CHAPTER I

AMONG THE MOÏ

General characteristics of the Moï--A legend as to their selection of a home--The part played by ocean currents in the distribution of races--Had primitive peoples a sense of direction?--Features of daily life--The hut--The village--Clothing and ornaments--A primitive method of kindling a fire.

The half-civilized races who inhabit the mountains and uplands of Indo-China are known by different names among their neighbours. The Birmans call them "Karens," the Laotians, "Kha," the Cambodians, "Stieng," or "Pnong," the Annamites, "Man," or "Moï." "Moï," which can be translated by "savage," is perhaps the most convenient label for the whole complex of these primitive folk.

Their number is not capable of exact computation but probably approaches 400,000, divided between tribes of different names. They are to be found scattered between the eleventh and the twentieth degrees of latitude, from the frontiers of China to the boundaries of Cambodia and Cochin-China.

From the earliest times they have made their homes in the wooded uplands at an altitude which secures them from the fear of inundation. Their love of mountain and forest is a primitive and unchangeable instinct and all attempts to acclimatize them to the plains have ended in failure. Further, this instinct is reinforced by their religious beliefs and their respect for ancestral tradition. According to a charming legend this domain was the gift of Eve herself.

"The first human family had offspring so numerous that the land of their birth could no longer sustain them. The mother resolved that they should scatter to people other portions of the earth. Before the separation she called them all together for the last time and made a great feast in their honour. All did credit to her bounty with the exception of one, who took nothing but some red pimento.

"This self-restraint was not lost on Eve. She recommended those of her sons who appreciated good cheer to share the fertile plains, and giving a bow and arrows to her sober guest, promised him the kingdom of the mountains where the beasts rove the forests.

"He was the father of the Moï. His descendants share his frugality, and, like his, their wants are few."

These characteristics distinguish them to-day. Our first discovery on arrival among them was that the use of money is unknown. They value an empty bottle more highly than a piastre, and if by chance they accept some such coin it is only to cut it in pieces for an ornament. Though their disposition is generally peaceful, some tribes are extremely jealous of their independence and receive an intruder, however innocent, with showers of arrows. In this, as in all other respects, the people reflect the character of their surroundings.

As the national costume consists of the absence of it there is no obstacle to the observation of their physical forms. The European on his first arrival in this country will think himself in a museum of classical statuary! Simplicity, harmony, virility and grace are all exhibited in perfect combination.

An average figure measures five feet five inches in height. Few of the natives are more than five feet nine inches, or less than five feet one inch. The torso is faultless, the line of the loins elegant. Sometimes the lower limbs are rather frail. The big toe, while preserving its prehensile faculty (the feature of all races of the far East), is not detached from the other toes. In this respect the Moï differ from the Annamites, who have gained the nickname of "Giao-Chi" (detached toe).

The adipose tissue is so fine that obesity is rare. Generally speaking the skin is of the colour of earth and varies between reddish brown and dark yellow. It has a characteristic odour resembling that of a wild beast in good condition. There is an abundance of coarse black hair, which is generally rolled up in a knot at the back and fastened with a comb or band of stuff. In case of illness the patient lets his hair fall loose to conceal his face. The forehead is low and narrow and sometimes terminates in a point. The expression of the eyes, which are frequently oblique, is one of fearless frankness. The thick chin is the characteristic prognathous feature. The lips are fleshy and colourless. The prominence of the cheek-bones give the face the appearance of a pentagon with the chin as its apex. The long and narrow skull places the type among the dolichocephalic races.[1] These are the broad characteristics of all branches of the Indonesian race and are especially to be remarked among the peoples of the Asiatic archipelago, the Battaks of Sumatra, the Dyaks of Borneo and the Alfurs of the Celebes, who show the least alteration from the original type.

It is well known that these primitive peoples were aware of the existence of ocean currents and used them for their own purposes. No other theory can account for the distribution of the Malayo-Polynesian races among the swarm of islands, some of them hundreds of leagues apart. It demonstrates beyond doubt the importance of the influence of currents on the dispersion of the human race over the surface of the globe.

