinstone and Eoss, including Maingy and King Islands ; 
 and 7th, Tavoy Island. The people found on any one of these 
 groups generally confine themselves to it, and do not wander 
 from one group to another. There are accordingly Selungs of 
 St. Matthew and St. Luke, others of Sullivan and Clara, and so 
 on ; and it is a curious fact they keep so much by themselves 
 that a Selung from Sullivan Island has great difficulty in under- 
 standing the speech of one of his race from Elphinstone Island, 
 the two islands being only about eighty miles apart. 
 
 1 The substance of Mr. Menzies' observations is referred to in my own 
 account of the people. 
 
OF THE MEEGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 9 
 
 It is only of recent years that any reliable information has 
 been obtained regarding their numbers. Shortly after the an- 
 nexation of Mergui (1824), it was supposed by the British officers 
 then in charge of the town, that the Selung population of the 
 Archipelago did not exceed 400, but fifteen years afterwards 
 Heifer calculated it at 1000. In i860, a Selung who had been 
 taken into the service of Government as a kind of intermediary 
 between his people and the British officials at Mergui, computed 
 the population at 1200 persons, but Mr, Menzies, the Deputy- 
 Commissioner, considered that it did not probably exceed 1000. 
 In the " British Burma Gazetteer," published about twenty years 
 later on, it is said that the number of the Selungs "does not 
 probably exceed from 3000 to 4000," a guess which was proved 
 by the census of 1 880-81 to have been very much in excess of 
 the real numbers, as the entire Selung population was returned 
 at 868 persons ; hence the calculations of Heifer and Menzies 
 were much nearer the truth. 
 
 Heifer's supposition that the Selungs were rapidly becoming 
 extinct does not appear to have been based on any reliable 
 grounds, nor is it verified by their history since his day. 
 
 While at King Island, in February 1882, I visited a compara- 
 tively recent settlement of Selungs at a place called by them 
 Yimiki, the Yaymyitgyee of the Burmese. I reached it by 
 crossing the island from the village of Kabaing, at the head of 
 King Island Bay. From this village, composed of Karens and a 
 few Burmese, a tolerably good path first passes over clearings, 
 and then through forest wonderfully free of undergrowth, across 
 a ridge of no great height to the settlement of Yimiki, situated 
 at the head of a creek some distance from the sea. A Karen 
 acted as my guide, and four porters of the same race carried my 
 baggage, my vessel having preceded me round the northern 
 end of the island, to await me at the Burmese fishing-station of 
 Kaiawgyee. 
 
 The settlement was situated in a comparatively level clearing, 
 along which ran a mountain stream. The majority of the trees 
 had been cut down, but not a few bare gaunt stems stood 
 branchless and charred, attesting. to the destructive character of 
 the fire by which the clearing had been efiected, but which had 
 left many of the fallen trees unconsumed. Immediately after my 
 arrival the headman appeared, accompanied by a little boy, and he 
 
lO THE RELUNGS 
 
 was soon afterwards followed by some other men, but no women 
 appeared, as I was told that, through fright at my presence, they 
 had fled to the forest, as they were afraid some of them might 
 be carried off. The men, however, promised to remove those 
 fears and bring them back, and accordingly, on the following 
 morning, some of them mustered courage to appear at my tent 
 door, and a more hideous group I had never before seen. Their 
 dress in some cases was of the most meagre description, and one 
 woman sitting on the trunk of a tree with her child on her lap 
 appeared to be naked, as the little clothing she wore was hidden 
 by her baby, but generally they were clad like Burmans of the 
 very poorest class, but with this difference, that the body above 
 the waist was left naked both in the men and women. This 
 meagre clothing is all obtained by barter, but the women can 
 sew, their needles and thread being obtained by the same means. 
 
 An old woman, with unkempt white locks, came carrying 
 her grandchild tied to her back by a cloth passed round her 
 shoulders. She was a veritable "black and midnight hag," 
 blind of one eye ; and as she stood before me leaning on her 
 staff, her breasts hanging down from her bowed and wrinkled 
 form like two collapsed leather bags, I asked myself if it were 
 possible to conceive of a more repulsive example of humanity, 
 and I unhesitatingly answered in the negative. 
 
 The physical appearance of these people will be better under- 
 stood by the accompanying photographs of two groups than by 
 any description I can give of them. Plate i. is a group of Selungs 
 taken at Elphinstone Island, while Plate ii. was photographed in 
 the verandah of the house of the principal Chinese trader in Mer- 
 gui, where the subjects of the picture had arrived to exchange 
 some of their goods for rice and cloth. Both pictures were taken 
 by the wet process, and as the people had never before been 
 photographed, I experienced considerable difficulty in coaxing 
 them to submit themselves to the ordeal, and the adverse con- 
 ditions under which both plates were taken is my apology for 
 the imperfect character of the pictures. I, however, did not 
 succeed in obtaining any representations of the Yimiki Selungs ; 
 but as they stated that they had emigrated from the neighbouring 
 islands known as the Doang group, and as these were my next 
 destination, I hoped to be more successful there, and in this I 
 was not disappointed. I arrived there three days after my visit 
 to Yimiki, with my impressions of the people still fresh in my 
 
OF THE MEKGDI ARCHIPELAGO. II 
 
 memory, and it was evident to me that they were the same race. 
 How they had come to settle here will be presently explained. 
 
 The little settlement at Yimiki consisted of two groups of 
 houses, one belonging to the headman, who, with\the members 
 of his family, appeared to be in fairly comfortable circumstances, 
 and the other to some recent settlers, who were in abject poverty. 
 There were four houses in the first group, built after the fashion 
 of Burmese houses, and tenanted by the headman and his three 
 sons-in-law, while in the second group there were eight miser- 
 able hovels, raised on rickety stakes about three feet from the 
 ground. Each of these squalid huts measured about twelve feet 
 by nine feet, with a height of about five feet, roofed with leaves, 
 and walled and floored with bark in the rudest possible fashion, 
 like the temporary dwellings of those Selungs who still adhere 
 to their maritime habits of life as sea-gypsies. Furniture, properly 
 so called, was unknown in these hovels. A mat laid on the bark 
 floor and a mat pillow filled with the cotton of Bomhax mala- 
 baricum constituted their beds, and a few earthen pots their 
 cooking utensils, supplemented with some coarse Chinese bowls, 
 and gourds slung in ratans for holding fresh water. Their 
 surroundings were extremely filthy, as the ground was littered 
 with the refuse of their meals, decaying rice, yams, plantains, 
 and fish, and the half-emptied shells of oysters, mussels, and 
 other molluscs. 
 
 On questioning the headman how he came to settle at 
 Yimiki, he stated that he had been induced to do so, to escape 
 the hardships and privations that had to be endured in moving 
 about in boats from place to place among the islands in order 
 to eke out a subsistence, the uncertainty of food supplies, and 
 the absence of permanent dwellings. On his visits to King 
 Island in search of honey, wax, and pwai-ngyet, he had met 
 with some Karens who had settled there, and having men- 
 tioned to them his wish to abandon his sea-life for agriculture, 
 they had advised him to settle at Yimiki, and he stated that 
 he did not regret having done so. 
 
 The squalid poverty of the other Selungs in the settlement 
 he accounted for by the circumstance that they had only been 
 settled about one year. 
 
 These people still retained their boats, which lay in the 
 creek close to the clearing, and in them they proceeded to the 
 coast to spear fish and collect shell-fish for food, but they had 
 
12 THE SELUNGS 
 
 given up collecting beche-de-mer and harpooning the giant devil- 
 fish, as these operations are only carried on in the more westerly- 
 islands. I consequently found them willing to dispose of the 
 large and heavy harpoon (Plate iv. fig. 3) used in the capture 
 of devil-fish, and which my Burmese boatmen told me I would 
 fail to obtain from the Selungs at Elphinstone Island, as it was 
 too valuable a weapon to them to be parted with at any 
 price. It has been replaced at Yimiki by the ddh and the axe 
 for felling trees, these implements being supplied to them by 
 the Karens. 
 
 Attempts at agriculture similar to those at Yimiki have now 
 and again been made by the Selungs in various islands of the 
 Archipelago, but in no instance do they appear to have been 
 attended with permanent success. But I believe that if these 
 attempts were encouraged by Government, and proper clearings 
 were effected on some of the islands adapted to the prosecution of 
 agriculture and to the planting of dorian, mangosteen, and areca 
 nut gardens, the Selungs, with a little pecuniary aid, and assisted 
 in their efforts by the practical knowledge of men accustomed 
 to the clearing of forest tracts, a great deal might be done to 
 develop the terrestrial resources of as beautiful an archipelago as 
 exists on the globe, but which is now entirely neglected. What 
 with its splendid forests full of valuable timber, the richness of 
 its soil, the suitability of its climate to the culture of certain 
 tropical fruits and the economic treasures found in its seas, 
 there is no reason why, were these resources nurtured and de- 
 veloped by an enlightened administration, the entire Archi- 
 pelago should not be peopled by a thriving population. 
 
 From King Island I proceeded to the group of islands lying 
 to the west of it, known to the Selungs as the Doang group, 
 and of which Elphinstone, Eoss and Grant islands are the 
 largest. 
 
 My Malay captain, who did not bear a very good character at 
 Mergui except for his seamanship, advised me, as we approached 
 these lovely islands, to allow him to anchor for the night at some 
 spot where we would not be likely to be seen by the Selungs, 
 who, if they once espied our vessel, would immediately disperse, 
 and there would be no finding them. We accordingly anchored 
 alongside a small island covered with dense forest, as all these 
 islands are, and which shut us out from the great bay on the 
 eastern side of Elphinstone Island, which is a favourite resort of 
 
OF THE MKRGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 13 
 
 tlie Selungs of this part of the Archipelago. On the following 
 morning we were up by sunrise, a,nd, as had been previously 
 arranged, I donned a Burmese putzo over my nether garments, 
 and put on a Chinaman's jacket and hat, in order to appear 
 in the distance as a Chinese trader come to barter with them. 
 We started in a dug-out over a rippling sea flooded with the ligiit 
 of the newly risen sun, and after paddling about a mile we 
 rounded our sheltering island, and passing through a narrow 
 channel formed by another island on which the Selungs deposit 
 their dead, we entered the beautiful bay, landlocked on all 
 sides, except towards the south. We had not proceeded far into 
 the bay when we observed some Selung boats drawn up on the 
 beach facing us. We now paddled with renewed vigour, my 
 excitable captain exclaiming that the sight of the Selung boats 
 gave him strength, and as we neared them we saw some men on 
 the shore. My crew of three 'worked still harder, if possible, 
 with their paddles ; but as our tiny craft shot along and we 
 neared the shore, the Selungs disappeared into the forest. Not- 
 withstanding this disappointment, on we went, and when we 
 arrived within shouting distance, we heard the Selungs calling 
 out and warning their comrades of our approach, whilst my men 
 in their turn tried to reassure them by making the hillsides 
 reverberate with the names of the head Selung and his wife, 
 Hamat and Appen, which they had learned at Yimiki. After this 
 had been frequently repeated, it had the desired effect, as a 
 Selung was seen emerging from the forest ; and as we were now 
 within speaking distance, we brought our man-hunt to a close, 
 and ceased paddling. Seeing this, the Selung gained confidence, 
 and when we called to him in his own language, " nyn nakoat " 
 — don't be afraid — he came down to the beach accompanied by 
 two dogs. As the Selungs generally know a little Burmese, my 
 people told him of our experiences at Yimiki, and this so calmed 
 his fears that he was prevailed on to call in his comrades, and 
 first the men appeared, and afterwards the women and children. 
 We then ventured to land, and soon became good friends. On 
 walking across the beach, I found that the women had been en- 
 gaged in making mats, while some of their husbands had been 
 away in the forest looking out for honey, wax, and pwai-ngyet. A 
 rude fireplace indicated that they had been cooking, and as there 
 was no stream close at hand, their supply of fresh water had been 
 obtained by digging holes in the sand, near the margin of the forest, 
 
 B 
 
14 THE SELUNGS 
 
 There were three boats lying in the water, and as I was 
 desirous to get the people near me during my visit to them, in 
 order that I might observe their habits of life, my purpose of 
 remaining for some time among them was explained to them, 
 and they were promised rice if they would accompany me back 
 to my vessel in their boats. They willingly agreed to do so, 
 and we soon started, I leading the way in my dug-out. As we 
 approached our destination, we sighted a large Burmese boat in 
 full sail, with two Selung boats in tow, and on hailing them we 
 learned that the former contained a Chinese trader come to 
 barter, and who had fallen in with these Selung boats, and that he 
 was going into Elphinstone Bay to carry on his operations. As 
 this exactly suited my arrangements, our anchor was soon up, 
 and we followed him. We all took up the same position, and 
 on my explaining my wishes to the Chinaman, who was from 
 Mergui, and spoke Burmese, he- agreed to go and bring in as 
 many Selung boats as he could find, an arrangement which fell 
 in with the object of his visit as well as mine. 
 
