Man, Past and Present by Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (best young adult book series .txt) 📖

always practicable they plant swamp padi; all those who settle at the heads of rivers plant padi on the hills in the same manner as the up-river natives. They also cultivate maize, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, gourds, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, mustard, ginger and other vegetables. Generally groups of relations work together in the fields. Although essentially agricultural, they are warlike and passionately devoted to head-hunting. The Iban of the Batang Lupar and Saribas in the olden days joined the Malays in their large war praus on piratical raids along the coast and up certain rivers and they owe their name of Sea Dayaks to this practice. The raids were organised by Malays who went for plunder but they could always ensure the aid of Iban by the bribe of the heads of the slain as their share. The Iban women weave beautiful cotton cloths on a very simple loom. Intricate patterns are made by tying several warp strands with leaves at varying intervals, then dipping the whole into the dye which does not penetrate the tied portions. This process is repeated if a three-colour design is desired. The pattern is produced solely in the warp, the woof threads are self-coloured and are not visible in the fabric, which is therefore a cotton rep. Little tattooing is seen among the Iban women though the men have adopted the custom from the Kayan.

It is probable that the Iban belong to the same stock as the original Malay and if so, their migration may be regarded as the first wave of the movement that culminated in the Malay Empire. The Malays must have come to Borneo not later than the early part of the fifteenth century as Brunei was a large and wealthy town in 1521. Probably the Malays came directly from the Malay Peninsula, but they must have mixed largely with the Kadayan, Milanau and other coastal people. The Sarawak and Brunei Malays are probably mainly coastal Borneans with some Malay blood, but they have absorbed the Malay culture, spirit and religion.

From the sociological point of view the Punan, living by the chase and on exploitation of jungle produce, represent the lowest grade of culture in Borneo. Without social organisation they are alike incapable of real endemic improvement or of seriously affecting other peoples. The purely agricultural tribes that cultivate padi on the low hills or in the swamps form the next social stratum. These indigenous tillers of the soil have been hard pressed by various swarms of foreigners.

The Kenyah-Kayan migration was that of a people of a slightly higher grade of culture. They were agriculturalists, but the social organisation was firmer and they were probably superior in physique. If they introduced iron weapons, this would give them an enormous advantage. These immigrant agricultural artisans, directed by powerful chiefs, had no difficulty in taking possession of the most desirable land.

From an opposite point of the compass in early times came another agricultural people who strangely enough have strong individualistic tendencies, the usually peaceable habits of tillers of the soil having been complicated by a lust for heads and other warlike propensities. But the Iban do not appear to have gained much against the Kenyah and Kayan. Conquest implies a strong leader, obedience to authority and concerted action. The Iban appear to be formidable only when led and organised by Europeans.

The Malay was of a yet higher social type. His political organisation was well established, and he had the advantage of religious enthusiasm, for Islam has no small share in the expansion of the Malay. He is a trader, and still more an exploiter, having a sporting element in his character not altogether compatible with steady trade. Then appeared on the scene the Anglo-Saxon overlord. The quality of firmness combined with justice made itself felt. At times the lower social types hurled themselves, but in vain, against the instrument that had been forged and tempered in a similar turmoil of Iberian, Celt, Angle and Viking in Northern Europe. Now they acknowledge that safety of life and property and almost complete liberty are fully worth the very small price that they have to pay for them[524].

The cult of omen animals, most frequently birds, is indigenous to Borneo. These are possessed with the spirit of certain invisible beings above, and bear their names, and are invoked to secure good crops, freedom from accident, victory in war, profit in exchange, skill in discourse and cleverness in all native craft. The Iban have a belief in Ngarong or spirit-helpers, somewhat resembling that of the Manitu of North America. The Ngarong is the spirit of a dead relative who visits a dreamer, who afterwards searches for the outward and visible sign of his spiritual protector, and finds it in some form, perhaps a natural object, or some one animal, henceforth held in special respect[525].

In Sumatra there occur some remains of Hindu temples[526], as well as other mysterious monuments in the Passumah lands inland from Benkulen, relics of a former culture, which goes back to prehistoric times. They take the form of huge monoliths, which are roughly shaped to the likeness of human figures, with strange features very different from the Malay or Hindu types. The present Sarawi natives of the district, who would be quite incapable of executing such works, know nothing of their origin, and attribute them to certain legendary beings who formerly wandered over the land, turning all their enemies into stone. Further research may possibly discover some connection between these relics of a forgotten past and the numerous prehistoric monuments of Easter Island and other places in the Pacific Ocean. Of all the Indonesian peoples still surviving in Malaysia, none present so many points of contact with the Eastern Polynesians, as do the natives of the Mentawi Islands which skirt the south-west coast of Sumatra. "On a closer inspection of the inhabitants the attentive observer at once perceives that the Mentawi natives have but little in common with the peoples and tribes of the neighbouring islands, and that as regards physical appearance, speech, customs, and usages they stand almost entirely apart. They bear such a decided stamp of a Polynesian tribe that one feels far more inclined to compare them with the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands[527]."