The existence of a large number of legends common to the two peoples reinforces the physiological resemblance between the Moï and the primitive races of the Malay Archipelago. The folklore of all of them speaks of the existence of human beings reputed to have had a tail like a monkey's, and, what is even more extraordinary, a razor-edged membrane on the forearm which was used to cut down branches obstructing their path.

Curiously enough Borneo possesses a people, the Murut, who habitually wear the skin of a long-tailed monkey. At a distance this appendage seems to belong to the wearer rather than to the garment.

In the same way it may be that the custom of carrying a wooden knife, practised by forest-roving peoples, is responsible for the illusion which confuses the weapon with the arm which wields it.

The Moï have a wonderful memory for places and a marked sense of direction. The latter faculty is attributed mainly to a peculiarly highly-developed sensibility to physical contact. Like all peoples who spend most of their time in the open air they are constantly noting the direction of the wind. They know the exact hour at which, according to the season, the wind will rise or fall. However light, a breeze will induce a sensation of freshness immediately recorded by their bodies, especially when moist with exertion. As they walk or run they note carefully every movement which obstacles oblige them to make. According to Doctor Ouzilleau, this sixth sense is localized in the ampullæ of the semicircular canals. A movement of the head causes the displacement of the endolymph which acts on the auditory nerves.

Further, the Moï possess keen vision and a highly-developed sense of smell which bring to their notice objects which would remain unobserved by Europeans. A small drop of blood is on a leaf. It is the evacuation of a wild boar whose lair is close at hand.

As is well known, instinct prompts almost all the actions of the semi-savage. Accordingly the psychology of the Moï is not easy to describe. Is he capable of altruism, pity, or gratitude? With few exceptions these virtues are almost completely unknown. But he will learn them, like anyone else, as soon as civilization has given him more favourable conditions than under his present precarious existence. To-day he falls an easy victim to injustice, intrigue and exaction. So if Europeans arrive in force they are treated as an enemy to be feared and therefore worthy of respect, but a casual foreigner may easily pay for his rashness with his life.

Like all men of weak character, the Moï is very revengeful and awaits with patience the day of redress. Months and years may pass without effacing the least detail of his wrong. I was frequently called upon to compose their quarrels and it was seldom that the injury was not one of long standing.

"But why," I asked, "wait so long before taking action?"

"I had other things to do," came the answer.

"What other things, you idler?"

"Oh, invitations to share a flask of spirits of rice or a fat pig."

Nothing, not even the most imperious necessity, can overcome their inveterate laziness.

I shall never forget the curious impression produced on me by my first entry into a Moï village. The village in question was Dran on the Da-Nhim, whose narrow valley marks the outposts of the great Annamite chain. Five or six straw huts had been erected on stakes some ten feet above the earth, less to avoid dampness than to secure immunity from the raids of wild beasts.

Some women were pounding paddy (a preparation of rice) for the evening meal in mortars of ironwood. The measured beat of a metronome and the regular thuds of the pestles set the time for the wailing chant with which the women beguiled their work. On seeing me they looked up startled. A single piece of flimsy cloth draped from the waist to the knee revealed the outline of many a full and graceful thigh and emphasized rather than concealed their sinuous movements. The children played around or pretended to help in lifting the heavy pestles.

At the top of a pole a rude figure had been carved of the genius of the village armed with a murderous-looking cross-bow. He was the tutelary deity of the place.

The supports of the houses are built of ironwood, the other portions being of plaited bamboo sticks. The roof is open to the sky and overhangs both the farmyard and the pigsty. We had no difficulty in conjuring up the discomforts that awaited us should we ever be compelled to lodge in such a place. The thin wattled walls would not spare us the least noise nor the slightest odour.

My unwonted appearance still continued to excite demonstrations of alarm, but it seems my beard was mainly responsible for the indiscriminate flight which ensued. One old woman only was brave enough to remain seated in her doorway. I asked her for permission to inspect her dwelling, accompanying my request with a gift of a large packet of tobacco. She acceded, not without hesitation and a look of infinite distrust in her eyes. A rude wooden approach with apologies for steps led up to the interior. The rooms, one of which is assigned to each distinct family, were about the size of a horse-box, but a special apartment was reserved for strangers and solemn occasions such as a general reunion. The hearth, raised a few inches above the level of the floor, consisted of a platform on which three fires were burning and an appetizing and harmonious murmur proceeded from three pots in which rice, the evening meal, and the food for the pigs were being prepared. There was no chimney, for the duty of the smoke is to keep off the mosquitoes, which are such a plague in these regions. Accordingly every object in the place was covered with a thick layer of soot, and no window was to be seen.

