ABSTRACT
Popular opinion is apt to regard the Malay, in contrast to the Indian and Chinese who share his native land, as lazy, improvident, and lacking in foresight or ability to work hard and to save. A moment’s consideration of the circumstances of fishermen on the east coast of Malaya will show that life is an alternation between plenty and scarcity. A Malay who could not plan would starve in the months when he cannot go to sea. Fishing is Marshall’s classic example of an industry where foresight and abstinence is necessary to build up capital for the increase of production. Rice is only saved in Kelantan by those fishermen who have a little padi of their own. Many of them do have small allotments, yielding twenty to thirty or fifty gantang, enough for a few weeks supply. The most important decision is the selection of an auspicious date, which will be done in consultation with a spirit doctor.