 Close to where my vessel lay there was a sandy beach, or 
 rather a high-lying bank of sand, on which there were the huts 
 of a Selung encampment of the previous year, consisting of a 
 number of small rickety huts perched on bamboo stakes about 
 seven feet high. 
 
 No sooner had we taken up our position than I was earnestly 
 asked for the rice I had promised, as they had none, and I was 
 told that the children were, to use their own words, calling out 
 with hunger. How far this was true, of course I have no means 
 of knowing ; but rice they had not, and this article of diet is the 
 only vegetable substance, beyond a few wild roots and fruits, 
 which they can command. They depend for their supplies chiefly 
 on the traders from the mainland who visit them, and on an occa- 
 sional visit to Mergui or some other coast village. They are, 
 however, improvident, and their supplies not unfrequently run 
 short. The rice was no sooner given than it was cooked and 
 eaten with great professions of thankfulness, especially on behalf 
 of the children. 
 
 On the western shore of the bay, three trees were pointed out 
 to me as the residence of a ndt or spirit of the forest, dreaded by 
 the Selungs, and I learned that an annual festival, at which this 
 ndt was propitiated, was to take place in a few days, when all 
 the boats of the Doang Selungs would assemble in the bay. I 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 1 5 
 
 was therefore most fortunate in the time of my visit to this 
 people. 
 
 I went ashore and visited the spot, and under the grove 
 found a small hut in which the ndt is supposed to take up its 
 residence during the festival, but as it had been standing uncared 
 for since last year, it was in rather a ruined state. It was a 
 simple bamboo structure, 9 feet long by 5 feet broad and 5 to 6 
 feet high, a copy in miniature of a Burmese hut, with a low 
 platform or kind of verandah in front. The only attempt at 
 ornamentation consisted of the corner posts being carried up a 
 short distance above the walls, their tapered ends being rudely 
 carved with a diagonal pattern. Removed about fifty feet from it 
 stood a strong pole about twenty feet in height with a dilated 
 top, some distance below which were four cross-arms in two pairs, 
 placed at right angles to one another. About twelve feet off from 
 the pole there were three other posts, but only six feet high and at 
 intervals of six feet in a straight line, and each of these also 
 terminated in a dilated end. Some little distance away from 
 them there were the remains of a fireplace made of three stones, 
 the cooking-place for the offerings to the ndi. 
 
 In a few days thirty-eight Selung boats had arrived, and I was 
 informed that the appeasing of the ndt would take place whenever 
 the headman had restored the hut and made all the necessary 
 arrangements. The number of the boats was also augmented by 
 the arrival of another Chinese trader. 
 
 On the morning of the 8th of March, I received a message 
 from Hama, the headman, that the festival would take place 
 that day, and soon afterwards my presence was requested. I 
 at once complied, and found him waiting for me with two or 
 three Selungs, and no sooner had I put foot on shore, than off 
 he marched, preceded by an old man carrying a pole on which a 
 piece of white cloth was tied as a flag, I following in the rear. 
 We went direct to the grove, where I found the entire boat 
 population assembled, seated on the ground in front of the hut 
 which had had a new roof put on it, small areca^nut palms tied to 
 the posts, and white flags flying from the tall pole and its arms. 
 I was invited to go into the house and sit down, but I declined to 
 usurp the position of the ndt, and contented myself with waiting in 
 the verandah until a chair had been brought for me from my vessel, 
 when I seated myself by the side of the hut in the shade of the 
 grove of trees. Everything being now ready, an old man and 
 
l6 THE SELUNGS 
 
 woman squatted down in the verandah, and on inquiring who they 
 were, I was told that they had been for some time in bad health, 
 and that it was the custom for sick people to make offerings to the 
 ndt for their recovery. A small patty of men now advanced and 
 laid down in the verandah the offerings to the ndt, consisting of 
 pawn-soopari and chundm and a vessel holding coloured water 
 with a leafy twig in it. To these were immediately added a 
 small wild pig and some fine wax ; but the mouse-deer, Tragulus 
 hmchil, a thoroughly sylvan animal, sometimes takes the place of 
 the wild pig, being thus also an appropriate offering to the spirit 
 of the woods. The next offerings deposited for the use of the 
 ndt were of an entirely different nature, and consisted of liberal 
 supplies of liquor, which it was strange to observe fell to the 
 province of the women to offer. 
 
 The wife of the owner of each boat approached and set down 
 a bottle of samshu, and then lit a small wax taper, which she 
 placed in front of the verandah ; a part of tlie ceremony which is 
 probably borrowed from the Buddhists. About half a dozen of 
 the elders now seated themselves in front of the offerings, and 
 one, acting as the spokesman, addressed, to my astonishment, 
 not the ndt only, as I had expected, but a being whom they 
 call Theedah. In this he was stolidly joined by the old man 
 and woman, but he became excited and threw his arms about, 
 as he was recognised as one who had the power to invoke Theedah, 
 and the ndt who is hopelessly mixed up with him. I was in- 
 formed that he was asking Theedah to keep away all sickness, 
 fever, small-pox, and cholera, and to give them plenty of heche- 
 de-mer, Maoo fish, honey, wax, and akyaw. But a kind of threat 
 was held out to the Being, as he was told that they could make 
 only one offering a year, and that, as they now gave him all the 
 sams^Mthey possessed, — which was not strictly correct, because, as 
 the festival proceeded, they sent for much more from its fountain- 
 head, the Chinese boats, — he would receive no more until next 
 year, implying that if he did not behave handsomely to them 
 in the interval, his supplies for next year might be stopped. 
 Besides joining in this part of the ceremony, the sick couple 
 offered up a request of their own to Theedah in the following 
 words : — " Katoiee ehbap annanee maket thee-how lolahigh moon elap 
 prang," which, being interpreted word for word, reads thus: — 
 " Ndt, father or grandfather, help sickness to-morrow cured, give 
 liquor bottle." 
 
OF THE MERGUI AKCHIPELAGO. l^ 
 
 These addresses being ended, the samshu, consisting of thirty- 
 eight bottles, i.e., a bottle to each boat, was distributed among the 
 men ; but a stone jar stood by as a store in reserve. 
 
 One of the bottles of samshu was opened, with great delibe- 
 ration by Hama, the headman, and was repeatedly applied to 
 each nostril before he poured out any, the smell of the liquor 
 being evidently sniffed with great gusto. He then drank off a 
 potion, and handing the bottle to two or three others, it was 
 emptied, and others were drawn and handed to the seated people, 
 till all had tasted, or rather had drank. As the liquor passed 
 round, the people began to be lively, and the man who had 
 addressed Theedah rose and performed a dance, throwing his arms 
 about in a wild fashion. While this was going on the men went 
 about coaxing the women and girls to drink, who, however, I was 
 glad to observe, were more moderate in their draughts than the 
 men, and trying to prevail on them to dance, till at last some 
 girls consented to do so, and went off to don their Malay skirts. 
 
 Tiie liquor soon began to take effect, and as the excitement 
 and noise increased, I left them and went to my boat without 
 waiting for the return of the girls. As the day progressed, nearly 
 the entire Selung population, with the exception of the young 
 people and a few women, were more or less intoxicated, their 
 exhausted stores having been freely replenished at the floating 
 and unlicensed tap-houses of the rascally Chinamen ; women 
 and children being the messengers. 
 
 This orgie marks the close of the winter-harvest of the sea, 
 but it could not have been possible had there been no traders 
 present ready to take advantage of the failing of these simple 
 and at other times sober people. After this debauch the fleecing 
 of the Selungs begins by the disreputable Chinese. 
 
 In a conversation I had with Hama some days after the 
 festival regarding the being Theedah whom they addressed, he 
 told me that his parents had informed him that a missionary 
 was settled on Elphinstone Island when he was a very young 
 boy (his age now being probably forty-five years), and that before 
 the missionary's arrival the Selungs knew nothing about Theedah, 
 and feared only the ndts. This, as has been seen, is verified by 
 the testimony of Mr. Kincaid, the first missionary to these people, 
 who says of them they had " no God, no temple, no priest, no 
 liturgy, no holy day, and no prayers." Dr. Stevens, whose know- 
 led<'-e of the Selungs was gained subsequent to Mr. Kincaid's, 
 
1 8 THE SELUNGS 
 
 has nevertheless stated that th€se sea-gypsies " have a traili- 
 tional belief in the existence of a God whom they call Too-da, 
 whom they regard as the greatest and best of beings, who created 
 all things in heaven and on earth;" and that they have also "a 
 distinct tradition of the Flood, after which they say God came 
 down from heaven and assigned to the different nations and 
 tribes their habitations and employments." ^ All these supposed 
 traditions are probably survivals of the teachings of the mis- 
 sionary who is said to have had a settlement on the shores 
 of the bay on which the festival was held. While there, he had 
 encouraged the Selungs to settle on the island, and Kama's 
 father had an orchard of dorian trees aud areca-nut palms ; but 
 all trace of this is long since gone. These efforts, made about 
 half a century ago, to ameliorate the condition of the Selungs, 
 were seemingly entirely due to the liberality and philanthropy 
 of Major Broadfoot, whose encouragement and sympathy also 
 stimulated the missionaries to prepare a small primer of the Selung 
 language.^ For some reason or other which I have failed to ascer- 
 tain, the schools were closed, the missionary labours were aban- 
 doned, and these sea-gypsies were left to themselves. They there- 
 fore soon relapsed to their original heathen ways, and all that 
 now remains to indicate they were once the subjects of Chris- 
 tian teaching is their dim idea of a deity exemplified in their fear 
 — I shall not say worship — of Theedah. 
 
 As remarked by Heifer, the true home of a Selung is his boat. 
 It is made of the trunk of a tree, scooped out, and trimmed exter- 
 nally in graceful lines to the required form, the prow and stern 
 each ending in a vertical portion of no great transverse thickness, 
 and into which a large semicircular notch is cut, which serves as 
 a step by which the children are enabled to climb out of and into 
 the boat when it is lying on the beach, whilst the men use the 
 notch also as a step when they enter a boat from the water. In 
 the stern the portion below the notch is more bevelled off than at 
 the prow, where it projects forwards as a cutwater. A series of ribs 
 are fitted on to the inside of the boat, and made long enough to 
 project upwards about a foot beyond the sides. A number of 
 superimposed layers of the stem of a palm known to the Burmese 
 as yen-gan are adjusted in longitudinal series on the outsides and 
 
 ' British Burma Gazetteer, vol. i. p. 190. 
 
 ^ A copy of this work, entitled, "Selung Language Primer," Maulinein, 
 1846, exists in the Library of the India Office. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 1 9 
 
 insides of the projecting portions of the ribs, and are secured to 
 them by ratan cords. The bulwarks so formed are then firmly 
 bound down to the margins of the dug-out portion, and this is 
 accomplished by their being tied on to a longitudinal bar of 
 wood secured to the insides of the ribs. The bulwarks are made 
 water-tight by being filled up with the substance known to the 
 Selungs as pwai-ngyet, described farther on. 
 
 A seat is constructed for the steersman, and the outer two- 
 thirds of the boat are decked with a platform of split bamboos. 
 A number of vertical pieces of wood project upwards from the 
 bulwarks for the support of the sides of the only covering the 
 Selungs have to their boats, and which consists of a rude mat 
 made of the leaves of a Pandanus, stretched across a frame- 
 work consisting of two erect forked pieces of wood about three 
 feet high fastened to each end of the deck in the middle line, and 
 on which rests a long bamboo pole. The covering is thus easily 
 removable, and it is only made use of, as a rule, when the boats are 
 at rest. The small fireplace consists of a bed of sand enclosed 
 in a shallow wooden framework, and occupies one part of the 
 deck. The oblong sail is also made of Pandanus leaf, first heated 
 over a fire to soften it, and then rolled round a stick to flatten 
 it ; the leaves being fixed together in successive strips with the 
 fibre of a ratan. A few mats, some rude cooking utensils, shell 
 spoons (Plate iv. fig. 7), bamboos for holding fresh water, and 
 spears for fish and pig complete the furnishings of a boat. 
 
