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A Temiar Senoi Making Blowpipe Darts, Ulu Sungai Plus
Sitting cross legged on the bamboo slat floor of his bamboo and atap home and wearing a simple short loincloth, this Malayan Aborigine (Orang Asli, the indigenous man) from Perak carries on a craft popular with his people for hundreds of years. Blowpipe darts are between four and nine inches long and are usually formed from the hard rib of a palm with a soft pith butt. Where a packing wad is required it is fitted here.
The darts are nicked about three-quarters of an inch below the point, coated with poison, and given a distinctive butt mark to indicate poison strength.The completed darts are then placed into a bamboo carrier, separated by leaves, fibre or small bamboo tubes. A full quiver may carry as many as 100 darts of varying poison strengths suitable for hunting a variety of quarry from small birds to a tiger. The most common poisons are the sap of the Ipoh tree (Antiaris toxicaria) and a concentrated liquid boiled down from the Ipoh Creeper (Strychnos genus).
To see the details of the book “An Introduction to the Malayan Aborigines, click here.
For a short introduction to the Malayan Aborigines, click here.