A Baboon, Trained To
Climb The Cocoa Palms And Throw Down The Nuts, Is An Inmate Of Most Of
The Houses.
The people lead strange and uneventful lives.
The men are not inclined
to much effort except in fishing or hunting, and, where they possess
rice land, in ploughing for rice. They are said to be quiet,
temperate, jealous, suspicious, some say treacherous, and most bigoted
Mussulmen. The women are very small, keep their dwellings very tidy,
and weave mats and baskets from reeds and palm leaves. They are clothed
in cotton or silk from the ankles to the throat, and the men, even in
the undress of their own homes, usually wear the sarong, a picturesque
tightish petticoat, consisting of a wide piece of stuff kept on by a
very ingenious knot. They are not savages in the ordinary sense, for
they have a complete civilization of their own, and their legal system
is derived from the Koran.
They are dark brown, with rather low foreheads, dark and somewhat
expressionless eyes, high cheek bones, flattish noses with broad
nostrils, and wide mouths with thick lips. Their hair is black,
straight and shining, and the women dress it in a plain knot at the
back of the head. To my thinking, both sexes are decidedly ugly, and
there is a coldness and aloofness of manner about them which chills one
even where they are on friendly terms with Europeans, as the people
whom we visited were with Mrs. Biggs.
The women were lounging about the houses, some cleaning fish, others
pounding rice; but they do not care for work, and the little money
which they need for buying clothes they can make by selling mats, or
jungle fruits.
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