 Among the Elphinstone Island Selungs there were two men 
 who had established a reputation for skill in boat-building, and 
 one of them constructed a model for me, now in the Calcutta 
 Museum, nine feet in length, in seven days, an ordinary boat 
 measuring from 20 to 25 feet in length. In constructing this 
 model, the man, with his wife, betook himself to a secluded part 
 of the bay, where he could work without fear of interruption, and 
 I there visited him, and found his only tools to be an adze and 
 chisel; a foot-rule being unknown to him. "With these simple 
 appliances he produced a boat of admirable proportions, and 
 complete in all its details, even to the fireplace, with the ex- 
 ception of fish and hog spears. The only parts he did not make 
 himself were the split bamboo deck, the shelter mat and mat for 
 the sail ; his charge for the whole being six rupees. A full-sized 
 boat can be purchased for about thirty mats of the finer sort. 
 
 I was informed that one Selung in the Doang group could work 
 
20 THE SELUNGS 
 
 in iron and make spear-heads, but that tliey generally obtained 
 all their iron-work from Mergiii. 
 
 One of the chief occupations of the Selungs during the cold 
 weather is the capture of the huge devil-fish or eagle ray, Dicero- 
 baiis eregoodoo, and which is known to them as the Ka'oo. They 
 allege that this formidable fish sometimes attains to 20 feet in 
 breadth ; and to impress me with its great size, they said that 
 a man seated at the head of such a fish could not be seen by 
 a man similarly seated at the tail ; and it is quite possible that 
 it may grow to the dimensions they say it reaches, as the late 
 Sir Walter Elliot has recorded a specimen 15 feet broad. Its 
 capture is attended with considerable trouble, and even danger, 
 as a large fish may even capsize a boat ; and the Selungs believe 
 that it occasionally seizes and swallows men when they acci- 
 dentally fall into the water, which they sometimes do while in 
 the act of harpooning it, and I was informed that two of their 
 number had lost their lives in this way. The harpoon is a 
 heavy weapon, and its iron head (Plate iv. fig. 3) is let into the 
 end of a long bamboo, and is fastened to it by a rope coiled 
 round the end of the shaft, another and longer rope being made 
 fast to the shaft and to the boat. When a fish has been secured, 
 it is dragged on to the shore, skinned, and cut up into narrow 
 strips about six feet in length, the skin and the intestines being 
 treated in the same manner. The pieces are afterwards laid out 
 on the rocks to dry in the sun, and when they reach Mergui 
 they are exported under the name of hlack-fish to other Burmese 
 ports and to Penang. Besides this ray, they spear other fish, 
 and use for this purpose the two other forms of spears (Plate iv. 
 figs. 4 and 5). Rays seem to abound in some parts of the Archi- 
 pelago, and, in a small bay in Owen Island, I observed great 
 numbers leaping out of the water to a considerable height, re- 
 volving as they fell and alighting generally on their backs, their 
 white under surfaces glancing in the sun. 
 
 Perhaps next to fa'oo-harpooning the collecting of heche de- 
 mer is the most important industry. It is carried on more or 
 less throughout the entire year, chiefly at the time of spring tides, 
 as few of the holothurians used are to be found at the lowest 
 level of ordinary tides. Two kinds of beche-de-mer are known 
 to the Selungs, W2., a white, and a black; but the very large 
 black holothurian, widely distributed, and very plentiful on the 
 beach in some localities, even at the low-water level of ordinary 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 2t 
 
 tides, is despised by the Selungs, who assert it to be poisonous. 
 A considerable quantity of beche-de-mer is annually produced in 
 the islands, the mode of preparing it being very simple. When 
 the holothurians have been collected in sufficient numbers to fill a 
 large iron pot, they are boiled over a wood-fire, no water being 
 added, as the fluid they throw out suffices to boil them. After 
 this has been done to the requisite degree, they are taken and 
 spread out on a bamboo platform raised some distance above and 
 over a fire, where they dry and become hard. 
 
 Another important industry of the Selungs is the collecting of 
 the large mollusc Turbo marmoratus, which is chiefly procured 
 by them in the most westerly islands of the Archipelago. They 
 extract the animals by means of a small piece of iron, and they 
 are then boiled, and afterwards dried in the sun, when they 
 are known as ihadee. By this process they become hard and 
 black, having the uninviting appearance of huge dried snails. 
 In one year a single boat will collect as many as 8000 speci- 
 mens of this mollusc, and a trader, the year previous to my 
 visit, carried away about 700 lbs. weight of thadee to Mergui, 
 whence it is exported to Penang for Chinese consumption. 
 A viss at Mergui is valued at about 14 to 16 rupees. The empty 
 shells are also taken to the same port, where 1000 fetch from 
 125 to 150 Es. They are used for making the fine lime chundm 
 used in paum^esAmg. 
 
 The Selungs also collect the large mother-of-pearl oyster, Ostrea 
 sinensis, which occurs around Elphinstone Island and in many 
 other parts of the Archipelago ; but as it is not systematically 
 collected, I have no means of knowing whether it is numerically 
 abundant. A large shell — and some are said to attain to 18 
 inches in diameter — brings as much as Es. 10 at Mergui, but 
 ordinary-sized specimens are sold there at one and a half to 
 Es.2. The merchants at Mergui, in their turn, export them to 
 Moulmein and Eangoon, whence they are sent chiefly to Man- 
 dalay, to be used for inlaid work. 
 
 The value of the true pearl-oyster, Avicula (Meleagrina) 
 margaritifera, which appears to be distributed throughout the 
 Archipelago, is well known to the Selungs, who, when they finil 
 the shells, invariably break up the animal with the fingers in 
 search of pearls, which they dispose of in barter at Mergui. I 
 was unable, however, to ascertain whether many pearls are found, 
 as they invariably pass into the hands of the Chinese traders. 
 
2 2 THE SELUNGS 
 
 who would afford me no information on the subject ; but I got a 
 few as a sample from one man, which have been favourably 
 reported on to me by an expert, A well-known bank of this 
 oyster occurs at the south end of Sullivan Island, but nothing 
 is known regarding its extent or its richness in shells. 
 
 Another product of the sea is the long whip-like Antipathes, 
 which grows to a great length, and yields the so-called black coral 
 of commerce. It is not at all uncommon in some localities, and is 
 obtained by the Selungs with comparative ease, as the tips of its 
 long stems become visible at the lowest tides, when they pro- 
 cure it by diving. It is made up into bundles containing a hun- 
 dred stems, and a boat will sometimes carry many bundles to 
 Mergui in one year from the Elphinstone group of islands. 
 They are bartered at that port for cloth and food, and are sent 
 to other Burmese ports to be cut down into beads for Buddhist 
 rosaries, known as hyouh ney padee, or black stone beads. Ten 
 bundles yield about Es.25 at Mergui. 
 
 The women occasionally occupy a portion of their time in 
 collecting a marine worm or Gephyrean (Phymosoma japonicum, 
 Grube), found in muddy and sandy banks at low water, using 
 with great dexterity a sharp-pointed piece of wood which they 
 force into the mud and sand close to the hole tenanted by 
 the worm, and which by practice they at once distinguish from 
 the burrow of any other marine animal. By a rapid movement 
 of the wrist the animal is almost invariably brought at once to the 
 surface. These unsavoury-looking objects are boiled and eaten. 
 
 The turtle, Chelone mydas, is not unfrequently caught by the 
 Selungs, but during the ten days I spent among them in Elphin- 
 stone Island, I saw no evidences substantiating Heifer's state- 
 ment that turtle " is their main food." It is probable that Heifer 
 did not distinguish between Chelone mydas and C. imbricaia when 
 speaking of the food of the Selungs ; but as the latter is collected 
 for its shell, and its flesh is edible, it is doubtless eaten, but I 
 did not observe any with the Selungs at Elphinstone Island Bay. 
 The encampment which Heifer visited may, on the other hand, 
 have been in a locality where turtles were common. A boat will 
 obtain in one season from five to six viss of tortoise-shell, which 
 is bartered at the rate of six rupees a viss for large plates, and 
 two rupees for plates of a smaller size.^ 
 
 ^ Lieutenant Burn, in bis letter to the Commissioner, states that in 1858 
 large plates of tortoise-shell yielded 16 rupees per vUs, and small plates 6 rupees. 
 
OF THE JIERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 2^ 
 
 Duiing the months of March, April, and May, the Selungs 
 are engaged in collecting the honey and wax of Apis dorsata. 
 When a man finds a hive not quite ready to be removed, he 
 marks the spot by bending down some branches of the shrubs at 
 the base of the tree, and another honey-hunter seeing this, will not 
 touch the hive. They have a special bucket( PI. iv. fig. i) made of 
 very light wood for lowering the hive to the ground. There are 
 four vertical ribs at equal distance from each other with a hole 
 in each, through which a ratan rope is passed, and by which the 
 bucket and its contents are lowered. A trader the year previous 
 to my visit carried away a large quantity of honey and wax, but 
 the amount he mentioned to me I cannot but think was an 
 exaggeration. Mr. J. Lee, in his report ^ on the produce of the 
 Archipelago, states that honey and beeswax are not plentiful, 
 and that the total amount collected in the southern islands an- 
 nually does not exceed fifty viss of each ; but in the northern 
 islands, such as the Elphinstone group, a much larger quantity 
 is found. 
 
 A half-caste Chinese merchant at Mergui, by a Chinese father 
 and Burmese mother, and named Moung Shuay Ee, showed me 
 a large mass of a substance he called pwai-ngyet, and which he 
 obtained from the Selungs, and similar to what I had seen 
 at Yimiki. It was lying in the verandah of his house, and was 
 alive with a multitude of a small species of bee with transverse 
 white bars on its abdomen. Some were passing in and out of 
 holes and passages in the mass, while others were coming and 
 going much in the same way as honey-bees do from a hive. He 
 told me the Selungs sometimes obtained as much as 300 or 
 400 viss of this substance in one year ; but this is probably 
 an exaggeration, as in the Chief Commissioner's Resolution 
 on the Forest Administration for 1876-77,^ it is stated that 
 only 50 or 60 viss of pwai-ngyet is collected annually. I am 
 not aware, however, whether any means are taken to ascer- 
 tain how much is brought direct by the Selungs to the Chinese 
 merchants. At Shuay Ee's house, the back of which had 
 a platform towards the sea, like the majority of houses on the 
 beach at Mergui, Selung boats could arrive and depart without 
 being noticed from the streets of the town ; and I am dis- 
 posed to think that much of this ijroduct is brought into Mergui 
 
 ^ Progress Report of the Forest Administration in British Burma for 
 1876-77, Pt. A., p. 19. 2 jua., p. 5. 
 
2 4 THE SELUNGS 
 
 ill tliis way. This substance is the result of the labours of a 
 stingless bee of the genus Trigona, and is in reality its nest.' 
 
 When I was at Sullivan Island or Lampi, in the month of 
 January, I one day met a boat manned exclusively by Malays, 
 and on asking them what had brought them to the island, they 
 replied that they had come to collect wood-aloes or eagle-wood,^ 
 
 ^ In April 1857, Sir Archibald Bogle, Commissioner of the Tenasserim Pro- 
 vinces, forwarded from Moulmein to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society 
 of India at Calcutta a sample of this substance, which he stated had only to 
 be moistened with earth-oil till of the consistence of paint, and then spread 
 with the fingers on a bit of cloth on the cracks of the roof of a house, to make 
 it quite waterproof. The Society, in order to obtain information regarding 
 the true nature of this substance which Sir Archibald stated was known as 
 Pwai-ngyet, consulted the Rev. C. S. Parish, then resident in the Tenasserim 
 Provinces, and he reported to the Society that Pwai-ngyet was commonly 
 procurable in the Moulmein bazaar at about one anna a pound, and that it 
 was the result of the labours of a small bee which made its nest of the sub- 
 stance, and that it was soft, plastic, and extremely glutinous, but that it 
 became hard and brittle on exposure to the air. When bought, it is commonly 
 in a large irregularly-shaped lump, rudely honeycombed, and mixed with 
 much extraneous matter. It is soluble apparently in any (vegetable) oil. It 
 is a well-known and commonly used substance, but, though frequently noticed, 
 mistakes as to its true nature have often been made, chiefly owing to the fact 
 that the name of dammer has been given to it in the bazaar by the natives 
 of India. It is not dammer, though if dammer is asked for in the bazaar, 
 Pwai-ngyet is the substance generally offered for sale. It is used for caulking 
 generally, mixed with wood-oil over a fire, and it answers its purpose admir- 
 ably in the case of woodwork. 
 
