Man, Past and Present Part 28

[508] _Cujo officio he rubar e pescar_, "whose business it is to rob and fish" (Barros). Many of the Bajaus lived entirely afloat, pa.s.sing their lives in boats from the cradle to the grave, and praying Allah that they might die at sea.

[509] Thucydides, _Pel. War_, I. 1-16.

[510] These are the noted _Illanuns_, who occupy the south side of the large Philippine island of Mindanao, but many of whom, like the Bajaus of Celebes and the Sulu Islanders, have formed settlements on the north-east coast of Borneo. "Long ago their warfare against the Spaniards degenerated into general piracy. Their usual practice was not to take captives, but to murder all on board any boat they took. Those with us [British North Borneo] have all settled down to a more orderly way of life" (W. B. Pryer, _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1886, p. 231).

[511] _The Malay Archipelago_, p. 341.

[512] In Central Africa "the belief in 'were' animals, that is to say in human beings who have changed themselves into lions or leopards or some such harmful beasts, is nearly universal. Moreover there are individuals who imagine they possess this power of a.s.suming the form of an animal and killing human beings in that shape." Sir H. H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, p. 439.

[513] _In Court and Kampong_, p. 63.

[514] _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1886, p. 227. The Rajah gives the leading features of the character of his countrymen as "pride of race and birth, extraordinary observance of punctilio, and a bigoted adherence to ancient custom and tradition."

[515] _The Pygmies_ (Translation), 1895, p. 26, fig. 15.

[516] _The Distribution of the Negritos_, 1899, p. 50.

[517] In the Appendix to C. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, 1912, p. 311.

[518] J. H. Kohlbrugge, _L'Anthropologie_, IX. 1898.

[519] A. C. Haddon, "A Sketch of the Ethnography of Sarawak," _Archivio per l'Antropologia e l'Etnologia_, x.x.xI. 1901; C. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, 1912, Appendix, p. 314.

[520] H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, 1896.

[521] O. Beccari, _Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo_, 1904, p.

54.

[522] Schwaner, in H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak_, etc., 1896.

[523] A. C. Haddon, _Head-Hunters, Black, White and Brown_, 1901, p.

324.

[524] A. C. Haddon, _Head-Hunters, Black, White and Brown_, 1901, pp.

327-8.

[525] For further literature on Borneo see W. H. Furness, _The Home-life of the Borneo Head-Hunters_, 1902; A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_, 1904; E. H. Gomes, _Seventeen Years among the Sea-Dyaks of Borneo_, 1911; C. Hose and W. McDougall, _Journ. Anthr. Inst._, x.x.xI.

1901, and _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, 1912.

[526] Not only in the southern districts for centuries subject to Javanese influences, but also in Battaland, where they were first discovered by H. von Rosenberg in 1853, and figured and described in _Der Malayische Archipel_, Leipzig, 1878, Vol. I. p. 27 sq. "Nach ihrer Form und ihren Bildwerken zu urtheilen, waren die Gebaude Tempel, worin der Buddha-Kultus gefeiert wurde" (p. 28). These are all the more interesting since Hindu ruins are otherwise rare in Sumatra, where there is nothing comparable to the stupendous monuments of Central and East Java.

[527] Von Rosenberg, _op. cit._ Vol. I. p. 189. Amongst the points of close resemblance may be mentioned the outriggers, for which Mentawi has the same word (_abak_) as the Samoan (_va'r_ = _vaka_); the funeral rites; taboo; the facial expression; and the language, in which the numerical systems are identical; cf. Ment. _limongapula_ with Sam.

_limagafulu_, the Malay being _limapulah_ (fifty), where the Sam. infix _ga_ (absent in Malay) is p.r.o.nounced _gna_, exactly as in Ment.

[528] See Fr. Muller, _Ueber den Ursprung der Schrift der Malaiischen Volker_, Vienna, 1865; and my Appendix to Stanford's _Australasia_, First Series, 1879, p. 624.

[529] _Die Mangianenschrift von Mindoro, herausgegeben von A. B. Meyer u. A. Schadenberg_, speciell bearbeitet von W. Foy, Dresden, 1895; see also my remarks in _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1896, p. 277 sq.

[530] The Rejang, which certainly belongs to the same Indo-Javanese system as all the other Malaysian alphabets, has been regarded by Sayce and Renan as "pure Phoenician," while Neubauer has compared it with that current in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. The suggestion that it may have been introduced by the Phoenician crews of Alexander's admiral, Nearchus (_Archaeol. Oxon._ 1895, No. 6), could not have been made by anyone aware of its close connection with the Lampong of South, and the Batta of North Sumatra (see also Prof. Kern, _Globus_, 70, p. 116).

[531] Sing. _Batta_, pl. _Battak_, hence the current form _Battaks_ is a solecism, and we should write either _Battas_ or _Battak_. La.s.sen derives the word from the Sanskrit _b'hata_, "savage."

