Chapter I: Borneo (2)

The natural savagery of the Malay continually threatens to break out, and not infrequently does so in the form of the _amok_ (running amuck), the national Malay method of committing suicide.

Apart from this tendency, when under control the Malay character has much in common with the Mongol, being, under ordinary circumstances, gentle, peaceable, obedient, and loyal, but at the same time proud and sensitive, and with strangers suspicious and reserved.

The Malays can be faithful and trustworthy, and they are active and clever. Serious crime among them is not common now, nor is thieving. They have a bad propensity of running into debt, and obtaining advances under engagements which they never fulfil. They make good servants and valuable policemen. All the Government steamers are officered and manned throughout by Malays, and none could desire to have better crews. They are the principal fishermen and woodsmen. Morality is perhaps not a strong point with them, but drinking is exceptional, and gambling is not as prevalent as it was, nor do they indulge in opium smoking.

With regard to the Chinaman, it will be well to let the present Rajah speak from his own experience. He says that—

John Chinaman as a race are an excellent set of fellows, and a poor
show would these Eastern countries make without their energetic
presence. They combine many good, many dangerous, and it must be
admitted, many bad qualities. They are given to be overbearing and
insolent (unless severely kept down) nearly to as great a degree as
Europeans of the rougher classes. They will cheat their neighbours
and resort to all manner of deception _on principle_. But their
redeeming qualities are comparative charitableness and liberality; a
fondness for improvements; and, except in small mercantile affairs
or minor trading transactions, they are honest.

They, in a few words, possess the wherewithal to be good fellows,
and are more fit to be compared to Europeans than any other race of
Easterns.

They have been excluded as much as possible from gaining a footing
in Batavia,[38] under the plea of their dangerous and usurious
pursuits; but the probability is that they would have raised an
unpleasant antagonism in the question of competition in that
country. The Chinaman would be equal to the Master, or White Man, if
both worked fairly by the sweat of his brow. As for their usury, it
is not of so dangerous a character as that which prevails among the
Javanese and the natives.

Upon my first arrival I was strongly possessed by the opinion that
the Chinamen were all rascals and thieves—the character so generally
attached to the whole race at home. But to be candid, and looking at
both sides, I would as soon deal with a Chinese merchant in the East
as with one who is European, and I believe the respectable class of
Chinese to be equal in honesty and integrity to the white man.

The Chinese may be nearly as troublesome a people to govern as
Europeans, certainly not more so; and their good qualities, in which
they are not deficient, should be cherished and stimulated, while
their bad ones are regulated by the discipline of the law under a
just and liberal government. They are a people specially amenable to
justice, and are happier under a stringent than a lenient system.

Of the Chinese the _Sarawak Gazette_ (November 1, 1897) says:—

The characteristics of this extraordinary people must at once strike
the minds of the most superficial of European residents in the East.
Their wonderful energy and capacity for work; their power of
accumulating wealth; their peculiar physical powers, which render
them equally fertile, and their children equally vivacious, on the
equator as in more temperate regions, and which enable them to rear
a new race of natives under climatic conditions entirely different
from those under which their forefathers were born, are facts with
which we are all acquainted. Their mental endowments, too, are by no
means to be despised, as nearly every year shows us, when the
results of the examination for the Queen's Scholarship of the
Straits Settlements are published, and some young Chinese boy
departs for England to enter into educational competition with his
European fellows.

Chinese get on well with all natives, with whom they intermarry, the mixed offspring being a healthy and good-looking type. They form the merchant, trading, and artisan classes, and they are the only agriculturists and mine labourers of any worth. Without these people a tropical country would remain undeveloped.

The only census that appears to have been attempted in Sarawak was taken in 1871. Judging by the report that was published in the _Gazette_ this census was made in a very imperfect manner.[39] Of the interior population it includes Sea-Dayaks, but no means were obtainable for ascertaining the numbers of Kayans, Kenyahs, and many other tribes that go to make up the population of the State. It makes no separate mention of the large coast population of the Melanaus, who were presumably lumped with the Malays.

The census gives the following figures:—

Malays 52,519
Dayaks 70,849
Chinese 4,947
Indians 364
———————
128,679

Allowed for evasions and omissions
10 per cent 12,867
———————
Total 141,546

The report concedes it was the generally received opinion that the population was nearer 200,000, and if we include the Kayans, Kenyahs, etc., and accept the approximate correctness of the above figures, that estimate would be about correct.