 The nest of this bee is made indifferently in hollow trees, in old woodwork, 
 in a hole in the ground, or in crevices in rooks. Mr. Parish says that Pwai- 
 ngyet is composed mainly of the resinous exudation of Hopea odorata and 
 different species of Dipterocarpi worked up by the bee. (Consult Journal of 
 the Agri. and Hort. Soc. of India, vol. *., 1857 ; Balfour's Cyclopsedia'of 
 India and of Eastern and Southern Asia, vol. iii. 3rd ed., articles Trigona 
 and Pwai-ngyet; Mason's Burma, i860, p. 350; and Theobald's edition of 
 the same work, 1882, vol. i. p. 121. For a description of Trigona Icevicepa, 
 possibly the species found in the Tenasserim Provinces and in the Mergui 
 Archipelago, see Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, vol. ii., 
 Zool., 1858, p. 51, where eight other species are described ; and for a descrip- 
 tion of the nest, and figure of its trumpet-shaped entrance, see Parish in 
 " Science Gossip" for 1866, p. 198.) 
 
 2 I am indebted to Mr. C. B. Clarke for the following note on the source of 
 this substance. He says: "The whole learning of Eagle-Wood or Aloe- 
 Wood is in Watt's 'Diet. Products of India,' pp. 279-281, and (in brief) in 
 Kew Gardens Report for 1878, p. 36. The substance of these is that true 
 Eagle- Wood is the product of one or more species of A quUaria, while Aloe- 
 xylon remains an insoluble problem. 
 
 " I have compared Loureiro's Aloexylon (and the figure of Rumphius he cites) 
 with the material of Aquilaria in this (Kew) herbarium. Loureiro has flowers 
 and fruit which he describes, and which I think must belong to some Legu- 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCIIIPKLAGO. 25 
 
 •wliicli they obtained from the Selungs, and also found for them- 
 selves in the forest by cutting down the trees that yield it. On 
 inquiring whether they had met with much success, I received 
 an evasive answer, but at the same time they ofTered to sell me 
 a few pieces, which I bought ; but as the price I gave is no indi- 
 cation of its real value, it is unnecessary to mention it here. 
 
 The quantity of eagle-wood collected both by Malays and 
 Selungs in former years was considerable, but now that the 
 trees are becoming more and more scarce, the Malays engaged in 
 this industry visit the islands less frequently and in fewer num- 
 bers. Mr. Lee states that in 1876-77, about 8000 trees were 
 being annually cut down for the purpose of obtaining this sub- 
 stance, which he mentions was the only forest produce of value 
 and importance in these islands. I am disposed to think that this 
 statement about 8000 trees being annually destroyed may probabl}' 
 have arisen from some error in the calculation, as the number 
 stated would give a daily average of twenty-one akyaiv trees, a 
 quantity which seems impossible when the size of the tree and 
 sparseness of the population are considered, and it is well known 
 that there has not been any perceptible falling off in the number 
 of the inhabitants during the last fifty years. Moreover, the 
 
 minose tree ; but he does not seem at all certain that the wood ' Agal- 
 locha' belongs to the flower and fruit. I think there is every probability 
 that the wood described in Loureiro was true Aquilaria Eagle- Wood ; that the 
 flower and fruit were some Legnminosse, and that the leaves were either or both, 
 
 "There are four well-marked species of Aquilaria in the Kew herbarium, 
 differing distinctly in their fruit, viz. : — 
 
 " I. Aquilaria Agallocha, the ' northern ' species, growing in Sylhet, North 
 Siam, North-East Burma. 
 
 " 2. The southern form Malaccensis. 
 
 " 3. An undescribed species, got by Pierre in Cochin-China. 
 
 "4. The large-flowered Chinese species. 
 
 " Whatever theory is accepted about Aloexylon, the name ought to be 
 dropped, for uncertainty and imperfection of description." 
 
 The substance known as eagle-wood occurs as irregularly-shaped masses, 
 their greatest lengths being generally in the direction of the grain of the wood. 
 They are hard brownish -yellow splinters, more or less mottled with black, and 
 infiltrated with resin. Not unfrequently they are hollowed out, the excavated 
 portions being covered with a fine layer of a brown earthy substance, and in 
 such cases this appears to be due to the ravages of white ants. Indeed, the 
 pieces of eagle-wood in my possession vividly recall to me the form and 
 general appearance which I have observed in the trunks of teak and other 
 tropical trees when they have been attacked by white ants and afterwards 
 by decay in the parts injured. 
 
 Eagle-wood is found, however, in all parts of the trunk, and most frequently 
 in the alburnum. 
 
26 THE SF.LUNfiS 
 
 islands themselves do not offer any evidence of its truth, as the 
 forest as a whole seems scarcely touched by man, its great enemy 
 in the northern islands being the devastating cyclone, which, how- 
 ever, is a rare visitant. There is no doubt the akyaw trees are 
 recklessly destroyed, but the destruction is a very long way 
 within Mr. Lee's figures. 
 
 The Selungs seem to devote themselves to the collection of 
 eagle-wood towards the end of the north-east monsoon and before 
 the south-west monsoon fully sets in, and chiefly at the time of 
 neap-tides, because at these times few holothurians are obtainable. 
 
 Mr. Lee states that looo viss of eagle-wood used to be col- 
 lected in the Archipelago about fifteen years ago, yielding from 
 Rs.5 to Es.22 per viss, according to the quality, and adds, " It need 
 scarcely be stated that the Selungs are not paid probably one- 
 fifth of these prices. A few loongyees, some remnants of cloth, 
 a little paddy, a small quantity of tobacco, and perhaps the 
 smell of opium now and then, is about all they get for the Akyaw 
 collected." But by 1881-82 the price had risen to £3.50 perwss 
 for the best quality of this substance. From Mergui it is ex- 
 ported to Penang for the Chinese market, and also to Moulmeiu 
 and Eangoon. 
 
 The tree is known to occur in Tavoy Island to the north, and 
 in St. Matthew's Island to the south, and it will probably be 
 found in every island of any size intervening between these 
 points. The Burmese name is Akyaw, the Selung Tsanah, the 
 Malay Gaharoo, the Siamese Krts&nd, and the Chinese Ngacha. 
 
 Another and valuable substance found in the Archipelago is 
 the edible nests of CoUocalia spodiopygia. The Selungs, however, as 
 far as I could learn, do not collect the nests systematically, but 
 as they know their value, they always secure any when they are 
 easily accessible, and use them for barter. The Malays appear 
 to be the chief collectors of these objects, and visit the outer 
 islands and others near the mainland, such as Elephant Island, 
 described by Commander Carpenter,^ confining their operations 
 to the north-east monsoon, when the sea is calm. I have 
 failed to obtain any information regarding the quantities procured 
 by the Selungs. 
 
 The wild hog, so abundantly distributed throughout the islands, 
 is hunted by the Selungs, who follow it up with their dogs, and 
 kill it with their spears (PI. iv. fig. 6.) The hunting is said to be 
 1 Nature, 9th July, 1888. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 27 
 
 confined to the rainy season, the reason assigned for this being 
 that the dogs fail to follow the scent in the dry weather. The fat 
 of the wild hog is saved by the Selungs, and offered for barter to 
 the traders. 
 
 Several dogs are generally found in every boat, and Mr. 
 Menzies says that the Selungs seldom lose an opportunity of 
 adding to their number ; and that, as the common village dog 
 of the mainland is seldom an adept at, or inclined to receive 
 instruction in hunting, he is subjected to very severe train- 
 ing. "Fresh from the streets of Mergui or other coast-town 
 or village, he is deposited by his new master on the first 
 convenient uninhabited island presenting itself He either 
 dies of starvation, if too indolent to hunt for his subsistence, 
 or soon learns to catch his prey. In a couple of months 
 he is sought for, and if found alive, is reclaimed and taken 
 home.'' It seemed to me that the dogs of the Selungs led a 
 very miserable life, emaciated from want of food, and buffeted 
 on every side ; and of the latter treatment I had ample aural 
 evidence in Elphinstone Island Bay, where I was in the midst of 
 a large canine population. When the boats are left stranded by 
 the receding tide, as represented on Plate iii., the dogs wander 
 ashore, and when this happens at night, they not unfrequently 
 fall a prey to crocodiles (C. porosus), and an instance of this 
 occurred one evening when my vessel lay in Elphinstone Island 
 Bay, the piteous howls of the animal arousing the whole com- 
 munity, human and canine. 
 
 On their boats and in their encampments on shore, the women 
 chiefly occupy their spare time in making mats from the leaves 
 of a species of Pandanus,^ which is very common in the Archi- 
 pelago. The leaf is torn up into strips varying with its length, 
 which is sometimes as much as nine feet in extent. These are 
 again subdivided into ribbons about a quarter of an inch in 
 breadth, and when a considerable number have been prepared, 
 they are boiled for some hours in earthen pots, and afterwards 
 soaked in fresh water, and subsequently dried in the sun. By this 
 treatment they become soft and pliable, and assume a straw colour. 
 
 These long ribbons are very dexterously plaited into mats 
 of different sizes, the largest measuring about 8 feet 6 inches 
 in length, by 2 feet 6 inches in breadth. A simple striped 
 
 1 Mr. Menzies was under the impression that the species in question does 
 not occur on the mainland. 
 
28 THE SELUNGS 
 
 pattern is produced by the introduction of a strand of broader 
 ribbons than those forming the mass of the mat, and a further 
 effort at ornamentation is attempted by leaving out little square 
 holes in three parallel series at equal distances from one another 
 near the ends. A mat of the foregoing dimensions can be run 
 up into a roll about 4^ inches in diameter, and weighing only 
 I lb. 14 oz. The softness and lightness of these mats, and the 
 cool surface they present, render them a favourite substance for 
 sleeping upon, and they have consequently a large sale on the 
 mainland, and are even exported to Bengal and other parts 
 They are a very important article to the Selungs, as they use 
 them as a circulating medium,^ being in reality the coin or 
 mode of payment by which they effect their purchases from each 
 other. The women also make another mat of a much coarser 
 quality, highly prized at Mergui and elsewhere as a waterproof 
 covering for boats and other objects. It is also made of the 
 leaf of the Pandanus, but the leaf, instead of being boiled and 
 macerated in fresh water, is simply dried in the sun, the 
 thorns are cut off the midrib, and the latter is split, but not 
 broken through. The leaves are then made to overlap, and 
 are stitched together with slips of bamboo. 
 
 Besides their simple attempts to impart some decoration to 
 their mats, they occasionally try higher flights at art, and exe- 
 cute rather pretty carvings on the bamboos they use for blowing 
 their fires, — their primitive bellows. An example of their efforts 
 in this direction will be found at Plate iv. fig. 2 ; and it is in- 
 teresting to observe that the designs are made up of represen- 
 tations of marine objects, chiefly various forms of star-fish, in the 
 centres of medallions surrounded by a background of fish-scales. 
 
 The social rites of the Selungs are few and simple. When 
 two young people have fallen in love with each other, they then 
 ask the consent of their parents to their union ; but I was told at 
 Yimiki that a young man in that settlement never thought of 
 marriage until he had become possessed of a piece of cloth 
 sufficiently large to serve as a loin-cloth for himself and his 
 inamorata. Having thus the wherewithal with which to endow 
 his bride, the consent of the parents followed as a matter of 
 course; the cloth was divided, and they became man and wife. 
 But at Elphinstone Island I was informed that when a marriage 
 
 ^ Menzies. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 29 
 
 was on the tajiis, the parents of the bride and bridegroom met 
 and interchanged pawi)rS002>ari, and if the marriage was approved 
 by both parties, it was sealed by the bridegroom presenting a 
 piece of cloth to the parents of the bride, and a few trifles to the 
 bride herself. As the young men generally marry before they 
 have become possessed of a boat, the newly-married couple reside 
 in the boat of the parents of the girl, where they remain until 
 the birth of the first child, after which they are expected to shift 
 for themselves. 
 
