IDNO

P.6801.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: "Negrito man (Pangan) side view, Kuala Cheka, Pahang, F.M.S.
See Evans, I.H.N. 1937: The Negritos of Malaya, facing page 30."

Portrait of a Semang or Bateg (historically Pangan or 'Negrito') man standing side on to the camera in a clearing in a forest. The man is wearing a loin cloth within which he has placed his parang (working knife) with the full profile the blade visible.
Evans described his dress as "The Pangan men all wore T-bandage loin cloths of native bark cloth or of European cotton stuff, supported by a string of vegetable fibre or split rattan tied around the waist. Above this a long cord, made either of the plaited rhizomorphs of a fungus called akar batu or of plaited fibres of a palm, was wound several times tightly around the body with its ends tied together. This cord was often used for holding a sheathless parang, or working knife, which thus hung with its naked blade against the thigh and buttocks" (Evans, 1915: 195).
Evans also mentioned that this man "had the most truly Negrito hair seen among the Cheka Pangan, each curl being tightly wound into a ball, the hair formation differing only from that of a South African. This is best shown in the right [i.e. this] figure. The writer paid a second visit to Kuala Cheka after leaving the Tekai in order to make sure of getting some fairly clear photographs as those obtained on the first occasion when he met the Kuala Cheka Pangan had been taken under bad weather conditions: unfortunately, however, this man had shaved his head in the interval" (Evans ibid: 200). [SG 22/10/2008]

Place

SE Asia; Malaysia; Pahang; Kuala Cheka; Kuala Tembeling

Cultural Affliation

Orang Asli; Semang; Batek [historically Negrito; Bateg]

Named Person

Photographer

Evans, Ivor Hugh Norman

Collector / Expedition

Evans, Ivor Hugh Norman

Date

October 1913

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon CollectionEvans Collection

Source

Evans, Ivor Hugh Norman

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Publication: Captioned “Pangan of Kuala Cheka, Near Kuala Tembeling, Pahang” in Evans, I.H.N., 1915, Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of Pahang, Journal, Federated Malay States Museum, Vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 192-219.

Publication: This and P.6800.ACH1 were cut and juxtaposed together in Evans 1915 (see notes field for reference), and in The Negrito of Malaya, Evans wrote “Two pictures of this man, taken by myself, were first published in Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums, Vol V, in connection with a paper of mine. They appear as those of a Perak Negrito (which they are not), in Winstedt’s History of Malaya in the Journal of the Malayan branch of the R.A.S., Vol XIII, Part I. The contours of the head and face there appear to have been somewhat altered in the removal of the background of the picture” (1937; page facing 30). [SG 22/10/2008]

Date: Evans mentioned that he took the photograph in 1913 (1937: 29). His field trip to the area was in October 1913 (see Evans 1915, 192).

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Sudeshna Guha 30/5/2008]