The History of Sumatra Part 19

In fevers they give a decoction of the herb lakun, and bathe the patient, for two or three mornings, in warm water. If this does not prove effectual, they pour over him, during the paroxysm, a quant.i.ty of cold water, rendered more chilly by the daun sedingin (Cotyledon laciniata) which, from the sudden revulsion it causes, brings on a copious perspiration. Pains and swellings in the limbs are likewise cured by sweating; but for this purpose they either cover themselves over with mats and sit in the sunshine at noon, or, if the operation be performed within doors, a lamp, and sometimes a pot of boiling herbs, is enclosed in the covering with them.

LEPROSY.

There are two species of leprosy known in these parts. The milder sort, or impetigo, as I apprehend it to be, is very common among the inhabitants of Nias, great numbers of whom are covered with a white scurf or scales that renders them loathsome to the sight. But this distemper, though disagreeable from the violent itching and other inconveniences with which it is attended, does not appear immediately to affect the health, slaves in that situation being bought and sold for field and other outdoor work. It is communicated from parents to their offspring, but though hereditary it is not contagious. I have sometimes been induced to think it nothing more than a confirmed stage of the serpigo or ringworm, or it may be the same with what is elsewhere termed the shingles. I have known a Nias man who has effected a temporary removal of this scurf by the frequent application of the golinggang or daun kurap (Ca.s.sia alata) and such other herbs as are used to cure the ringworm, and sometimes by rubbing gunpowder and strong acids to his skin; but it always returned after some time. The other species with which the country people are in some instances affected is doubtless, from the description given of its dreadful symptoms, that severe kind of leprosy which has been termed elephantiasis, and is particularly described in the Asiatic Researches Volume 2, the skin coming off in flakes, and the flesh falling from the bones, as in the lues venerea. This disorder being esteemed highly infectious, the unhappy wretch who labours under it is driven from the village he belonged to into the woods, where victuals are left for him from time to time by his relations. A prang and a knife are likewise delivered to him, that he may build himself a hut, which is generally erected near to some river or lake, continual bathing being supposed to have some effect in removing the disorder, or alleviating the misery of the patient. Few instances of recovery have been known. There is a disease called the nambi which bears some affinity to this, attacking the feet chiefly, the flesh of which it eats away. As none but the lowest cla.s.s of people seem to suffer from this complaint I imagine it proceeds in a great degree from want of cleanliness.

SMALLPOX.

The smallpox (katumbuhan) sometimes visits the island and makes terrible ravages. It is regarded as a plague, and drives from the country thousands whom the infection spares. Their method of stopping its progress (for they do not attempt a cure) is by converting into a hospital or receptacle for the rest that village where lie the greatest number of sick, whither they send all who are attacked by the disorder from the country round. The most effectual methods are pursued to prevent any person's escape from this village, which is burnt to the ground as soon as the infection has spent itself or devoured all the victims thus offered to it. Inoculation was an idea long unthought of, and, as it could not be universal, it was held to be a dangerous experiment for Europeans to introduce it partially, in a country where the disorder makes its appearance at distant intervals only, unless those periods could be seized and the attempts made when and where there might be well-founded apprehension of its being communicated in the natural way.

Such an opportunity presented itself in 1780, when great numbers of people (estimated at a third of the population) were swept away in the course of that and the two following years; whilst upon those under the immediate influence of the English and Dutch settlements inoculation was practised with great success. I trust that the preventive blessing of vaccination has or will be extended to a country so liable to be afflicted with this dreadful scourge. A distemper called chachar, much resembling the smallpox, and in its first stages mistaken for it, is not uncommon. It causes an alarm but does not prove mortal, and is probably what we term the chickenpox.

VENEREAL DISEASE.

The venereal disease, though common in the Malay bazaars, is in the inland country almost unknown. A man returning to his village with the infection is shunned by the inhabitants as an unclean and interdicted person. The Malays are supposed to cure it with the decoction of a china-root, called by them gadong, which causes a salivation.

INSANITY.