 As a rule, a Selung confines himself to one wife, but in Yimiki, 
 and also at Elphinstone, I met with two polygamists. 
 
 A young wife in her first confinement is waited on naturally 
 by her mother, but there are midwives among them, who are 
 called in and give their services for a mat or two. Their obstetric 
 methods may have the charm of simplicity, but I am afraid they 
 are very deadly, as they restrict themselves to one plan of pro- 
 cedure in difficult deliveries, viz., the exercising of force over the 
 abdomen of the unfortunate expectant mother. A woman is 
 generally at work at her household and other duties two or three 
 days after a normal delivery. 
 
 The naming of a child is unattended with any ceremony, and 
 the choice of a name appears to rest with the mother. 
 
 The Doang Selungs are said to suffer occasionally from fever, 
 but no cases came under my observation during my three months' 
 residence in the Archipelago, and, taken as a whole, they seemed 
 a strong and healthy people. Their ranks are, however, occa- 
 sionally decimated by cholera and small-pox, which they contract 
 on their visits to Mergui and the villages of the mainland, and 
 the number of people marked by the latter disease proved its 
 prevalence. It appeared to me, however, a remarkable circum- 
 stance that these Doang Selungs retained the appearance of 
 health they did, as their boats are never washed out, and are 
 consequently littered with fragments of food that are allowed 
 to lie and decay where they fall, emitting the most horrible 
 stench. Before I was aware of this, I, on one occasion, hired a 
 boat to take me a short distance, but the smell pervading it was 
 so overwhelmingly disgusting, that I had to abandon the trip and 
 return to my own vessel. 
 
 Many of them were disfigured by a scaly skin disease, probably 
 due to the nature of their food, which was largely composed of 
 fish and shell-fish, and to their frequent immersion in the sea and 
 
 c 
 
30 THE SliLUNGS 
 
 subsequent exposure to the rays of a tropical sun. Ulcers also 
 in their lower limbs were frequently seen, and their explanation 
 of this occurrence was that they resulted from scratches received in 
 their forest-work, and by falls on the rocks while engaged in their 
 marine employments. At Yimiki, a miserably sickly girl, with 
 large cicatrices on her neck, shoulder, and between her fingers, 
 was brought to me to see if I could do anything for her. One 
 wrist was rolled up in a dirty piece of cloth, and on removing the 
 bandage a pitiable sight presented itself, as a great repulsive sore 
 ran right round it. I was told that the old sores on her body 
 had never healed until some white worms two inches long had 
 come out of them, and that this sore would remain as it was until 
 this also occurred. The headman stated that some of his people 
 had died from similar sores. It seemed to me that they might 
 possibly be due to the presence of a mematoid worm. I dressed the 
 sore, and for this the girl expressed her gratitude very touohingly. 
 They have no drugs of their own, but they have the supersti- 
 tion that certain of their own people have the power, when one of 
 their number falls sick, to expel the ndt that has taken possession 
 of the sick person. I first learned this at Yimiki, when I asked 
 the head-man if he believed in Buddha Gaudama. He did not 
 answer my question directly, but indirectly by saying that his 
 father had told him that there were only ndts. He was then 
 asked if he had ever seen a ndt, to which he replied that he had 
 not, but that a few Selungs said they had, and that these men 
 were consulted when the ndt had to be propitiated, as in sickness. 
 The belief is that the evil spirit can only be expelled from the 
 body of the person afflicted by plying one of the mediums or 
 medicine-men with liberal potations of liquor. This he drinks, 
 and dancing round the sick Selung, he is supposed the more he 
 imbibes to be the more able to induce the malignant ndt to enter 
 into himself. There is a curious belief connected with this, men- 
 tioned by Mr. Meuzies, who was informed of it by the Selung who, 
 in i860, was employed by Government to exercise a supervision 
 over the Selungs generally. It was that the evil spirit made his 
 exit from the patient through his arm, and that he assumed the 
 form of a piece of broken glass. In this we have probably 
 another survival, not of the teachings of the missionaries, but 
 possibly of their having vaccinated some of the Selungs ; or it 
 may be that during the humane regime of Broadfoot and Durand 
 that some attempt had been made in the same directiim. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 3 1 
 
 Mr. Menzies records, and my information coincides with Ids, 
 that when any one seemed to be dying, he was taken in his boat 
 to some uninhabited island, the boat was drawn up on the beach, 
 a supply of food and fresh water was placed by his side, and he 
 was then abandoned to his fate. If he recovered, he had the 
 boat to return in; and if he died, it served as his coffin. On 
 a small island on the east side of Elphinstone Island a boat 
 was pointed out to me which had been used in this manner, an 
 entire family having been seized with cholera and died after 
 they had been abandoned on the island. There was at the 
 time of my visit no traces of the bodies, which I was told had 
 been dragged off and devoured either by crocodiles or lizards. 
 
 As stated by Heifer, the Selungs do not bury, but deposit 
 their dead in the forest. But there are exceptions to this, as will 
 presently appear. A small uninhabited island is selected, and a 
 platform is erected about five feet from the ground and roofed 
 over with Pandanus leaves. The Selungs of the Doang group make 
 no secret where they deposit their dead, at which I was rather 
 surprised, as I had been assured beforehand at Mergui that they 
 did so. The position of a little island where more than one 
 Selung had been laid out in the forest having been clearly 
 indicated to me, I visited it. Landing on a sandy beach, I 
 passed over a level piece of ground from which the sun's rays 
 were excluded by the dense forest overhead, there being almost 
 an entire absence of undergrowth. In this spot I met with 
 one platform which had fallen down, and among the dibris 
 of which lay the skeleton of a man, his cooking utensils, spear, 
 and ddli. A little farther on a boat was met with in whicli a 
 man and wife had died of cholera, and which had been dragged 
 up into the forest without disturbing the bodies ; but a man is 
 not laid in his boat when his wife and children survive him, 
 as the boat is retained for them. This, however, had been 
 some years ago, as the boat was now rotten and falling to 
 pieces, half filled with soil, but bound together by the rootlets 
 of the surrounding trees. The bodies had been broken up 
 by lizards and the bones lay scattered about. Varanus salvaior 
 is said to be the lizard that desecrates these mortuaries of the 
 Selungs ; and a Selung told me that he had once come upon fifteen 
 of them engaged in their revolting meal. The next platform 
 I visited was quite entire, and on it had lain the body of a 
 girl of about thirteen summers, but it had disappeared. Her 
 
32 THE SELUNGS 
 
 clothing, however, which had been placed beside her for her use, 
 remained untouched. 
 
 In Yimiki, where the Seluugs are under the influence of the 
 Karens, they have abandoned the foregoing custom of depositing 
 their dead on platforms, and now lay them in the ground under 
 a few inches of earth. When the father of the headman died, the 
 Karens introduced another innovation, as they succeeded in pre- 
 vailing on him to give a feast after the burial was over. 
 
 The only Selungs who came under my observation were those 
 found at Yimiki and the Doang group and the solitary man 
 from Tavoy Island, as my attempts to interview those on Lampi 
 or Sullivan Island utterly failed, although I devoted some time in 
 trying to discover those who were said to be about the island. The 
 time of my visit to Lampi, the month of January, was, however, 
 the very worst month of the year on which to meet the people 
 who frequent that island, for at that season it is almost deserted 
 by them for the islands lying more out at sea, where they carry 
 on their collecting of beche-de-mer, &c. My remarks are there- 
 fore confined to the people found in the northern part of the 
 Archipelago ; but it was unfortunate that they were so, because 
 it is probable that the race exists in greater purity towards the 
 south. lu connection with this, I would call attention to the 
 physical appearance of the man standing in the centre of the 
 group depicted in Plate i., as it will be observed that he presents 
 a very different appearance from the others, as he is bearded, 
 and has the features of a Mahommedan Bengal boatman, even 
 although he professed to be a Selung. But the other men 
 represented on this plate, and all the women, are characteristic 
 examples of the race, a remark which is true also of those 
 figured in Plate ii. The man dressed as a Burman in Plate i. 
 is the headman, and he is an illustration of the great varia- 
 tion these people exhibit in the colour of their skins, as he was 
 extremely black, the majority being of a paler colour, generally 
 of a reddish-brown tint, but much darker than the generality 
 of Malays, and practically destitute of the olive tinge which 
 usually distinguishes the skin of that people. But notwithstand- 
 ing these variations, a Malay origin suggests itself, modified 
 possibly by intermarriage with stragglers from the very mixed 
 population found at Mergui. In King Island and Tavoy Island, 
 where they have settled, they appear now to marry sometimes 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 
 
 33 
 
 with Karens, and probably also with Burmese. There is, how- 
 ever, not the slightest foundation for Heifer's statement that 
 some of them approach the Eegro type, or that they have been 
 in any way influenced by communication with the Andamanese, 
 as their hair, on which he bases these suggestions, is structurally 
 distinct from the hair of the Negro and Andamanese. 
 
 If the man of doubtful origin is left out of consideration, it 
 may be stated that, like the Malays, they hare little or no 
 moustaches, whiskers, or beards beyond a few straggling hairs, 
 and that their breasts and limbs are more or less destitute of 
 hair, but not to the extent distinctive of the pure Malay type ; 
 and, moreover, the coarse hair of their heads occasionally mani- 
 fests a distinct tendency to curl, which, as Wallace says, is an 
 almost certain proof of the admixture of some foreign blood ; but 
 in this case I would again repeat that it is in no way due to 
 Negrito influence. The form of the nose, in some, vig., its 
 depression at the bridge and expansion at the alx, as seen in 
 the two male figures on the left of Plate ii., in the women on the 
 same side of Plate i., and in the girl to the right of Plate ii., 
 seem also to point to an admixture of foreign blood ; but the 
 others had the nose preserving more or less its Malay type. 
 They have the low brows, rounded foreheads, and black but 
 slightly oblique eyes of the Malays. 
 
 In their stature they correspond to the Malays, as is proved 
 by the accompanying table giving the height of twelve men and 
 thirteen women. The average stature of the twelve men is 
 5 feet 2 inches, which corresponds to Wallace's measurements ; 
 whereas Professor Flower makes it an inch less, and some 
 authors give 5 feet as the average height of the Malay. 
 
 Women. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Ee chan 
 Shwe Gyo . 
 Naw thay . 
 Tawpot 
 Tweegeen . 
 Shwe Doke 
 Tgee-em 
 Toombow . 
 Assan 
 Dooloon 
 Akka 
 Tan-nae 
 
 Average . 
 
 
 Ft 
 
 In. 
 
 • 5 
 
 7.25 
 
 
 5 
 
 5.4 
 
 
 5 
 
 5. 10 
 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 
 5 
 
 3-75 
 
 
 5 
 
 2.2s 
 
 
 5 
 
 0.50 
 
 
 4 
 
 II.7S 
 
 
 4 
 
 II 
 
 
 4 
 
 11-75 
 
 
 S 
 
 2.25 
 
 
 5 
 
 i-5o 
 
 
 62 
 
 10.80 
 
 
 5 
 
 2-15 
 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 Mapew 
 
 5 2.60 
 
 Mayjaw . 
 
 5 2.30 
 
 Ma toang or Ee tootn 
 
 5 4 
 
 Mellah 
 
 5 0.50 
 
 Mattew 
 
 5 I 
 
 Maleik 
 
 4 7.7s 
 
 Mayah 
 
 5 0.50 
 
 Mayjoat . 
 
 4 9 
 
 Ay coam . 
 
 4 10.30 
 
 Meuyien 
 
 S 2.7s 
 
 Eh meh 
 
 4 10.25 
 
 Matgee 
 
 S 2.25 
 
 Mama 
 
 4 10.50 
 
 
 65 3-79 
 
 Average . 
 
 5 0.2Q 
 
34 THE SELUNGS 
 
 With considerable difficulty I succeeded in obtaining two 
 Selung skulls, one of a man and the other of a woman. I took 
 every precaution that the people should in no way be offended 
 by my so doing, as they were collected unknown to any one 
 but myself. 
 
 These skulls I submitted to Professor Sir William Turner, 
 wlio has favoured me with the following notes on them : — 
 
 Selung Skull (591). 
 
 " Adult (J . Teeth much worn in the crowns and stained 
 with betel. 
 
