The People and Their Country
Population
The 1965 census put the Semai population at 12,748, probably a slight underestimate. The Semai are by far the most numerous aborigines in Malaya, making up about a quarter of the entire aboriginal population and almost two-thirds of the agricultural Senoi-speakers. Their numbers seem to be increasing. Since the area of arable land in Semai territory is unknown, realistic population densities are difficult to estimate. It is possible to say, however, that, except where there is population pressure from neighboring Chinese and Malays, population density is far below what Semai agriculture could support. At a guess, population density varies from 5/mi² to 25/mi².
Infant mortality during the first year of life ranges from around 25 percent in the west to over 50 percent in the east. Malaria seems to be the greatest single cause of death in infancy. In the highlands, where malaria is rare, infant mortality is less than on the middle slopes. Somewhat less than 5 percent of the population is sterile. The Semai recognize sterility and call sterile people manang.
Male births outnumber female births, as is the case almost everywhere. In most human populations the male mortality rate is also higher, with the result that males do not outnumber femails. Among the Semai, however, female mortality is greater than male mortality, perhaps because of mortality after childbirth, with the result that there are more men than women in all age groups.
Race
The Semai are handsome people. Their skin is golden brown, their lips full and occasionally slightly everted. Their hair is glistening black, sometimes with a coppery highlight that probably indicates protein deficiency but may be a "racial" characteristic. Their noses are short and rather broad. Many Semai have slight folds of skin in the corner of their eyes which make their eyes look almond-shaped, although not as slanted as, for example, Chinese eyes. Most Semai have little or no body hair, but a few men in most villages will have heavy body and facial hair.
East Semai man with "Negrito" features (1962).
In the east Semai population, there are some individuals with dark chocolate skins and tightly curled hair, probably the products of marriages between Semai and Semang. Most east Semai men are slightly under 5 feet tall. The west Semai are on the average almost half a foot taller. There are a good many individuals who look like Malays and some who look very Chinese. Between settlements there seems to be a great deal of genetic diversity.
The reason for all this variability seems to be that the Semai often interbreed with people from other ethnic groups: in the east with the Semang and the west with Malays and Chinese. Chinese traders and ex-guerrillas sometimes settle down in Semai communities and take Semai wives, and there is a good deal of casual sexual contact between traders and Semai women. Although the Semai say that "only stupid, ugly Malays come to live with us," Malay men often get access to west Semai women by wooing, bribing, or threatening them. An occasional Malay man, a misfit in his own society, will settle down with the tolerant Semai. In short, the Semai do not worry about miscegenation, and outsiders often find Semai women both attractive and complaisant.
The Semai, moreover, cannot bear to see children neglected. When a non-Semai is in economic distress, the Semai will eagerly agree to adopt his children. During the Japanese occupation of Malay and subsequent Communist insurrection, many children "became Semai" this way. The Semai regard these children as true Semai, saying, for example, "His father was Chinese, his mother was Chinese, but he's really one of us."
Any hypothetical "original" Semai stock has been submerged in this welter of interbreeding. The result is that physical anthropologists have long found the Semai an enigma, and the Semai have been classified as almost everything from "Palae-Alpine" to "Australo-Veddoid." The occasional presence of large amounts of body hair, however, does suggest that there is in the Semai ancestry a stock not found elsewhere in southeast Asia.
Girl in loincloth (1930s). (Photograph courtesy of Louis Carrard)
Health
The west Semai diet is generally satisfactory in terms of protein and caloric intake, although below the nutritional allowances recommended for malaya. There seems to be some protein deficiency in the East. Almost all the children there have pot bellies due to protein deficiency, worms, malaria, or all three. Goiters due to iodine deficiency are very common among the highlanders in the east.
Chronic pulmonary diseases, endemic in Semai-land, are major killers. Tuberculosis is very common. The worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918 seems to have decimated some Semai settlements. The impact of these and similar pulmonary diseases may be heightened by the fact that east Semai children begin at about the age of two to smoke cigarettes made of home-grown tobacco wrapped in certain kinds of leaves. Nevertheless, an x-ray survey of all Semai failed to turn up a single case of lung cancer.
Because of their closer contact with non-Semai, the west Semai suffer from certain diseases that are rare or absent in the east. For example, the percentage of the population afflicted with whipworm and roundworm is far higher in the west. West Semai groups forced to live downstream from other groups who use the river as a toilet sometimes contract typhoid or paratyphoid from using polluted water. Sexual contact with Malays and Chinese has introduced venereal diseases. Finally, a few Semai have contracted leprosy through their contacts with Chinese lepers.
Malaria probably kills almost as many Semai as pulmonary diseases do, especially on the lower slopes of the mountains where the people live. The people themselves may be partially responsible for the incidence of malaria, because the mosquito that carries tha malaria parasite flourishes not in untouched (primary) rain forest but in areas which people have opened up for cultivation. Moreover, since the Semai keep few domesticated animals, the mosquito must rely on humans as its major blood source. Some physical anthropologists believe that the very high incidence of an abnormal hemoglobin (type E) in the blood of the Senoi peoples may confer a partial immunity to malaria.
Epidemic hepatitis, which can almost exterminate a settlement in a month, seems to be the disease the Semai fear most. Yaws is fairly common, as are elephantiasis and other forms of filiariasis. All told, the area in which the Semai live is rather unhealthy.
Of minor complaints the commonest is headache, for which the Semai have a complex taxonomy, and which they say is often due to worry. Colds and runny noses, also very common, are regarded as "children's diseases," like "sniffles" in Euro-American society. Skin diseases affect most of the members of any settlement. Anemia and harelip are also common.
Although the Semai seem generally to be as "intelligent" as any other people, a prolonged high fever sometimes results in a readily identifiable case of mental subnormality. The victim participates as best he can in community activities, for example, pounding grain or winnowing rice. In turn he is dependent on a kinsman who feeds and clothes him, albeit not very well. Unlike Euro-Americans, the Semai do not regard such an unfortunate with horror and disgust.1
1. Readers interested in pursuing this topic might read my note on "The response to intellectual impairment among the Semai," American Journal of Mental Deficiency 71 (1967): 764-66 ↩