When a man is by sickness or otherwise deprived of his reason, or when subject to convulsion fits, they imagine him possessed by an evil spirit, and their ceremony of exorcism is performed by putting the unfortunate wretch into a hut, which they set fire to about his ears, suffering him to make his escape through the flames in the best manner he can. The fright, which would go nigh to destroy the intellects of a reasonable man, may perhaps have under contrary circ.u.mstances an opposite effect.

SCIENCES.

The skill of the Sumatrans in any of the sciences, is, as may be presumed, very limited.

ARITHMETIC.

Some however I have met with who, in arithmetic, could multiply and divide, by a single multiplier or divisor, several places of figures.

Tens of thousands (laksa) are the highest cla.s.s of numbers the Malay language has a name for. In counting over a quant.i.ty of small articles each tenth, and afterwards each hundredth piece is put aside; which method is consonant with the progress of scientific numeration, and probably gave it origin. When they may have occasion to recollect at a distance of time the tale of any commodities they are carrying to market, or the like, the country people often a.s.sist their memory by tying knots on a string, which is produced when they want to specify the number. The Peruvian quipos were I suppose an improvement upon this simple invention.

MEASURES.

They estimate the quant.i.ty of most species of merchandise by what we call dry measure, the use of weights, as applied to bulky articles, being apparently introduced among them by foreigners; for the pikul and catti are used only on the sea-coast and places which the Malays frequent. The kulah or bamboo, containing very nearly a gallon, is the general standard of measure among the Rejangs: of these eight hundred make a koyan: the chupah is one quarter of a bamboo. By this measure almost all articles, even elephants' teeth, are bought and sold; but by a bamboo of ivory they mean so much as is equal in weight to a bamboo of rice. This still includes the idea of weight, but is not attended with their princ.i.p.al objection to that mode of ascertaining quant.i.ty which arises, as they say, from the impossibility of judging by the eye of the justness of artificial weights, owing to the various materials of which they may be composed, and to which measurement is not liable. The measures of length here, as perhaps originally among every people upon earth, are taken from the dimensions of the human body. The deppa, or fathom, is the extent of the arms from each extremity of the fingers: the etta, asta, or cubit, is the forearm and hand; kaki is the foot; jungka is the span; and jarri, which signifies a finger, is the inch. These are estimated from the general proportions of middle-sized men, others making an allowance in measuring, and not regulated by an exact standard.

GEOGRAPHY.

The ideas of geography among such of them as do not frequent the sea are perfectly confined, or rather they entertain none. Few of them know that the country they inhabit is an island, or have any general name for it.

Habit renders them expert in travelling through the woods, where they perform journeys of weeks and months without seeing a dwelling. In places little frequented, where they have occasion to strike out new paths (for roads there are none), they make marks on trees for the future guidance of themselves and others. I have heard a man say, "I will attempt a pa.s.sage by such a route, for my father, when living, told me that he had left his tokens there." They estimate the distance of places from each other by the number of days, or the proportion of the day, taken up in travelling it, and not by measurement of the s.p.a.ce. Their journey, or day's walk, may be computed at about twenty miles; but they can bear a long continuance of fatigue.

ASTRONOMY.