 " Cranium of considerable weight, with strongly marked gla- 
 bella, and supracilliary ridges and mastoid processes, but the 
 ridges in the occipital bone not especially strong. The forehead 
 moderately retreating. Tlie cranial vault in the parietal region 
 somewhat roof-shaped, but without an elevated ridge in the 
 sagittal line. The vault sloped gently backwards in the parieto- 
 occipital region, but with no special prominence of the occipital 
 bone. No evidence of artificial flattening in any part of the 
 skull. In the relations of its length and breadth the skull was 
 mesaticepJialic, the index being 76.3, and the widest part of the 
 cranium was near the squamous suture, though the parietal 
 eminences were fairly marked. The basi-bregmatio height ex- 
 ceeded the parieto-squamous breadth, and the skull belonged to 
 the aJcrocephalie group. There were no wormian bones in the 
 skull, and the alisphenoid articulated freely with the parietal. 
 The projection of the glabella caused a deep depression at the 
 root of the nose. The nasal bones were short and narrow, and 
 the bridge was somewhat concave upwards and forwards. The 
 superior maxillse sloped downwards and forwards on the alveolar 
 region, so that the upper jaw was prognathic. The nasal height 
 was twice as much as its width, and the nasal index was Tneso- 
 rhine. The width of the orbit considerably exceeded its height, 
 and the orbital index was microseme. The palato-maxillary 
 breadth was not greatly in excess of the length, and the, corre- 
 sponding index was mesuranic. The palate was deeply arched. 
 The lower jaw was well formed, and possessed a distinct chin. 
 The muscular ridges and surfaces were well marked. The skull 
 was phmnozygoiis. " 
 
 Skull from Elphinstone Group of Islands (592). 
 
 " Adult $ . Teeth partially worn in the crowns. 
 
 "Cranium not so heavy as 591. Forehead smooth. Glabella 
 and supracilliary ridges scarcely visible. Mastoids moderate, 
 also occipital ridges. Forehead inclined to the vertical. Cranial 
 vault in parietal region not so roof-shaped as in 591 ; parietal 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 
 
 35 
 
 eminences moderate. Cranium sloping gently downwards in 
 parieto-occipital region, with no special prominence of occipital 
 bone. No evidence of artificial flattening. In the relations of 
 length and breadth the skull was mesaticephalic, the index being 
 76.6. The widest part of the cranium was just above the 
 squamous suture. The basi-bregmatic height was i mm. less 
 than the parieto-squamous breadth. The skull was metriocephalk, 
 though almost up to the akrocepkalic standard. No wormian 
 bones, and the alisphenoid articulated freely with the parietal. 
 No depression at tlie root of the nose. Nasal bones slender 
 and almost straight. Superior maxillae not so projecting as in 
 591, and the gnathic index was mesognatkous. Nasal height 
 was more nearly proportioned to the nasal width, and the 
 index was platyrhine. The orbital width was little more than 
 the height, and the orbital index was megaseme. The palato- 
 maxillary breadth was greatly in excess of the length, and the 
 index was bracJiyuranic. The palate was considerably arched. 
 There was no lower jaw. 
 
 " In its internal capacity the skull was mikrocepluilic, 1 245 cubic 
 centimetres. The skull is cryptozygous. 
 
 "The following are the detailed measurements of the 
 skulls : — 
 
 two 
 
 
 CIS 
 
 a 
 
 ■Ep s 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 .9 ft-a 
 
 
 m 
 
 HO,S 
 
 
 OQ 
 
 KOw 
 
 Collection number . 
 
 591 
 
 592 
 
 Collection number . 
 
 591 
 
 592 
 
 A-e 
 
 Adult 
 
 Adult 
 
 Age 
 
 Adult Adult 
 
 Sex. . . . 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 Sex. . . 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 Cubic capacity . \ 
 
 too M- 
 
 |i245 
 
 Gnathic Index 
 
 103.8 
 
 100 
 
 alile to 
 iieasure 
 
 Interzygomatic breadth . 
 
 132 
 
 125 
 
 Glabello-occipital length 
 
 173 
 
 171 
 
 Intermalar 
 
 120 
 
 116 
 
 Basi-bregmatic height . 
 
 136 
 
 130 
 
 Naso-alveolar length 
 
 69 
 
 64 
 
 Vertical Index 
 
 78.6 
 
 76 
 
 Facial Index . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Minimum frontal dia- 
 
 
 
 Nasal height 
 
 50 
 
 47 
 
 meter 
 
 93 
 
 94 
 
 Nasal width . 
 
 25 
 
 28 
 
 Steijhanic 
 
 loS 
 
 108 
 
 Nasal Index 
 
 50 
 
 59-6 
 
 Asterionic 
 
 105 
 
 116 
 
 Orbital width . 
 
 40 
 
 39 
 
 Greatest parieto-squa- 
 
 
 
 Orbital height 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 mous breadth 
 
 132 s 
 
 131 p 
 
 Oriital Index 
 
 75 
 
 89.7 
 
 Cephalic Index 
 
 76.3 
 
 76.6 
 
 Palato-niaxillary length . 
 
 57 
 
 49 
 
 Horizontal circumf eren ce 
 
 498 
 
 4S2 
 
 Palato-raaxillary breadth 
 
 64 
 
 66 
 
 Frontal longitudinal arc . 
 
 123 
 
 130 
 
 Palato-maxillary Index . 
 
 112.2 
 
 134-7 
 
 Parietal 
 
 114 
 
 121 
 
 
 f Symphysial height . 
 
 33 
 
 — 
 
 Occipital ,, ), 
 
 no 
 
 112 
 
 
 Coronoid „ 
 
 68 
 
 — 
 
 Total 
 
 347 
 
 363 
 
 <i 
 
 Condyloid ,, 
 
 68 
 
 — 
 
 "Vertical transverse arc 
 
 292 
 
 296 
 
 t4 1 
 
 Gonio-sym physial 
 
 
 
 Length o£ foramen mag- 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 length . 
 
 91 
 
 — 
 
 num . 
 
 35 
 
 33 
 
 1 
 
 Inter-gonial width 
 
 95 
 
 — 
 
 Basi-nasal length . 
 
 105 
 
 92 
 
 
 Breadth of ascending 
 ramus . 
 
 
 
 Basi-alveolar length 
 
 109 
 
 92 
 
 
 40 
 
 — 
 
36 THE SELUNGS 
 
 "These two crania closely resembled each other in their main 
 features as regards length, breadth and height ; and in view of 
 their being of opposite sexes there is nothing in their relative 
 dimensions in these directions inconsistent with the view that 
 they were a man and a woman of the same race. 
 
 " As regards the race they are probably a branch of the Malay 
 race, though it should be stated that the Malays are by some 
 authorities regarded as brachycephalic and not mesaticephalic. 
 On this point, however, it would be necessary to consider how 
 far the antero-posterior diameter of the brachycephalic Malay 
 skull may have been diminished by artificial compression, and 
 the cephalic index thereby brought within the brachycephalic 
 standard. As stated in the description, these crania show no 
 sign of artificial compression." 
 
 When the missionaries at Mergui entered on their labours 
 among the Selungs, the language of the people was, naturally, 
 the first subject to occupy their attention, and Durand records 
 that the Eev. Mr. Brayton acquired some knowledge of it, and 
 taught several of them to read in the schools that had been 
 established through the philanthropic liberality of Major Broad- 
 foot. The book used in the schools was a small Primer, but 
 there is no indication in the work itself who was its author. Mr. 
 Brayton drew up a small vocabulary of the language. 
 
 After the efforts of the missionaries for the amelioration of 
 the condition of the Selungs were unfortunately abandoned and 
 their schools were closed, no attempt to gain a further know- 
 ledge of their language appears to have been made until the 
 year 1850 — at least nothing is to be found in the literature acces- 
 sible to me — when Mr. J. E. Logan published a small voca- 
 bulary of 132 words that had been given by Mr. O'Riley.^ 
 
 In 1880, Major Spearman ^ gave a vocabulary of 93 words and 
 7 sentences on the authority of Mr. Brayton. 
 
 During my residence among the Selungs, I drew up a voca- 
 bulary giving the numerals up to 100, and their words for one 
 thousand and ten thousand, also their equivalents for 307 words 
 and 30 sentences, with the names of 12 men and 13 women. 
 I have incorporated in this vocabulary Mr. O'Eiley's list of 
 words, words given by Logan, and have reproduced the words 
 and sentences communicated to Major Spearman by Mr. Brayton. 
 
 • Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (Singapore), vol. iv. 
 1850, pp 411, 412. 
 2 Gazetteer of British Burma, vol. i. pp. 189, 190, 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 37 
 
 I submitted this list of words, &c., to General Horace N. 
 Biowne and to Dr. E. Eost for their individual opinions on its 
 Burmese and Malay affinities. 
 
 General Browne has favoured me with the accompanying note 
 on the Burmese aspect of the Selung language. He says : — 
 "I have gone carefully through the Selung vocabulary, and I 
 have not succeeded in detecting the slightest affinity between 
 any of the ordinary words therein given and the corresponding 
 Burmese words. Not only does there appear to be no root- 
 affinity between the Burmese and Selung languages, but the 
 latter tribe does not seem, so far as can be judged from the voca- 
 bulary, to have even borrowed any terms from their Burmese 
 neighbours. This, however, is not surprising, for though the 
 Selungs are now in contact with a Burmese-speaking population, 
 it is only within the last century that this has been the case, as 
 the Takings of the Tenasserim province spoke no Burmese until 
 that language was forced upon them by their conquerors. 
 
 "Even the Selung name for a Burman, ' Tanaho,' has no re- 
 semblance to Bydmma, or Myamma, as the Burmans call them- 
 selves. 
 
 " Both Burmese and Selung, however, denote a Shan or Sia- 
 mese by what is substantially the same word, viz., ' Shan ' 
 (Burmese), and ' Tsiam ' (Selung). 
 
 " Notwithstanding the radical difference between the Burmese 
 and Selung languages, it is somewhat curious to find that, as 
 regards proper names of men and women, the Selungs have bor- 
 rowed largely from the Burmese. 
 
 "Among the men's names in the vocabulary, Shwe Gyo and 
 Shwe Doke are pure Burmese, and all the others present an 
 affinity more or less with Burmese proper names. As regards 
 ihe women's names, they all commence, as in Burmese, with 
 ' Ma,' and the greater number of those given in the list are 
 Burmese, more or less. 
 
 "It is possible that this may be a modern innovation, and in 
 consequence of the Burmese conquest of Tenasserim. The Bur- 
 mese head-men when, for purposes of enumeration or taxation, 
 they took a list of the people, would naturally shirk the trouble 
 of attempting to transcribe any strange-sounding words, and would 
 dub each Selung with whatever Burmese name presented the most 
 approach to the Selung appellation, and the Selungs for the sake 
 of simplicity may have acquiesced in the new nomenclature.'' 
 
38 THE SELUNGS 
 
 Major Spearman has directed attention to the fact that the 
 Selung word for boat is identical with the Talaing Ulang, a 
 boat or vessel, and the Sulus dapang seems to me to be the same 
 word. It is therefore possible that a scholar acquainted with the 
 Talaing language might be able to detect still further examples of 
 the Selung language having been influenced by the speech of that 
 people, with whom they had doubtless as much intercourse before 
 the Burmese conquest as they have now with the people of 
 Mergui and the neighbouring coast. 
 
 I am indebted to Dr. Rost for the following note on the Malay 
 features of the language. Dr. Rost says : — " The Selung is a 
 distinct Malayan language, not a dialect of any of the Malayan 
 languages. It has a number of characteristic features in inor- 
 phology which distinguish it from all its sisters. It has, how- 
 ever, a greater resemblance to the languages of Sumatra than to 
 other Malayan tongues." 
 
 Dr. Mason, writing in i860, remarked that an examination 
 of the vocabulary collected by Mr. Brayton proved conclusively 
 that the Selung language was of the Malay family, though dif- 
 fering considerably from the Malay proper — an opinion which is 
 very much the same as that arrived at by Dr. Rost. 
 
 Mr. Logan has stated that Mr. O'Riley "had noticed that 
 the Selung language manifested strong Siamese affinities ; " the 
 former, however, believed that it had relations to other ultra- 
 Indian, and even to Chinese languages, which, he held, showed 
 " that it is not a mere offset of the Siamese, but probably a 
 sister language." 
 