The inhabitants of this particular village were poor and the huts were very small, but in some of the more fortunate villages the houses sometimes attain a length of two hundred yards.

Huge blocks of wood served as beds to a people usually too tired to be critical. The walls of the partitions were hung with a medley of gongs, tom-toms, weapons and domestic utensils. The spirit flask, without which no family celebration is complete, was suspended from a post adorned with rude carving.

The frightened inhabitants eyed us askance and behaved like whipped curs. The children squalled and hid under any convenient object, nor could I gain their confidence by emptying my pockets of all the tempting trifles I had brought with me for the purpose.

Seen from a distance there was nothing to point to the presence of a village. It was perched on the side of a ravine with the forest behind it, and thick brushwood in front protected it from the gaze of the inquisitive. The only entrance, known to the initiated alone, was that furnished by two narrow passages. Even when the entrance has been found, another dark passage has to be traversed which is designed for easy defence in case of attack. A small number of determined warriors would be quite sufficient to repel invaders.

The open space in the centre of the village was adorned with two public buildings, a large hut reserved for the boys who had just attained the age of puberty and another which contained the last harvest. The door of this public granary was secured in a manner which demonstrated to perfection the naïve simplicity of these folk. The lock consisted of a rattan thread passed through an empty egg-shell. Of course it was impossible to touch the thread without breaking the shell, and as all are equally interested in the preservation of the precious grain supply, each man thus became policeman to his neighbour.

The Moï is not nomadic by nature, but moves his habitation periodically as soon as he has exhausted the natural resources of the soil he occupies. Other causes of this periodical exodus are serious misfortunes, such as a fire, an epidemic, or unpleasantly frequent raids by the tiger. Such mishaps are invariably attributed by the Moï to the evil influence of the genius of the place. To dispute the possession of the ground with so powerful a divinity would be sheer madness, and accordingly he yields with grace and betakes himself elsewhere without regret.

The choice of the next habitation is not a mere matter of chance. The Geomancer is called in to consult the omens, and no selection is made until after ripe reflection.

But I am forgetting the mild adventure which was the occasion for these general observations. After some time I became aware that my visit could not be prolonged without a breach of etiquette and that I was trespassing on the time of my hostess. She herself recalled me to good manners by resuming her multifarious household duties. Accordingly I bade her farewell and left her surrounded by a crowd of the feathered tribe who assembled in answer to her guttural cry of "loc-loc," the usual signal for a generous distribution of maize.

The national costume is marked by an almost evangelical simplicity. The men may truly be described as clothed in sunbeams, for a flimsy piece of cloth draping the waist can hardly be dignified with the name of dress. A knife in a leather or wooden sheath is the only weapon carried, though another small knife is frequently fastened in the hair, which is twisted into a knot and secured by a comb. The women have a clinging skirt, which does full justice to their graceful figures. The bust is seldom covered at all, but in cold weather a large piece of cloth is draped round the waist. Both sexes sometimes wear a rough cloak trimmed at the edge with a variegated fringe, but in spite of such precautions they are very liable to affections of the throat.

The chief peculiarity, however, which distinguishes them from the other groups of Indo-China is their inordinate love of personal decoration. The passion for finery gives rise to the most embittered rivalry among the women, and takes many curious forms, such as the artificial elongation of the lobe of the ear, in which various ornaments are introduced. This painful process begins in infancy, when the ears are pierced with a sharpened bamboo rod. A wooden ring is inserted in the hole thus made, and weights hung from it, at first small, then increasing in size. The lobe, unnaturally distended, sometimes reaches the shoulder, in which case it is accounted a feature of the greatest beauty, and a husband with every talent and virtue is assured to its fortunate possessor. But it is of prime importance that the ear should remain unbroken. Should the skin give way, the two hanging pieces will be an eternal reproach. No husband will want a woman thus degraded, and a hopeless spinsterhood will be her lot in life.