The Malays as well as the Arabs and other Mahometan nations fix the length of the year at three hundred and fifty-four days, or twelve lunar months of twenty-nine days and a half; by which mode of reckoning each year is thrown back about eleven days. The original Sumatrans rudely estimate their annual periods from the revolution of the seasons, and count their years from the number of their crops of grain (taun padi); a practice which, though not pretending to accuracy, is much more useful for the general purposes of life than the lunar period, which is merely adapted to religious observances. They as well as the Malays compute time by lunations, but do not attempt to trace any relation or correspondence between these smaller measures and the solar revolution. Whilst more polished nations were multiplying mistakes and difficulties in their endeavours to ascertain the completion of the sun's course through the ecliptic, and in the meanwhile suffering their nominal seasons to become almost the reverse of nature, these people, without an idea of intercalation, preserved in a rude way the account of their years free from essential, or at least progressive, error and the confusion which attends it. The division of the month into weeks I believe to be unknown except where it has been taught with Mahometanism; the day of the moon's age being used instead of it where accuracy is required; nor do they subdivide the day into hours. To denote the time of day at which any circ.u.mstance they find it necessary to speak of happened, they point with their finger to the height in the sky at which the sun then stood. And this mode is the more general and precise as the sun, so near the equator, ascends and descends almost perpendicularly, and rises and sets at all seasons of the year within a few minutes of six o'clock. Scarcely any of the stars or constellations are distinguished by them. They notice however the planet Venus, but do not imagine her to be the same at the different periods of her revolution when she precedes the rising, and follows the setting sun. They are aware of the night on which the new moon should make its appearance, and the Malays salute it with the discharge of guns. They also know when to expect the returns of the tides, which are at their height, on the south-western coast of the island, when that luminary is in the horizon, and ebb as it rises. When they observe a bright star near the moon (or rubbing against her, as they express it), they are apprehensive of a storm, as European sailors foretell a gale from the sharpness of her horns. These are both, in part, the consequence of an unusual clearness in the air, which, proceeding from an extraordinary alteration of the state of the atmosphere, may naturally be followed by a violent rushing of the circ.u.mjacent parts to restore the equilibrium, and thus prove the prognostic of high wind.

During an eclipse they make a loud noise with sounding-instruments to prevent one luminary from devouring the other, as the Chinese, to frighten away the dragon, a superst.i.tion that has its source in the ancient systems of astronomy (particularly the Hindu) where the nodes of the moon are identified with the dragon's head and tail. They tell of a man in the moon who is continually employed in spinning cotton, but that every night a rat gnaws his thread and obliges him to begin his work afresh. This they apply as an emblem of endless and ineffectual labour, like the stone of Sisyphus, and the sieves of the Danaides.

With history and chronology the country people are but little acquainted, the memory of past events being preserved by tradition only.

MUSIC.

They are fond of music and have many instruments in use among them, but few, upon inquiry, appear to be original, being mostly borrowed from the Chinese and other more eastern people; particularly the kalintang, gong, and sulin. The violin has found its way to them from the westward. The kalintang resembles the sticcado and the harmonica; the more common ones having the cross-pieces, which are struck with two little hammers, of split bamboo, and the more perfect of a certain composition of metal which is very sonorous. The gongs, a kind of bell, but differing much in shape and struck on the outside, are cast in sets regularly tuned to thirds, fourth, fifth, and octave, and often serve as a ba.s.s, or under part, to the kalintang. They are also sounded for the purpose of calling together the inhabitants of the village upon any particular occasion; but the more ancient and still common instrument for this use is a hollowed log of wood named katut. The sulin is the Malayan flute. The country flute is called serdum. It is made of bamboo, is very imperfect, having but few stops, and resembles much an instrument described as found among the people of Otaheite. A single hole underneath is covered with the thumb of the left hand, and the hole nearest the end at which it is blown, on the upper side, with a finger of the same hand. The other two holes are stopped with the right-hand fingers. In blowing they hold it inclined to the right side. They have various instruments of the drum kind, particularly those called tingkah, which are in pairs and beaten with the hands at each end. They are made of a certain kind of wood hollowed out, covered with dried goat-skins, and laced with split rattans. It is difficult to obtain a proper knowledge of their division of the scale, as they know nothing of it in theory. The interval we call an octave seems to be divided with them into six tones, without any intermediate semitones, which must confine their music to one key. It consists in general of but few notes, and the third is the interval that most frequently occurs. Those who perform on the violin use the same notes as in our division, and they tune the instrument by fifths to a great nicety. They are fond of playing the octave, but scarcely use any other chord. The Sumatran tunes very much resemble, to my ear, those of the native Irish, and have usually, like them, a flat third: the same has been observed of the music of Bengal, and probably it will be found that the minor key obtains a preference amongst all people at a certain stage of civilization.

CHAPTER 10.

LANGUAGES.

MALAYAN.

