The Samsams

Abstract

FROM a note in last week's NATURE it appears that during his recent explorations in the Malay peninsula M. Delouell claims to have discovered the “hitherto unknown” Samsam people. Allow me to state in reply that I have long been aware of the existence of these half-caste Malay and Siamese communities. They will be found duly recorded and described at p. 642 of my ethnological appendix to the “Australasia” of the Stanford Series, published in 1879, They appear to be now mostly Mohammedans, speaking what is called a mixed Siamese and Malay dialect, and otherwise forming an ethnical transition between these two races.