The men are addicted to the same practice, but with rather more discretion. They confined themselves to filling the holes in their ears with our champagne corks, which were quite at a premium on the market and shared the honours with our boxes of Swedish matches. Sometimes, too, their taste turned to an ivory serviette ring or even a simple drawing pencil. Another fashionable masculine ornament is a brass collar, consisting of a number of spiral rings. We never satisfied ourselves as to whether this was pure decoration or served some ulterior purpose, such as protection against affections of the throat.

Copper and brass bangles adorned the wrists and ankles, but he who wished to touch the supreme height of fashion wrapped his head in one of the towels with which we rewarded our more industrious coolies.

I brought from Paris a supply of beads, in the hope of finding them useful as a medium of exchange. To my surprise the natives took no interest in them at all and they proved almost worthless. The Moï, like the European, follows the caprice of fashion, and our beads, it seemed, were too heavy and not gay enough for his taste. Besides, they were not the mode of the moment.

It was thus sufficiently demonstrated that the wearing of clothes is not even essential for the display of feminine vanity and coquetry. Artifice can dispense with clothing, and if the sexes in this strange land attract each other by means that seem curious and unaccountable to us, the end in view is always and among all peoples the same, the continuance of the race.

It must be remembered, too, that the development of a fashion is similar to the development of a living organism. A certain form of dress or style of decoration undergoes successive transformations, the stages being generally exaggeration, diminution and ultimate disappearance. For illustration we need go no further afield than the recent vagaries of fashion in Europe which seem to oscillate between the bell and the asparagus, but perhaps a more striking example is the long, pointed shoes of the Middle Ages. At first the points were quite reasonably short. Then little by little each man tried to sort himself out of the common ruck of his neighbours by having longer points, and after about a century the fashion culminated in the absurd extravagance of the shoe with points long enough to be drawn upwards and fastened to the knee. The mode first saw the light in the middle of the thirteenth century and disappeared abruptly in 1428. The same evolution can be traced in the progress of the ruff of the fifteenth century and the crinoline of the nineteenth.

It is at least open to belief that ethnical transformations are governed by similar laws. This distension of the lobe must be traced to the practice of continually adding to the number of ornaments with which the ear was overloaded.

Every individual tends to overrate the feature which is considered the characteristic of his race. "Le beau pour le crapaud c'est sa crapaude," said Voltaire, and the natural instinct of the savage is to exaggerate what he regards as the most worthy of admiration. This instinct is indubitably responsible for most of the mutilation practised by primitive peoples. Thus the negresses of Africa produce an artificial elongation of the nipple by the sting of a certain insect, and the platyrrhine Malays make their flat noses even flatter, while the Persians take the most elaborate pains to induce an extreme hook on a nose already aquiline. This theory of exaggeration inherent in our nature can alone explain certain customs which are otherwise unaccountable.

I ought perhaps, before leaving the subject, to enumerate three other methods of decoration practised by the leaders of fashion among the Moï. The women powder their hair with an odorous substance obtained from the berries of the vetiver. Both men and women smear their teeth with a kind of lacquer to protect the enamel from the action of lime, the principal ingredient of the betel leaf.

Finally the society ladies dye their nails a vivid vermilion with the sap of the plant "Semrang."

As I said above, our matches soon went to a premium as a medium of exchange, but the Moï already employed two methods of kindling a fire. One was by striking a flint against a piece of pyrite of iron, the other by simply rubbing together two pieces of wood. The process is as follows. A very dry bamboo is split at one end for about five inches of its length. The two sections are kept apart by the insertion of a wooden wedge. In this way a rude ventilating chimney is made under which the operator piles up some dead leaves, bamboo cuttings and moss. He now passes a long cane under the apparatus (which he keeps steady with his foot) and rubs it rapidly backwards and forwards until a spark appears, which is usually within a minute. The movement closely resembles that of sawing.

This last method is only practised in the bush, for in the villages the fires are carefully preserved under the ashes and seldom allowed to go out. This preservation of fire is a phenomenon which characterizes all primitive peoples in every clime.