In 1871, the State extended as far as Kedurong Point only, but since that the territorial area has been nearly doubled. The population is now estimated at 500,000, though this is probably too liberal a calculation, and the following is a fairer estimate:—

Coast population, Malays and Melanaus 100,000

Interior population, Land and Sea-Dayaks, Kayans and 250,000
Kenyahs

Interior population other than these 18,000

Chinese population 45,000

Indians, Javanese, Bugis, etc 3,000

———————

416,000

The names by which the various tribes are known are those given to them by others, mostly by the coast people, or are taken from the name of the river on which they reside, or from which they came. _Daya_ (as it should be spelt, and as it is pronounced) in the Melanau and Bruni Malay dialect means "land," "in-land." So we have _Orang daya_, an inlander. _Ka-daya-an_ is contracted into _Kayan_; _Ukit_ and _Bukitan_ are from the Malay word _bukit_—a hill; and _tanjong_ is the Malay for a cape or a point round which a river sweeps. Hence _Orang Ukit_ or _Bukitan_, a hill-man,[40] and _Orang Tanjong_, riverside people.

As in ancient Germany the districts were known by the names of the rivers that watered them, and each was a _gau_, so it is in Borneo, where the rivers are the roads of communication, and give their names to the districts and to the people that inhabit them. Indeed, in Borneo one can see precisely at this day what was the ancient _Gau-verfassung_ in the German Empire.

The area of Sarawak is about 50,000 square miles, and the coast line about 500 miles.

The climate is hot and humid; it is especially moist during the N.E. monsoon, and less so during the S.W. monsoon. The former commences and the latter ends sometimes early and sometimes late in October, and in April the seasons again change. The months of most rain are December, January, and February; from February the rainfall decreases until July, the month of least rain, and increases gradually after that month. The average yearly rainfall is 160 inches. The maximum in any one year, 225.95 inches, was recorded in 1882, and the minimum 102.4 in 1888. The heaviest rainfall for one month, 69.25 inches, occurred in January, 1881, and the least, .66 inches, in August, 1877. The most in one day was 15.3 inches on February 8, 1876. Rain falls on an average 226 days in the year. These notes are taken from observations made in Kuching extending over thirty years.[41] At Sibu, the average rainfall for five years was 116 inches, at Baram 92 inches, and at Trusan 167 inches. Except in the sun at mid-day and during the early hours of the afternoon the heat is hardly ever oppressive, and the mornings, evenings and nights are generally cool. In 1906, the maximum average temperature was 91°.6, and the minimum 71°.2 Fahrenheit; the highest reading was 94° in May, and the lowest 69°.6 in July.[42]

In few countries are thunderstorms more severe than in Borneo, but deaths from lightning are not very common, and hail falls so rarely that when it does fall it is an awe-inspiring object to some natives. Archdeacon Perham records that during a very severe hailstorm in 1874 some Dayaks collected the hailstones under the impression that they were rare charms, whilst others fled from their house, believing that everybody and everything in it would be turned into a petrified rock, a woeful monument to future generations. To avert this catastrophe they boiled the hailstones and burnt locks of their hair.[43]

SATANG ISLANDS, DATU BAY.]

-----

Footnote 7:

The name Borneo is a corruption of Burni, itself a corruption of
Beruni or Bruni, the capital of that ancient but now decayed Sultanate
bearing the same name, and of which Sarawak, and a great part of
British North Borneo, once formed parts. It was the first place in
Borneo with which the Spanish and Portuguese had any dealings, and in
their old chronicles it is referred to as Burni, and Borneo
subsequently became the distinguishing name of the whole island to
Europeans. The natives themselves have none, except perhaps the
doubtful one of Pulau Ka-lamanta-an, the island of raw sago, so named
in recent times by the merchants and traders of the Straits
Settlements as being the island from which that commodity was brought,
and in those settlements it has since become the native name for
Borneo. But in Sarawak this name is known to the Malays alone, and in
other parts of Borneo, perhaps only a few have heard of it. In fact,
it is applicable to Sarawak only, for in former days sago was exported
to the Straits solely from that country, and the trade was carried on
by Sarawak Malays, first with Penang and subsequently with Singapore.
An old English map of about 1700 gives to the town of Bruni, as well
as to the whole island, the name of Borneo. Mercator (1595) also gives
Borneo to both.

