Some “Sakai” problems
R.J. Wilkinson, a senior colonial administrator and Director of the F.M.S. Museums, published this brief note in 1939 to address the unresolved question of the “Eastern Sakai” (or “Benom Sakai”) identified in the 1911 census of the Federated Malay States. He argues that the 1,707 individuals enumerated under this dialect label represent a real but extremely elusive aboriginal community rather than a statistical artefact, while simultaneously acknowledging his own responsibility for the confusion that led a subsequent researcher on a fruitless expedition to Gunong Benom.
Summary
The article arises from a specific historiographical embarrassment. Wilkinson’s own Malay History had stated that the Sakai of Gunong Benom possessed a dialect peculiar to themselves, a claim based on the 1911 census. On the strength of this, I.H.M. Evans climbed the Benom massif and found no Sakai on the higher slopes, prompting a complaint that Wilkinson had sent him on a “wild-goose chase.” Wilkinson concedes the error of attribution — he had assumed the dialect belonged to inhabitants of the massif’s upper slopes — but insists the census data itself was sound. The dialect was recorded independently by multiple Malay enumerators under three different European District Officers, and it matched the “Eastern Sakai” dialect previously noted by Dr. Blagden in Pagan Tribes (p. 132).
Wilkinson then explains his census methodology in some detail. Because aborigines resisted giving names, ages, or occupations, he devised a ten-word dialect test drawn from a comparative study of sixty or seventy vocabularies of approximately 220 words each, collected across the Peninsula. The test was designed to distinguish between tribes — for instance, the Northern Senoi (Temiar) use lot for “blood” where all other groups use bihip or maham. The method proved highly reliable: out of nearly 20,000 aborigines enumerated, only two papers (representing about a dozen persons on the Selangor mountains) were returned as doubtful (pp. 131–132). The 1,707 “Benom Sakai” were distributed across three districts — 1,250 in Temerloh, 234 in Raub, and the remainder in Kuala Lipis — and Wilkinson suggests they may correspond to the Maroi of the Lompat or the Soben/Choben communities mentioned by Evans, though he admits to knowing nothing about these groups beyond their existence (p. 132).
The article’s second half turns to the “Kenaboi Sakai” mystery. On two occasions, men calling themselves Kenaboi Sakai provided D.F.A. Hervey with vocabularies that resembled no known language and were published in Skeat and Blagden’s Pagan Tribes as an unsolved problem. Wilkinson proposes that these vocabularies were not a genuine language at all but pantang kapur — a form of protective incantatory speech — of an unusually original variety. He supports this hypothesis with an anecdote about a small but physically well-proportioned aboriginal of the Orang Tanjong type who, when Wilkinson attempted to elicit his speech, responded with an “unintelligible pantang kapur of his own” (p. 133). Wilkinson further speculates that the two doubtful census papers from Selangor may also have resulted from aborigines offering pantang kapur words rather than their true dialect, noting that “even aborigines are fond of showing off their knowledge” (p. 133).
Key Findings
- The 1911 F.M.S. aboriginal census enumerated 1,707 individuals speaking the “Eastern Sakai” dialect: 1,250 in Temerloh, 234 in Raub, and the remainder in Kuala Lipis (p. 132).
- Wilkinson’s dialect-identification method relied on ten test words selected from a comparative corpus of 60–70 vocabularies of approximately 220 words each, and produced only two doubtful returns out of nearly 20,000 persons enumerated (pp. 131–132).
- The total Temiar count for the F.M.S. in 1911 was 6,618, compared with 5,914 recorded for Perak and Pahang alone in the 1931 census by Noone and Kemp; Wilkinson attributes the difference partly to the influenza epidemic and partly to Noone’s own admission that his figure was an underestimate (p. 133).
- The “Kenaboi Sakai” vocabularies, published in Skeat and Blagden’s Pagan Tribes as an unsolved linguistic mystery, are reinterpreted by Wilkinson as likely pantang kapur (protective incantatory speech) rather than a distinct language (p. 133).
- The Orang Tanjong of Selangor, photographed by MacGregor and described as physically superior to the ordinary Jakun or Besisi, are identified by H.C. Robinson as a distinct group not to be confused with the Perak Sakai Tanjong (negritos) (pp. 132–133).
Conclusion
Wilkinson’s definitive takeaway is that the “Benom Sakai” are not a phantom population but a genuinely shy and elusive community whose dialect is real and whose physical location on the upper Benom massif was his own misattribution. He absolves his enumerators of error and accepts sole responsibility for the misleading geographical inference, while leaving the precise identity of the group — whether Maroi, Soben, Choben, or something else — as one of the few remaining mysteries in Sakai ethnography.
Context
- Wilkinson wrote as a senior colonial official (C.M.G.) and Director of the F.M.S. Museums, drawing on his direct administrative experience of conducting the 1911 census and his earlier ethnographic publications. The article is framed as a candid self-correction within the colonial administrative and scholarly community.
- The primary sources under discussion are the 1911 F.M.S. aboriginal census returns, the vocabularies collected for that census, and the published data in Skeat and Blagden’s Pagan Tribes (1910). The article contributes to the early ethnographic record of Peninsular aboriginal groups by clarifying the limits of census-based tribal identification.