ARABIC CHARACTER USED.

LANGUAGES OF THE INTERIOR PEOPLE.

PECULIAR CHARACTERS.

SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES AND OF ALPHABETS.

LANGUAGES.

Before I proceed to an account of the laws, customs, and manners of the people of the island it is necessary that I should say something of the different languages spoken on it, the diversity of which has been the subject of much contemplation and conjecture.

MALAYAN.

The Malayan language, which has commonly been supposed original in the peninsula of Malayo, and from thence to have extended itself throughout the eastern islands, so as to become the lingua franca of that part of the globe, is spoken everywhere along the coasts of Sumatra, prevails without the mixture of any other in the inland country of Menangkabau and its immediate dependencies, and is understood in almost every part of the island. It has been much celebrated, and justly, for the smoothness and sweetness of its sound, which have gained it the appellation of the Italian of the East. This is owing to the prevalence of vowels and liquids in the words (with many nasals which may be thought an objection) and the infrequency of any harsh combination of mute consonants. These qualities render it well adapted to poetry, which the Malays are pa.s.sionately addicted to.

SONGS.

They amuse all their leisure hours, including the greater portion of their lives, with the repet.i.tion of songs which are, for the most part, proverbs ill.u.s.trated, or figures of speech applied to the occurrences of life. Some that they rehea.r.s.e, in a kind of recitative, at their bimbangs or feasts, are historical love tales like our old English ballads, and are often extemporaneous productions. An example of the former species is as follows:

Apa guna pa.s.sang palita, Kallo tidah dangan sumbu'nia?

Apa guna bermine matta, Kalla tidah dangan sunggu'nia?

What signifies attempting to light a lamp, If the wick be wanting?

What signifies playing with the eyes, If nothing in earnest be intended?

It must be observed however that it often proves a very difficult matter to trace the connexion between the figurative and the literal sense of the stanza. The essentials in the composition of the pantun, for such these little pieces are called, the longer being called dendang, are the rhythmus and the figure, particularly the latter, which they consider as the life and spirit of the poetry. I had a proof of this in an attempt which I made to impose a pantun of my own composing on the natives as a work of their countrymen. The subject was a dialogue between a lover and a rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in some degree characteristic. It pa.s.sed with several, but an old lady who was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta katta saja"--mere conversation; meaning that it was dest.i.tute of the quaint and figurative expressions which adorn their own poetry. Their language in common speaking is proverbial and sententious. If a young woman prove with child before marriage they observe it is daulu buah, kadian bunga--the fruit before the flower. Hearing of a person's death they say, nen matti, matti; nen idup, bekraja: kallo sampi janji'nia, apa buli buat?--Those who are dead, are dead; those who survive must work: if his allotted time was expired, what resource is there? The latter phrase they always make use of to express their sense of inevitability, and has more force than any translation of it I can employ.

ARABIC CHARACTER USED BY MALAYS.

Their writing is in the Arabic character, with modifications to adapt that alphabet to their language, and, in consequence of the adoption of their religion from the same quarter, a great number of Arabic words are incorporated with the Malayan. The Portuguese too have furnished them with several terms, chiefly for such ideas as they have acquired since the period of European discoveries to the eastward. They write on paper, using ink of their own composition, with pens made of the twig of the anau tree. I could never discover that the Malays had any original written characters peculiar to themselves before they acquired those now in use; but it is possible that such might have been lost, a fate that may hereafter attend the Batta, Rejang, and others of Sumatra, on which the Arabic daily makes encroachments. Yet I have had frequent occasion to observe the former language written by inland people in the country character; which would indicate that the speech is likely to perish first. The Malayan books are very numerous, both in prose and verse. Many of them are commentaries on the koran, and others romances or heroic tales.

