Malayan Orang Asli Artefects Collected by Colonial Official Leonard Wray

This selection of Orang Asli items collected on the Malay Peninsula comprises a large four-pronged comb of cane held together with woven wire, and with three hand-made nacre buttons attached; two smaller wooden combs; and a traditional nose flute (pensol).

The nose flute comprises two thin bamboo tubes, each with six tune holes, and lashed together with native twine, plus two stoppers attached with more twine.

The larger comb has attached to it a card with a beautifully hand-written note in the hand of Leonard Wray which reads ‘Sakai women’s comb. Note the buttons which are considered a great treasure’.

The Sakai (or Senoi) are a sub-group of the Orang Asli, the indigenous (‘Aboriginal’) people of the Malay Peninsula. They are quite different to the Malays, with their own separate traditions, languages, and essentially traditional animist beliefs. The Sakai are from the central, more mountainous parts of the Peninsula, particularly Pahang and Perak States.

The four items here are in an excellent, well-preserved condition.

Leonard Wray (1852-1942) was a colonial British official who was born in Perak on the Malay Peninsula. He joined the Public Works Department of the Perak Civil Service in June 1881; worked as Superintendent at the Government Hill Garden, Larut, January 1882; and was appointed Curator at the Perak State Museum in Taiping, Perak, in January 1883. He collected and prepared the Perak exhibits for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition held in London in 1886. He was appointed State Geologist, Perak, in January 1890; and served as Director of Museums, 1904-08. He also collected Malay artefacts in a private capacity and donated some of his collection to the British Museum in the 1930s. Wray made an important contribution to the preservation of knowledge of Malay material culture and was also important in extending knowledge of traditional Malay ways beyond the Malay Peninsula.

 

Above: an early photograph of several Sakai tribespeople, photographed in Perak, 1906.

 

Above: An early postcard from Singapore showing two Sakai nose flute players.