Bruni is variously spelt Brunai, Brunei, Bruné, Borneo, Borney,
Bornei, Porne, and Burni by old writers; all corruptions of Bruni. The
Sanskrit word Bhurni, meaning land or country, has been suggested as
the origin of the name.

Footnote 8:

See page 34.

Footnote 9:

Everett (A. Hart). "Notes on the Distribution of the Useful Minerals
in Sarawak," in the _Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society_, 1878. Mr. Everett was a distinguished naturalist. He
served for eight years in the Sarawak service, and died in 1898.

Footnote 10:

Odoardo Beccari, _Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo_, 1904.

Footnote 11:

Probably the first European to discover these strange insects was the
Italian Pigafetta, who in 1521 noticed them in the island of Palawan,
to the north of Borneo, and thus quaintly describes them: "In this
island are found certain trees, the leaves of which, when they fall
off, are animated, and walk." He surmised they lived upon air.—
_Magellan, Hakluyt Society._

Footnote 12:

St. John mentions one that was killed at Brooketon 26 feet 2 inches in
length.—_Life in the Forests of the Far East_, 1863.

Footnote 13:

With regard to the collection of orchids it has also been found
necessary to do this. Collectors would ruthlessly destroy all orchids,
especially the rarer kinds, which they could not carry away, in order
to prevent others from collecting these.

Footnote 14:

In about 1825 a large bone was found in a cave at Bau which was
pronounced to be that of an elephant. These animals are common in
parts of N. Borneo, and Pigafetta found them at Bruni in 1521.

Footnote 15:

The _Ptilocercus Lowii_, only found in Borneo. It has been awarded a
genus all to itself, and is one of the rarest of Bornean curiosities.—
J. Hewitt, _Sarawak Gazette_, September 1, 1908.

Footnote 16:

"According to Mr. Boulanger, Borneo can boast of producing the longest
legged frog and the longest legged toad in the world."—_Idem._

Footnote 17:

"Mr. St. John (_Forests of the Far East_, p. 190) mentions stones or
pebbles of a dark colour considered by the natives as sacred. Some
such, found at Quop, were said to have been lost during the civil
wars. They are possibly paleolithic implements."—Beccari, _op. cit._
p. 367.

Footnote 18:

The late Rajah wrote in 1838: "We know scarcely anything of these
varieties of the human race beyond the bare fact of their existence."
We have since learnt something of their languages and customs; of
their origin nothing.

Footnote 19:

Mr. F. D. de Rozario. The _Sarawak Gazette_, September 2, 1901. Mr. de
Rozario, the officer in charge of Kapit Fort, has been in the
Government service for some fifty years, of which nearly all have been
spent in the Upper Rejang, and his knowledge of the natives, their
customs and languages, is unique.

Footnote 20:

See note 2, page 18.

Footnote 21:

The Indra Lila (brother of the Lila Pelawan, who was the present
Rajah's Malay chief at Lingga over fifty years ago), was their chief.
Trouble arose owing to Akam Nipa, the celebrated Kayan chief, who will
be noticed hereafter, having fallen in love with a Malay girl of rank.
His suit being rejected, he threatened to forcibly abduct the lady, a
threat which he could have carried out with ease, so the Malays fled
with her to Lingga. This occurred some eighty years ago.

Footnote 22:

One of Magellan's chroniclers records that in 1521 men were found in
Gilo (Gilolo or Jilolo, to the east of, and near to the Celebes),
"with ears so long and pendulous that they reached to their
shoulders."—_Magellan, Hakluyt Society._ Marsden, _History of
Sumatra_, says that the people of Neas island off the west coast of
Sumatra elongate their ears in the same manner; so do the Sagais of
Belungan. The sculptures above mentioned, and the fact that this
curious custom still exists in southern India, point to it being one
of Hindu origin.

Footnote 23:

Human sacrifices are still in vogue amongst the Kayans and Kenyahs in
the Batang Kayan and Mahkam rivers.

Footnote 24:

The Kajamans, Sekapans, Sians, and Lanans are said to have been the
first to cross over from the Bantang Kayan (Belungan) into the Balui
(Rejang). They were probably then one tribe.

Footnote 25:

_Muka_ is the Malay for face. The word has been carried into the
English language as mug, contemptuously "an ugly mug," from the
Sanskrit word _muhka_, the face.

Footnote 26:

Mr. E. A. W. Cox, formerly Resident of the Trusan, and latterly of the
Bintulu, says the Kadayan tradition is that many generations back they
were brought from Deli in Sumatra by a former Sultan of Bruni. They
have always been the immediate followers of the sultans, forming their
main bodyguard. They have no distinctive language of their own, and
talk a low Bruni patois; their dress is peculiar; and their system of
rice cultivation is far in advance of all other Borneans.

