115
Or Sugar-palm (Arenga saccharifera). ↑
116
“The Malayan Sun-bear, the only animal of the bear species in the Peninsula. It is also known
as the Honey-bear, from its fondness for that sweet. It is black in colour, with the exception of
a semi-lunar-shaped patch of white on the breast, and a yellowish-white patch on the snout and
upper jaw. The fur is fine and glossy. Its feet are armed with formidable claws, and its lips and
tongue are peculiarly long and flexible, all three organs adapting it to tear open and get at the
apertures in old trees where the wild bees usually build.”—Denys, Descr. Dic. Brit. Mal., s.v.
Bruang. ↑
117
Bruin is also the Dutch word for a bear. The Malay form Bĕruang has also been derived from
ruang, which is assumed, for this occasion only, to mean a “cave,” in order that Bĕruang may
be explained as meaning the cave-animal. There is no evidence, however, to show that ruang
ever did mean a cave, nor is the Malay bear a cave-animal. ↑
118
J.R.A.S., S.B., No. 7, p. 23. ↑
119
Cp. Cliff., Stud. in Brown Hum. p. 243 seqq. (The Strange Elopement of Chaling the Dyak). ↑
120
There seems to be some doubt as to the scientific nomenclature properly applicable to the
Siamang.
The following is a specimen of a monkey legend: “A little farther up-stream two rocks facing
each other, one on each side of the river, are said to have been the forts of two rival tribes of
monkeys, the Mawah (Simia lar) and the Siamang (Simia syndactyla), in a terrible war which
was waged between them in a bygone age. The Siamangs defeated their adversaries, whom
they have ever since confined to the right bank of the river. If any matter of fact person should
doubt the truth of this tradition, are there not two facts for the discomfiture of scepticism—the
monkey forts (called Batu Mawah to this day) threatening each other from opposite banks of
the river, and the assurance of all Perak Malays that no Mawah is to be found on the left
bank?”—J.R.A.S., S.B., No. 9, p. 48. ↑
121
According to another account, the siamang is said to have originated from akar pulai, i.e. the
roots of a pulai tree (the Malay substitute for cork, used to form floats for the fishing-nets). ↑
122