On the River Pluss: Interior of the Malay Peninsula, X. Brau de Saint-Pol Lias
Xavier Brau de Saint-Pol Lias, a French naturalist and colonial investor, published this account in La Nouvelle Revue in 1882, describing his February 1881 journey up the River Pluss in the interior of Perak alongside Governor Frederick Weld of the Straits Settlements and Resident Hugh Low. The article is primarily an ethnographic and natural-history record of the Sakey (Orang Asli) people of Krebow, documenting their physical characteristics, material culture, social organisation, and—most notably for Lias—their apparent total absence of religious belief or superstition.
Summary
The narrative opens with a vivid natural-history description of the virgin forest of upper Perak, rendered in the lush, almost romantic prose typical of late-nineteenth-century French travel writing. Lias details the giant trees, vines, rattans, and orchids of the rimbo, and records the tracks of a wild elephant (lio) whose single-footprint stride distinguished it from the domestic animals of the party (pp. 161–162). The party then establishes a night-time “lying-in-wait” in a hut built on the branch of an immense fig tree overhanging the river, where they await a rhinoceros that never appears; instead, the Raja Muda of Perak arrives on his own elephant, and Lias devotes considerable space to the nocturnal soundscape of the forest—fireflies, siamangs, elephants, and an unnamed batrachian whose four-note call he compares to a flute (pp. 163–165).
The ethnographic core of the article begins when approximately forty Sakeys from the Krebow settlement arrive, summoned by the Resident. Lias records their physical appearance in detail: average height slightly above the local Malays, generally well-built, with dark expressive eyes, long hair raised on the forehead, and a “very accentuated negroid” character in some individuals, particularly wide nostrils and frizzy hair (pp. 167–169). He documents their material culture—bark-cloth loincloths (kain-kaiou), necklaces of white and black beads, back-baskets carrying food and sirih, and the blowpipe (soumpitann) with its poisoned darts, which he notes was sometimes “rifled” (pp. 169–170). He records a Sakey chant and dance performed around a fire, transcribing the soloist-chorus structure and providing a partial translation of the lyrics, which he compares favourably to European art music (pp. 174–175). Linguistically, Lias identifies strong parallels between Sakey and Malay vocabulary, notes that the Sakeys had borrowed Malay numerals beyond three, and identifies the word mano (poultry) as shared with Acehnese and Javanese, suggesting a wider linguistic connection (p. 175).
In his interviews with the two panggoulous (chiefs) Ba-Intann and Tolilo, Lias elicits information on Sakey social organisation: polygyny with a bride-price of ten to thirty ringgit, rare divorce, adultery punished by a thirty-ringgit fine, and a categorical denial that Sakeys kill or steal (pp. 176–177). His most emphatic claim concerns religion: Tolilo answers every question about creation, the sun, the moon, thunder, death, and prayer with the same phrase, Tida tao (“I don’t know, nobody knows”), and adds that “nobody has taught them” to pray (p. 178). Lias concludes that “the Sakey cannot be defined as ‘a religious animal’” and that the complete absence of any religious or superstitious system is “doubtless worth examining more closely” (p. 178).
Key Findings
- Approximately forty Sakeys from Krebow (a day’s walk from Lassa, near the source of the River Pluss) were observed; they lived in groups of ten to fifteen families in bark-and-foliage shelters at the foot of large trees, with no permanent houses (pp. 177–178).
- The Sakey blowpipe (soumpitann) was a wooden tube approximately 2.5 metres long, sometimes rifled, firing darts 12–15 cm long tipped with a toxic gum capable of killing an elephant; Lias acquired three examples in exchange for brocaded sarongs (p. 170).
- Sakey numerals were limited to three native terms (nei, nar, ne); beyond three they used borrowed Malay forms, though they possessed unique Sakey words for eleven, twelve, and thirteen (neiblas, narblas, neblas), complicating the common claim that they “can only count to three” (p. 175).
- The Sakey chant followed a strict soloist-chorus alternation with no interruption, accompanied by struck bamboo of varying lengths; Lias transcribed the lyrics and identified the dominant character of the language as approximately Malay, with the Acehnese/Javanese cognate mano for poultry (pp. 174–175).
- Tolilo’s uniform response of Tida tao to all questions concerning cosmology, the origin of the first man, the sun, the moon, thunder, and prayer led Lias to assert the total absence of religious belief or superstition among the Sakeys of Krebow (p. 178).
- The Sakeys’ economy comprised subsistence cultivation of tubers (obi Kayou, obi Klede, obi Kladi), fishing, and blowpipe hunting of birds, squirrels, pelandoks, monkeys, and stags; they chewed sirih and consumed cooked rice (tchana) as their usual food (pp. 177–178).
Conclusion
Lias’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Sakeys of Krebow represent a people whose social and moral order functions entirely without religion: they neither pray, worship, nor entertain superstitious explanations for natural phenomena, yet maintain a stable community governed by simple norms against killing and theft, a functioning marriage system, and a hospitality code. He frames this as a challenge to the European assumption that “savage” peoples are defined by religious crudeness, declaring that “there are indigenous people, but there are no savages” in the European fairground sense (p. 176).
Context
- The journey took place under the authority of the Perak Residency (established 1874), with Governor Weld representing the Straits Settlements and Hugh Low serving as British Resident of Perak (1877–1889); the Sakeys were brought into contact with the colonial party at the Resident’s direction (pp. 159, 177).
- Lias’s photographs from this expedition are held at the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Amsterdam (accession numbers TM-60016181 through TM-60016187), providing visual corroboration of his textual descriptions of the Sakeys, the elephant transport, and the River Pluss environment.