Footnote 27:

The Hindu sacred bull.

Footnote 28:

Writing of the _Rafflesia_, "those extraordinary parasitical plants,
whose huge and startling conspicuous flowers spring from the ground
like gigantic mushrooms," Beccari (_op. cit._ p. 102) says, "The
Land-Dayaks called the variety he found at Poi (and which he named R.
Tuan-Mudæ, in honour of the present Rajah) 'Bua pakma'; evidently a
corruption of 'patma' or 'padma,' the sacred lotus (_Nelumbian
speciosum_) of the Hindus, which is not a native of Borneo. This is,
no doubt, one of the many traces of the ancient faith once professed
by the Dayaks, who have preserved the memory of the emblematical
flower, transferring its name to that of another plant conspicuous for
its size and singular appearance. In Java, as well as in Sumatra, the
_Rafflesia_ is known as 'Patma'; but there the fact is not surprising,
for the prevalence of Hinduism in those islands is a matter of not
very remote history." Pakma or patma is the Malay name for the lotus.

The late Sir Hugh Low notes that the Land-Dayaks, who (in common with
most of the inland tribes) regulate their farming seasons by the
motions of the Pleiades, call that constellation _Sakara_, probably
from the _Batara Sakra_ of the Hindu-Javan mythology, to whose
particular care the earth was confided.—_Sarawak._

Hindu gold ornaments and a Persian coin, bearing a date corresponding
with the year 960 A.D., have been discovered up the Sarawak river, and
some in the centre of the Land-Dayak country, which shows that the
people of the ancient Hindu-Javan settlement at Santubong must have
spread into the interior, and have mixed with the natives.

Footnote 29:

Afterwards Admiral of the Fleet.

Footnote 30:

Disappointment in marriage and unkindness or harshness on the part of
relatives are common causes of suicide by man or woman, but the most
common motive is shame, particularly in cases of an unmarried woman,
when _enceinte_, being unable to prove to the tribe who the father of
her child is. A whole family has been known to poison themselves to
escape the consequences and disgrace which would have befallen them
owing to one of them having been the accidental cause of a long
communal house being destroyed by fire. Suicide is invariably
committed by eating the poisonous root of the tuba plant, _derris
elliptica_.

Footnote 31:

The worst on record in Sarawak was committed in 1894 by a half-bred
Chinaman (his mother was a Segalang, and he was brought up as one) at
Seduan village, three miles from Sibu, in the Rejang. This man, who
had just been discharged from jail, arose in the middle of the night,
and speared or cut down all the inmates of the house—thirteen women
and children, of whom only two or three survived. He was shot by Mr.
Q. A. Buck, then the Resident at Sibu (joined 1874, retired 1899), who
was quickly on the spot, and was the means of preventing a further
loss of life.

Footnote 32:

The Sea-Dayaks say that they were constructed by the gods when they
made the sky, out of a small surplus of the blue.

Footnote 33:

St. John, _op. cit._, mentions that the late Sultan Mumin of Bruni had
an ancient jar which was reputed to be able to speak, and that it
moaned sorrowfully the night before his first wife died. He refused
£2000 for it.

Footnote 34:

_Naga_, a dragon; _benaga_, having a dragon.

Footnote 35:

Meaning a deer in Malay and Sea-Dayak.

Footnote 36:

A misprint for "Tunggang."

Footnote 37:

Late Resident-General of the Federated Malay States.

Footnote 38:

This was written in 1866.

Footnote 39:

Amongst Eastern people any attempt to make a systematic census is
liable to be misapprehended, and to give rise to a bad feeling, and
even to dangerous scares, and for that reason no census has been made
by the Government. This census was an approximation based upon the
amount paid in direct taxation, such as head and door taxes, allowing
an average of so many people to a family.

Footnote 40:

And so _Orang-Murut_ means a hill-man, _murut_, or more correctly
_murud_, meaning a hill—_bulud_ in _Sulu_.

Footnote 41:

Mr. J. Hewitt, B.A., Curator of the Sarawak Museum in the _Sarawak
Gazette_, February 2, 1906.

Footnote 42:

Kuching Observatory.

Footnote 43:

The _Sarawak Gazette_.

FROM MERCATOR'S MAP.]