The purest or most elegant Malayan is said, and with great appearance of reason, to be spoken at Malacca. It differs from the dialect used in Sumatra chiefly in this, that words, in the latter, made to terminate in "o," are in the former, sounded as ending in "a." Thus they p.r.o.nounce lada (pepper) instead of lado. Those words which end with "k" in writing, are, in Sumatra, always softened in speaking, by omitting it; as tabbe bannia, many compliments, for tabbek banniak; but the Malaccans, and especially the more eastern people, who speak a very broad dialect, give them generally the full sound. The personal p.r.o.nouns also differ materially in the respective countries.

Attempts have been made to compose a grammar of this tongue upon the principles on which those of the European languages are formed. But the inutility of such productions is obvious. Where there is no inflexion of either nouns or verbs there can be no cases, declensions, moods, or conjugations. All this is performed by the addition of certain words expressive of a determinate meaning, which should not be considered as mere auxiliaries, or as particles subservient to other words. Thus, in the instance of rumah, a house; deri pada rumah signifies from a house; but it would be talking without use or meaning to say that deri pada is the sign of the ablative case of that noun, for then every preposition should equally require an appropriate case, and as well as of, to, and from, we should have a case for deatas rumah, on top of the house. So of verbs: kallo saya buli jalan, If I could walk: this may be termed the preter-imperfect tense of the subjunctive or potential mood of the verb jalan; whereas it is in fact a sentence of which jalan, buli, etc. are const.i.tuent words. It is improper, I say, to talk of the case of a noun which does not change its termination, or the mood of a verb which does not alter its form. A useful set of observations might be collected for speaking the language with correctness and propriety, but they must be independent of the technical rules of languages founded on different principles.*

(*Footnote. I have ventured to make this attempt, and have also prepared a Dictionary of the language which it is my intention to print with as little delay as circ.u.mstances will admit.)

INTERIOR PEOPLE USE LANGUAGES DIFFERENT FROM THE MALAYAN.

Beside the Malayan there are a variety of languages spoken in Sumatra which however have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but also to that general language which is found to prevail in, and to be indigenous to all the islands of the eastern sea; from Madagascar to the remotest of Captain Cook's discoveries; comprehending a wider extent than the Roman or any other tongue has yet boasted. Indisputable examples of this connexion and similarity I have exhibited in a paper which the Society of Antiquaries have done me the honour to publish in their Archaeologia, Volume 6. In different places it has been more or less mixed and corrupted, but between the most dissimilar branches an evident sameness of many radical words is apparent, and in some, very distant from each other in point of situation, as for instance the Philippines and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is observed in the dialects of neighbouring provinces of the same kingdom.

To render this comparison of languages more extensive, and if possible to bring all those spoken throughout the world into one point of view, is an object of which I have never lost sight, but my hopes of completing such a work are by no means sanguine.

PECULIAR WRITTEN CHARACTERS.

The princ.i.p.al of these Sumatran languages are the Botta, the Rejang, and the Lampong, whose difference is marked not so much by the want of correspondence in the terms as by the circ.u.mstance of their being expressed in distinct and peculiar written characters. But whether this apparent difference be radical and essential, or only produced by accident and the lapse of time, may be thought to admit of doubt; and, in order that the reader may be enabled to form his own judgment, a plate containing the Alphabetical characters of each, with the mode of applying the orthographical marks to those of the Rejang language in particular, is annexed. It would indeed be extraordinary, and perhaps singular in the history of human improvement, that divisions of people in the same island, with equal claims to originality, in stages of civilization nearly equal, and speaking languages derived from the same source, should employ characters different from each other, as well as from the rest of the world. It will be found however that the alphabet used in the neighbouring island of Java (given by Corneille Le Brun), that used by the Tagala people of the Philippines (given by Thevenot), and by the Bugis people of Celebes (given by Captain Forrest), vary at least as much from these and from each other as the Rejang from the Batta. The Sanskrit scholar will at the same time perceive in several of them an a.n.a.logy to the rhythmical arrangement, terminating with a nasal, which distinguishes the alphabet of that ancient language whose influence is known to have been extensive in this quarter. In the country of Achin, where the language differs considerably from the Malayan, the Arabic character has nevertheless been adopted, and on this account it has less claim to originality.

ON BARK OF TREES AND BAMBOO.