 The foregoing pages are a resume of all that is known re- 
 garding the Selungs ; and if any one conclusion more than 
 another can be drawn from them, it is this, that the true 
 relations of the Selungs to the Malay and other surrounding 
 races have yet to be determined. A rich field for research thus 
 lies close at hand to any Deputy-Commissioner of Mergui who 
 may be stimulated by the examples of Broadfoot and Durand to 
 take an enlightened interest in this neglected race. 
 
 The following is the vocabulary. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 39 
 
 SELUNG VOCABULARY.i 
 
 One, ohS,, chet ; Malay, satu ; Javanese, sa. 
 
 Two, twa ; Malay, dua. 
 
 Three, tahlow ; Nias Islanders and Dyaks, tCUti, tuloh ; Malay, tiga ; 
 
 Fijian, tolu ; Javanese (Ngoko), tehi. 
 Four, p3,t ; Kian, Punan, and Melano Dyaks, pat ; Malay, ampat ; 
 
 Javanese (Ngoko), pat. 
 I^ive, lemah ; Malay, lima; Dyaks, lima, limoh, limuli; Fijian, lima. 
 Six, nam ; Malay, anam ; Kian Dyak, nam ; Javanese (Ngoko), neiu. 
 Seven, loojoo ; Malay, tujoli ; Dyaks, tusu, tujn. 
 Eight, wahlow ; Javanese, wolu ; Irtoun and DAsiin, walo ; Sulus, 
 
 wtia ; Nias Islanders, vratii ; Fijian, walu ; Malay, delapan. 
 iVme, chowai ; Malay, sambilan. 
 Ten, taplaw ; Malay, sapuloh. 
 Eleven, taplaw-chS, taplaw-oliet ; Malay, sa-belas ; IrSnlin, sapiiloli- 
 
 wisa. 
 Twelve, taplaw-twa. 
 
 Twenty, twaplaw ; Malay, dua-puloh ; Dyaks, duo-puloh. 
 Twenty-one, twaplaw-chS. 
 
 Thirty, tahlow-plaw ; Kian and Punan Dyaks, tiilu-puloh. 
 Forty, pat-plaw. 
 
 One hundred, allataw ; Malay, sa-ratus. 
 One thousand, appan. 
 Ten thousand, a-meen. 
 
 Anger, kaing. 
 
 Anldet, k'lang. 
 
 Ant, keddm.* 
 
 Ape, la-wat.t 
 
 Arrow, p'lah ; * Malay, anak-panah ; Iranvln, Diisun and Buliid-Opie, 
 
 panah. 
 Bamboo, kaoan, k'doon.t 
 Basket, bahcoee. 
 Bat, lawlak. 
 Bai/, aon. 
 Beads, k'loiee. 
 Beard, booloee chaumaw. 
 BSche-de-tner, gatyee. 
 Bee, samang.* 
 
 Belly, k'lan ; * lr§,n-fl.n, Diisiin, and Sulus, tlan. 
 Bird, keckyoam, sisom.* 
 Blood, dallak, avvaen-melat ; *" Malay, darah. 
 Boat, k'bang, kebang * ; Talaiiig, k'*bang ; * Sulus, d^pang. 
 Bone, kian,* k'lan ; f Malay, tulang. 
 Bottle, prang ; Malay, balang. 
 
 1 An * attached to a word indicates that it ia taken from the vocabulary 
 supplied by O'Riley to Logan. 
 
 The sign + is appended to words taken from the vocabulary supplied by 
 Mr. Brayton to Major Spearman. 
 
 The Malay words are given on the authority of Mr. W. E. Maxwell's 
 Manual of the Malay Language. 
 
 The words from Malay dialects are derived from Mr. F. A. Swettenham's 
 Comparative Vocabulary of the Dialects of some of the Wild Tribes inhabitiiio- 
 the Malayan Peninsula, Borneo, &o. Journ. Straits Branch Roy. As. Soc, 
 June 1880, pp. 125, 160. 
 
40 THE SELUNGS 
 
 Bottom, naboo. 
 
 Boy, aiinan, auat kanaing.* 
 
 Boy (little), aiinan-nek. 
 
 Bracelet, k'laiig. 
 
 Bread, k'noom.* 
 
 Brother, beeai. 
 
 Buffalo, k'bao.* 
 
 Burman (a), Ta-na-ho.t 
 
 Cat, me-young, meao,* nie-aw.t 
 
 Cheek, ta-bong, t'hek.* 
 
 Chest (breast), dada. 
 
 Child, annat koteet, anat,* anat t ; Malay, anak. 
 
 Chinaman, keen,t seen.f 
 
 Cloud, k'lang, k'neung.* 
 
 Cock, manok-ga-oh. 
 
 Coral, kul-laiig. 
 
 Cousin, anan-beeai. 
 
 Cover (of a boat), kejan. 
 
 Cow, I'mu.* 
 
 Crab, k'htom. 
 
 Crocodile, ka-yat.t 
 
 Crow, ka, ak.+ 
 
 Darkness, k'man,t k'maii.* 
 
 Dai/, alloi, alai,* alien ; + Punan Dyak, elo ; Biikiitan Dyak, alau. 
 
 Day after to-morrow, sheesbow-tySt. 
 
 Daylight, bowkaika. 
 
 Daughter, meh, anat binaing,* anat-bee-neng.+ 
 
 Daughter-in-law, looah. 
 
 Dog, oiee, aai * ; SSmaiig of Ulu Selama, aeh ; Malay, anjing. 
 
 Door, pai-tow t ; Malay, pintu. 
 
 Duck, adat,* addSh, ada.f 
 
 Ear, leng-ah, tengali * ; Malay, telinga. 
 
 Earth, tamak, tanak * ; Malay, tanah. 
 
 East, maloee, mata alai taok.* 
 
 Egcr, k'loen.* 
 
 Elephant, gaza ; * Malay, gajah. 
 
 Eye, ma-ta, matat,* mah-tak ; t Malay, mata. 
 
 Familfi, a-sow.t 
 
 Father, appoang, apang,* aa-paung.t 
 
 Finger, langan, mee-nang.f 
 
 Fire, appo'i, apoi,* alam.t apoee ; + Malay, api ; Dyaks, apili, api, apoi. 
 
 Fireplace in boat, dayappan. 
 
 Fish, ekkan, aokan,* aye-kan ;t Malay, ikan. 
 
 Flower, boangii, bungnat * ; Malay, bunga. 
 
 Foot, ka-kai, kakai ; * Malay, kaki. 
 
 Forehead, kamay-yang. 
 
 Fowl, manok, may-nauk ; + Balau-Dyak, manok ; Tagbenua, manuk ; 
 
 SSmang of Ulu Selama, manok. 
 Frog, bagau. 
 
 Oeclio, tawkay ; Burmese, touk-tay. 
 Oirl, biniang.* 
 Oirl (little), bynnai-nek. 
 Qoat, pet.* 
 
 God, Theedah, Too-da.t 
 Gold, nyee, sin.* 
 Grandfather, elibap. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 4 1 
 
 Grandmother, ehboam. 
 Grass, lawpoat. 
 Gun, coopai. 
 
 Hair, boolo, bo-lo+, autak ; ' Irautn, bftoh. 
 Hair of the head, booloee-awtak. 
 Hand, langan ; lan-gan ;* Malay, tangan. 
 
 Head, awtah, atak,* aw-kat ; t Punan and Bttkutan-Dyak, utok. 
 Head-cloth, tangay-yek. 
 Heaven, k'nee-oon.t 
 Heat, kolat, ka-w-lat,t kalat.* 
 Hen, manok-bynnai. 
 Hill, dalai, dlai.* 
 
 Hog, babooee, babai ; * Malay, babi ; Punan and Kian Dyaks, baboe ; 
 Melano Dyak, baboi ; BakCtan Dyak, babowi ; Tagbeniia, babuoi. 
 Hog-spear, pigyan. 
 Honey, gnaping, tsa-meng.t 
 Horse, ina.* 
 
 House, oma, amak,* aw-mak ;t Malay, rumah ; Javanese, nmah. 
 Husband, kallak, k'lak,t k'lak ; * Malay, laki. 
 Inside, dalam. 
 
 Island, polau ; Malay, pulau. 
 Knee, taot. 
 Knife, pait.t 
 Laughter, nan. 
 Leaf, dadn ; * Malay, daiin. 
 Leg, k'teug, k'taing.t 
 Light, seng.* 
 
 Lightning, kelat ; * Malay, kilat. 
 Lips, bee-been.t 
 Liquor, elap. 
 Lizard, khoylek. 
 Lord (master), aw-paut.+ 
 Malay, Ba-tak.t 
 
 Man, kannai, mesa,* maw-keng,t may-sh.i,! nia-iioot.t 
 Man (old), eh-bap, ai-bap.+ 
 Mast (of a boat), tayhang. 
 Mat, tekkan. 
 MilJc, awaen sa-lai.* 
 Monkey, k'lak, klak,* k'lat.t 
 Moon, boolan, bulan ; * Malay, bulan. 
 Moon (full), boolan-poonunka. 
 Morning, smira.* 
 
 Mother, annong, aenang,* aye-naung.+ 
 Mountain, dalai addah, da-lai,t dlai.* 
 Mouse-deer, beetyong. 
 Mouth, aw-kan, awkang.* 
 Mud, malaw. 
 
 Nail (fingers or toes), kekoee, kekoe ; * Malay, kukii. 
 Nat (a spirit), katoiee, katar. 
 Neck, boo-loung.t 
 Needle, yahloam. 
 
 Night, kamman, k'man ; * Malay, malam. 
 Noon, niata alai tgak.* 
 North, taleeyang. 
 
 Nose, yoong, yong,t yong ;* Kian, Punan, and Buktitan Dyaks, nrong. 
 Nostrils, ]ay-yang-yoong. 
 
42 
 
 THE SELUiNGS 
 
 Oar, poah, pwa.t 
 
 Ocean, k'toong.* 
 
 Oil, mnyat * ; Malay, minyak. 
 
 Opium, glia-paidii.t 
 
 Paddy, poor.* 
 
 Plantain, pechang ; Malay, pisang. 
 
 Porcupine (brush-tailed), koh. 
 
 Prow {of boat), kawlaw. 
 
 Pwai-nyet,^ a'oan. 
 
 Bain, kujan, kuian ; " Malay, hiijaii. 
 
 Jiat, keku ; * Malay, tikus. 
 
 Rhinoceros, lawsa. 
 
 £ice, pallah, pla ; * Punan, MSlano, and Btikiitan Dyaks, bah or baali. 
 
 Mice (boiled), tsawn.t 
 
 Ring, tityen. 
 
 River, mee-nam,+ minam.* 
 
 Road, gilan, ialan * ; Malay, jalan. 
 
 Rudder, cheekoo. 
 
 Sail, liyan. 
 
 Salt, selak.* 
 
 Sond, kanai. C{P^-<i-i 
 
 Sea, ta'au, tao ; * Ocean, k'toong. 
 
 Sellings, Mawken or Manoot ta'au (Men of the Sea). 
 
 Serpent, aw-lan, awlan,* k'ha-neef ; BftlM-Opie, ulaiig ; Malay, tilar. 
 
 Shan (a), Tsiam.t 
 
 Shells, ekkichoam. 
 
 Silver, nyn, gnin,* ngeeii.+ 
 
 Sister, loo-ah. 
 
 Sister (elder), ao-aoi.* -, 
 
 Sister (young), awhee, biang.* 'Cy 
 
 Sleep, nadone, nedun.* 
 
 Smell, ta'een. 
 
 Son, annait, an at,* anat-ka-neag.t 
 
 Son-in-law, nyatoiee. 
 
 Sound, n'hang.* 
 
 South, pyeyah. 
 
 Spear, boo-law.t 
 
 Spear (fishing, three-pronged), chooni. 
 
 Spirit, katar.* 
 
 Spoon, gya-ka-nee. 
 
 Squirrel (large black), kaprah. 
 
 Star, beetowali, bituek,* bee-took ;t N. Celebes, bittiy, ■'»'-'' r ' 
 
 Starfish, gawah. 
 
 Stern of boat, booloot-kawloang. 
 
 Stream (fresh water), ohen meenam, minam. 
 
 Stomach, lakay. 
 
 Stone, kalang, batoe.* 
 
 Sugar, naping. 
 
 Sun, ma-ta-aloiee, mata alai,* ma-ta-a-law;t MSlano and B<ikfttan Dyaks, 
 
 matalau ; Malay, mata-hari. 
 Tadpole, emmek. 
 Talaing (a), Ma-awt. 
 Tears, awen ma-ta. 
 