[532] Again confirmed by Volz and H. von Autenrieth, who explored Battaland early in 1898, and penetrated to the territory of the "Cannibal Pakpaks" (_Geogr. Journ._, June, 1898, p. 672); not however "for the first time," as here stated. The Pakpaks had already been visited in 1853 by Von Rosenberg, who found cannibalism so prevalent that "Niemand Anstand nimmt das essen von Menschenfleisch einzugestehen"

(_op. cit._ 1. p. 56).

[533] It is interesting to note that by the aid of the Lampong alphabet, South Sumatra, John Mathew reads the word _Daibattah_ in the legend on the head-dress of a gigantic figure seen by Sir George Grey on the roof of a cave on the Glenelg river, North-west Australia ("The Cave Paintings of Australia," etc., in _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1894, p. 44 sq.). He quotes from Coleman's _Mythology of the Hindus_ the statement that "the Battas of Sumatra believe in the existence of one supreme being, whom they name _Debati Hasi Asi_. Since completing the work of creation they suppose him to have remained perfectly quiescent, having wholly committed the government to his three sons, who do not govern in person, but by vakeels or proxies." Here is possibly another confirmation of the view that early Malayan migrations or expeditions, some even to Australia, took place in pre-Muhammadan times, long before the rise and diffusion of the Orang-Malayu in the Archipelago.

[534] _Memoir of the Life etc. of Sir T. S. Raffles_, by his widow, 1830.

[535] "Anthropologie des Atjehs," in _Rev. Med._, Batavia, x.x.x. 6, 1890.

[536] See C. Snouck Hurgronje, _The Achenese_, 1906.

[537] _Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections, British Museum_, 1910, p. 245.

[538] This opinion is still held by many competent authorities. Cf. J.

Deniker, _The Races of Man_, 1900, p. 469 ff.

[539] "His remarks would scarcely apply to any other island off the East African coast, his descriptions of the rivers, crocodiles, land-tortoises, canoes, sea-turtles, and wicker-work weirs for catching fish, apply exactly to Madagascar of the present day, but to none of the other islands" (_Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1896, p. 47).

[540] _Loc. cit._ p. 77. Thus, to take the days of the week, we have:--Malagasy _alahady_, _alatsinainy_; old Arab. (Himyar.) _al-ahadu_, _al-itsnani_; modern Arab. _el-ahad_, _el-etnen_ (Sunday, Monday), where the Mal. forms are obviously derived not from the present, but from the ancient Arabic. From all this it seems reasonable to infer that the early Semitic influences in Madagascar may be due to the same Sabaean or Minaean peoples of South Arabia, to whom the Zimbabwe monuments in the auriferous region south of the Zambesi were accredited by Theodore Bent.

[541] Those who may still doubt should consult M. Aristide Marre, _Les Affinites de la Langue Malgache_, Leyden, 1884; Last's above quoted Paper in the _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ and R. H. Codrington's _Melanesian Languages_, Oxford, 1885.

[542] Malay _mata-ari_; Bajau _mata-lon_; Menado _mata-ro[=u]_; Salayer _mato-allo_, all meaning literally "day's eye" (_mata_, _mato_ = Malagasy _maso_ = eye; _ari_, _allo_, etc. = day, with normal interchange of _r_ and _l_).

[543] J. Sibree, _Antananarivo Annual_, 1877, p. 62.

[544] W. D. Cowan, _The Bara Land_, Antananarivo, 1881, p. 67.

[545] "The Betsileo, Country and People," in _Antananarivo Annual_, 1877, p. 79.

[546] "Note sur l'Anthropologie de Madagascar," etc., in _L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 149 sq.

[547] The contrast between the two elements is drawn in a few bold strokes by Mrs Z. Colvile, who found that in the east coast districts the natives (Betsimisarakas chiefly) were black "with short, curly hair and negro type of feature, and showed every sign of being of African origin. The Hovas, on the contrary, had complexions little darker than those of the peasantry of Southern Europe, straight black hair, rather sharp features, slim figures, and were unmistakably of the Asiatic type"

(_Round the Black Man's Garden_, 1893, p. 143). But even amongst the Hovas a strain of black blood is betrayed in the generally rather thick lips, and among the lower cla.s.ses in the wavy hair and dark skin.

[548] _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1897, p. 285 sq.

[549] _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1897, p. 153.

[550] _Handbook to the Ethnological Collection, British Museum_, 1910, pp. 246-7.

[551] Augustinians, Dominicans, Recollects (Friars Minor of the Strict Observance), and Jesuits.

[552] In fact there is no great parade of morality on either side, nor is it any reflection on a woman to have children by the priest.

[553] J. Foreman, _The Philippine Islands_, 1899, p. 181.