The survival of an Indonesian group on the western verge of Malaysia is all the more remarkable since the Nias islanders, a little farther north, are of Mongol stock, like most if not all of the inhabitants of the Sumatran mainland. Here the typical Malays of the central districts (Menangkabau, Korinchi, and Siak) merge southwards in the mixed Malayo-Javanese peoples of the Rejang, Palembang, and Lampongdistricts. Although Muhammadans probably since the thirteenth century, all these peoples had been early brought under Hindu influences by missionaries and even settlers from Java, and these influences are still apparent in many of the customs, popular traditions, languages, and letters of the South Sumatran settled communities. Thus the Lampongs, despite their profession of Islam, employ, not the Arabic characters, like the Malays proper, but a script derived from the peculiar Javanese writing system. This system itself, originally introduced from India probably over 2000 years ago, is based on some early forms of the Devanagari, such as those occurring in the rock inscriptions of the famous Buddhist king As'oka (third century B.C.)[528]. From Java, which is now shown beyond doubt to be the true centre of dispersion[529], the parent alphabet was under Hindu influences diffused in pre-Muhammadan times throughout Malaysia, from Sumatra to the Philippines.

But the thinly-spread Indo-Javanese culture, in few places penetrating much below the surface, received a rude shock from the Muhammadan irruption, its natural development being almost everywhere arrested, or else either effaced or displaced by Islam. No trace can any longer be detected of graphic signs in Borneo, where the aborigines have retained the savage state even in those southern districts where Buddhism or Brahmanism had certainly been propagated long before the arrival of the Muhammadan Malays. But elsewhere the Javanese stock alphabet has shown extraordinary vitality, persisting under diverse forms down to the present day, not only amongst the semi-civilised Mussulman peoples, such as the Sumatran Rejangs[530], Korinchi, and Lampongs, the Bugis and Mangkassaras of Celebes, and the (now Christian) Tagalogs and Visayas of the Philippines, but even amongst the somewhat rude and pagan Palawan natives, the wild Manguianes of Mindoro, and the cannibal Battas[531] of North Sumatra.

These Battas, however, despite their undoubted cannibalism[532], cannot be called savages, at least without some reserve. They are skilful stock-breeders and agriculturists, raising fine crops of maize and rice; they dwell together in large, settled communities with an organised government, hereditary chiefs, popular assemblies, and a written civil and penal code. There is even an effective postal system, which utilises for letter-boxes the hollow tree-trunks at all the cross-roads, and is largely patronised by the young men and women, all of whom read and write, and carry on an animated correspondence in their degraded Devanagari script, which is written on palm-leaves in vertical lines running upwards and from right to left. The Battas also excel in several industries, such as pottery, weaving, jewellery, iron work, and house-building, their picturesque dwellings, which resemble Swiss chalets, rising to two stories above the ground-floor reserved for the live stock. For these arts they are no doubt largely indebted to their Hindu teachers, from whom also they have inherited some of their religious ideas, such as the triune deity--Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer--besides other inferior divinities collectively called diebata, a modified form of the Indian devate[533].

In the strangest contrast to these survivals of a foreign culture which had probably never struck very deep roots, stand the savage survivals from still more ancient times. Conspicuous amongst these are the cannibal practices, which if not now universal still take some peculiarly revolting forms. Thus captives and criminals are, under certain circumstances, condemned to be eaten alive, and the same fate is or was reserved for those incapacitated for work by age or infirmities. When the time came, we are told by the early European observers and by the reports of the Arabs, the "grandfathers" voluntarily suspended themselves by their arms from an overhanging branch, while friends and neighbours danced round and round, shouting, "when the fruit is ripe it falls." And when it did fall, that is, as soon as it could hold on no longer, the company fell upon it with their krisses, hacking it to pieces, and devouring the remains seasoned with lime-juice, for such feasts were generally held when the limes were ripe[534].

Grouped chiefly round about Lake Toba, the Battas occupy a very wide domain, stretching south to about the parallel of Mount Ophir, and bordering northwards on the territory of the Achin people. These valiant natives, who have till recently stoutly maintained their political independence against the Dutch, were also at one time Hinduized, as is evident from many of their traditions, their Malayan language largely charged with Sanskrit terms, and even their physical appearance, suggesting a considerable admixture of Hindu as well as of Arab blood. With the Arab traders and settlers came the Koran, and the Achinese people have been not over-zealous followers of the Prophet since the close of the twelfth century. The Muhammadan State, founded in 1205, acquired a dominant position in the Archipelago early in the sixteenth century, when it ruled over about half of Sumatra, exacted tribute from many vassal princes, maintained powerful armaments by land and sea, and entered into political and commercial relations with Egypt, Japan, and several European States.

There are two somewhat distinct ethnical groups, the Orang-Tunong of the uplands, a comparatively homogeneous Malayan people, and the mixed Orang-Baruh of the lowlands, who are described by A. Lubbers[535] as taller than the average Malay (5 feet 5 or 6 in.), also less round-headed (index 80.5), with prominent nose, rather regular features, and muscular frames; but the complexion is darker than that of the Orang-Malayu, a trait which has been attributed to a larger infusion of