 ' Pwai-nyet is the term applied by the Burmese to the substance of the nest 
 of a bee belonging to the genus Trigona. 
 
OF THE MBRaUI ARCHIPELAGO. 43 
 
 Thigh, pakah. t'A-^ a- 
 
 Thread, beiiang. 
 
 T/iumh, medn.* 
 
 Thunder, tguii.* 
 
 Tiger, pannoo, piiuk.* 
 
 Tide {full), awaen-adah. 
 
 Tide {low), awaen-nek. 
 
 Tobacco, ohbat. 
 
 To-day, alloiee ; Punan-Dyak, eloini. 
 
 Toe, takkai. 
 
 To-morrow, sheeshow, theethou, sisao,* tsee-tsoon.+ 
 
 To7igue, kalay, klek,* k'laik ; t Malay, lidali. 
 
 Tooth, laypan, lepadn ; " Ir&uiin-Dyak, nlpoii ; Melano-Dyak, iiyipaii. 
 
 Top, dattah. 
 
 ZVee,ka-ay, ki,* k'ayo ;t Punan-Dyak, kaiu; Melano-Dyak, kaiau ; Balau- 
 
 Dyak, kayu ; Malay, pokoh, pohun 
 Tub {for collecting honey), copay. 
 Turtle, pyn-yoiee. 
 Uncle, tawha. 
 
 Water, awen, awaen ; * Malay, ayer. 
 Wave, laman, la-mat.t 
 Wax, naylen ; Malay, lilin. 
 West, balat, luata alai nainak.* 
 
 Wife, pelow, plao,* bee-noongt ; Punan-Dyak, pawoh. 
 Wind, anjin ; Malay, angin. 
 
 Woman, bynnai, plo\v,t benainfr,* bee-noongt ; Malay, perampuan. 
 Wood, olikang, k'ae ; * Malay, kayu. 
 Wood-aloes, ajaw ; Burmese, akyaw. 
 Worm, glang.t 
 YaTn, kawloiee. , 
 
 Fear, takon. '''I t-^^^\^VK 
 
 Yesterday, booboat, boo-boot.t 
 
 Bad, adut*, a-doot,t a-moongba.t 
 
 Beautiful, lachee-laing, lasee-laing, anion ; ' Burmese, hla-thee. 
 
 Big, addah. 
 
 Bitter, n'hai.* 
 
 Blade, kehtam, ketam ; ' Malay, bitam. 
 
 Blue, obmong, ketam.* 
 
 Broad, lagat.* 
 
 Cold, diyam, dayam ; " Melano-Dyak, dadam. 
 
 Crooked, lai-kouk.t 
 
 Bead, matai* ; Malay, matl ; Irfinun, Dft»An and BAliid Opei, matei. 
 
 Deep, dalam. ■ 
 
 Birty, kaleeyet. 
 
 Enough, choup-ka. 
 
 False, tawkaw-ha. 
 
 Fat, batong. 
 
 Female, bynnai. 
 
 Few, abbeet, abit.' 
 
 Good, amon,* a-moong.t 
 
 Green, metah. 
 
 Beavy, ba-at. 1*\| btra-i 
 
 High, latah, data*. 
 
 Hot, kolat, kaliit.* 
 
 Hot {very), kolat-laing. 
 
44 THE SELUNGS 
 
 Hungrt/, kalan, k'lau.* 
 
 Large, adat.* 
 
 Lean, gneppay. 
 
 Light, bahow. 
 
 Long, adat.* 
 
 Male, ga'oh. 
 
 Middle, kanga. 
 
 Old, maulah or potau, palao.* 
 
 Outside, peetaw. 
 
 Painful, maket. 
 
 Pleasant, makkow. 
 
 Plenty, lalbat-laing. 
 
 Pretty, lachee or lasee ; Burmese, lila-tliee. 
 
 Ra-pvd, wai-Tvai,* sat-sat.* 
 
 iJecV, mehlak, melat ; * Malay, merah. 
 
 Rough, palloon. 
 
 Round, kloam. 
 
 Shallow, kattay. 
 
 Short, abit,* balui.* 
 
 Sick, makit.* 
 
 Slow, kokoee, kruakru.* 
 
 Small, nek, nek.* 
 
 Small (very), nek-nSk. 
 
 Smooth, laykyn. 
 
 Sour, masam ; * Malay, masani. 
 
 Square, palaycau. 
 
 Straight, la-koot.t 
 
 Strong, kalang. 
 
 Thick, tabang. 
 
 True, tawkaw, pakat.* 
 
 Ugly, lachee ha, amonhat." 
 
 Untrue, tawkaw-ha. 
 
 Wet, piik. 
 
 White, potayak, patuik ; " Malay, puteh. 
 
 Yellow, ina-mang.* 
 
 He, awlang. 
 I, t'chee, kyi.* 
 It, awlang.* 
 She, awlang.* 
 This, ini.* 
 What, sipan.* 
 Who, asao.* 
 Ye, kanye.* 
 Your, kanye.* 
 
 Ahle {to he, can), tsyaiig.* 
 Answer {to), m'yai. 
 Bark {to), naybow. 
 Be (is to), nek.t 
 Believe {to), gnawchet. 
 Bend {to), babaom. 
 Boil {to), lebow. 
 Born {to be), labong. 
 Burn {to), kalat.* 
 Call {to), mahoang. 
 
OF THE MERGUI AllCHIPELAGO. 45 
 
 Carry (to), bah, bak.t 
 
 Cold, diam. 
 
 Gome (to), ngadin, gnadiii,* nga^dien.t 
 
 Cook (to), dotyon. 
 
 Cough (to), mawab. 
 
 Gry (to), maugai. 
 
 Dance (to), may yah. 
 
 Deceive (to), k'wa-o.t 
 
 Desire (to lack), lat.+ 
 
 Die (to), mattaiee, ma-too.t 
 
 Dream (to), neppoiee. 
 
 Drink (to), ma-am, ma-am,t ma'am " ; Malay, milium. 
 
 £at (to), makan, makan,* iiyam ; t Mala}', iiiakan. 
 
 Empty (to), angang. 
 
 Fill (to), panoo ; Malay, penoh-kan. 
 
 Find (to), boneyamow. 
 
 Fish (to), maoan ehkan. 
 
 Gather (to), tahpoong. 
 
 Oo (to), lakow, lakai ; * ta-la-ho t (lakoon) t ; MSlano-Dyak, lakau. 
 
 Hear (to), mengah, neung.* 
 
 Jump (to), lawput ; Malay, lompat. 
 
 Kill (to), mepang*, nai-moung.t 
 
 Laugh (to), mawah, mawak.* 
 
 Lose (to), ngaetka. , , 
 
 Look (to), nalent. Ml ^'i^at 
 
 Love (to), talow, lit.+ 
 
 Make (to), na-baut ; t Malay, membuat. 
 
 Make straight (to), bollojoot. 
 
 Marry (to), mattam. 
 
 Mra (to), addook. M, <X'Li'-k 
 
 Murder (to), ni'eppong. 
 
 Pass (to), longoo. 
 
 Rejoice (to), nokattai. 
 
 Remember (to), manaik. 
 
 Repeat (to), meahjoy. 
 
 Return (to), unbelJay ; Malay, kambali. 
 
 Rise up (to), maiigon. 
 
 See (to), malleat, pa-nak.t 
 
 Shoot (to), menging. 
 
 Sing (to), gineh, gee-nai.t 
 
 Sink (to), nangoong. 
 
 Sit (to), nadok ; Malay, duduk. 
 
 Sleep (to), nehdoden, iiadoiie. 
 
 Smell (to), metyoain. 
 
 Sorri/ (to be \ kollat-dallai. 
 
 Speak (to), tahow, miyar,* ma-kaho.t 
 
 Spear (to), Jiiakehkan. 
 
 Steal (to), malak, nga-lat.t 
 
 Suck (to), mam. 
 
 Swim (to), mangoiee. ' ^A/: ' ' . 
 
 Think (to), raajiik-^aXai. •'^(y.ncy.y^ -^•' ao-(l.t\i 
 
 Thirsty (to be), kang awen. ' 
 
 Thunder (to), tagooii, tgun." 
 
 Try (to), sangbao. 
 
 Understand (to), me eai. 
 
 Walk (to), la-kow ed-doop, la-kow.t 
 
46 THE SELUNGS 
 
 Want (to), men. 
 Weigh (to), mechchang. 
 Wish (to), lat.+ 
 Worship (to), iiya-ma.+ 
 
 No, ha, ka.* 
 
 Here, iddee, idi,* ini.* 
 
 How long ? toom, tom.t 
 
 How much ? toom, tom.f 
 
 Near, daunee. 
 
 Now, k'dee-an.t 
 
 Quick, wai-loo-lee.t 
 
 Quickly, wai-wai. 
 
 iioon, wai-wai. 
 
 Where, beetam, bee-tam.t 
 
 Tes, eh or tawkaw. 
 
 Are turtle eggs good to eat ? boonigh ngakkan amon ka ? 
 
 Bring a light, appo'i-bahidee. 
 
 Bring water, awen bahidee. 
 
 Carry this basket, bahcoee makkan. 
 
 Come here, ngadin iddee. 
 
 Don't he afraid, nyn nakoat. 
 
 Do you eat the nut of the betel-palm ? tennang cope makan ka 1 
 
 Do you grow paddy ? beeaing pie nanam ka 1 
 
 Far away, la nyot. 
 
 Oive me some water, awen onkee. 
 
 Go away, lakow. 
 
 How many children have you ? annat toom deloiee ? 
 
 How many dogs have you ? beeaing oiee toom berlat ? 
 
 How much do you want, going and returning ? beeaing laoow edoop 
 
 akkakaw maoii toom 1 
 How old are you ? gnyawa toom takon ? 
 . / am going to sleep, kyi or t'chee nadone ka. 
 I am hungry, kyi or t'chee kalan. 
 I am not afraid, t'chee nakoat ha. 
 Is this the way ? gilan nay kaka ? 
 Is it getting dark ? kamman boat ka ? 
 It is cold, kuddiow diam. 
 J want a boat to go to Wah-kyoung, t'chee menam k'bang lakow Polaw- 
 
 tope. 
 / won't go away, t'chee lakow ha. 
 Nat grandfatlwr, help [my) sickness {and) to-morrow {if I am) cured {I 
 
 shall) give (yo^i a) bottle of liquor, katoiee ehbap annanee maket 
 
 thee-how bolahigh maon elap prang. 
 Seven days, loojoo alloiee. 
 She is pounding rice, gna moitoiee pallah. 
 Sit dovm here, nadok tinnee. 
 Some time ago, cha laing. 
 The day before yesterday, booboat tyet. 
 They are very frightened, manoot nyoo nakoat laing. 
 
 Phrases by JIr. Bratton. 
 
 Where are you going ? la-kow-bhee-tamle ? 
 Ood is good {God good), too-da a-moong. 
 
OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO. 
 
 47 
 
 Mem is not good {man good not), may-slia a-mouiig-ha. 
 God loves man {man God loves), may-sha Too-da lak. 
 God governs man {man God governs), may-slia Too-da toa-na. 
 IVhat do yon want ? {desire what ?j lak lia-naung. 
 / cannot go (l go can not), t'see la-kow tadn ha. 
 
 If the boat hits the sand it will be ruined (boat hit sand ruined is) k'baiig 
 k'nak ka-iiai ka-tam kak. 
 
 Men's JVames. 
 
 V 
 
 Ee'clian. 
 
 Mapew. 
 
 Shwe Gyo. 
 
 Mayjaw. 
 
 Nawthay. 
 
 Ma-toang, 
 
 Tawpot. 
 
 Mellah. ' 
 
 Tweegeen. 
 
 Matte w. 
 
 Shwe Doke. 
 
 Maleik. 
 
 Tgee-em. 
 
 Mayah. 
 
 Toombovv. 
 
 Mayjoat. 
 
 Assan. 
 
 Aycoam. 
 
 Tau-nae. 
 
 Menyien. 
 
 Dooloon. 
 
 Eh-meh. 
 
 Akka. 
 
 RIatgee. 
 
 
 Ma-iiia. 
 
 Women's Xames. 
 
 Selling name Ee-toom. 
 
 THE END 
 
 PRINTED BY BALLANTVNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
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