The History of Sumatra Part 27

They have other diversions of a more innocent nature. Matches of fencing, or a species of tournament, are exhibited on particular days; as at the breaking up of their annual fast, or month of ramadan, called there the puasa. On these occasions they practise strange att.i.tudes, with violent contortions of the body, and often work themselves up to a degree of frenzy, when the old men step in and carry them off. These exercises in some circ.u.mstances resemble the idea which the ancients have given us of the pyrrhic or war dance; the combatants moving at a distance from each other in cadence, and making many turns and springs unnecessary in the representation of a real combat. This entertainment is more common among the Malays than in the country. The chief weapons of offence used by these people are the kujur or lance and the kris. This last is properly Malayan, but in all parts of the island they have a weapon equivalent, though in general less curious in its structure, wanting that waving in the blade for which the kris is remarkable, and approaching nearer to daggers or knives.

Among their exercises we never observe jumping or running. They smile at the Europeans, who in their excursions take so many unnecessary leaps.

The custom of going barefoot may be a princ.i.p.al impediment to this practice in a country overrun with th.o.r.n.y shrubs, and where no fences occur to render it a matter of expediency.

DIVERSION OF TOSSING A BALL.

They have a diversion similar to that described by Homer as practised among the Phaeacians, which consists in tossing an elastic wicker ball or round basket of split rattans into the air, and from one player to another, in a peculiar manner. This game is called by the Malays sipak raga, or, in the dialect of Bencoolen, chipak rago, and is played by a large party standing in an extended circle, who endeavour to keep up the ball by striking it either perpendicularly, in order to receive it again, or obliquely to some other person of the company, with the foot or the hand, the heel or the toe, the knee, the shoulder, the head, or with any other part of the body; the merit appearing to consist in producing the effect in the least obvious or most whimsical manner; and in this sport many of them attain an extraordinary degree of expertness. Among the plates of Lord Macartney's Emba.s.sy will be found the representation of a similar game, as practised by the natives of Cochinchina.

SMOKING OF OPIUM.

The Sumatrans, and more particularly the Malays, are much attached, in common with many other eastern people, to the custom of smoking opium.

The poppy which produces it not growing on the island, it is annually imported from Bengal in considerable quant.i.ties, in chests containing a hundred and forty pounds each. It is made up in cakes of five or six pounds weight, and packed with dried leaves; in which situation it will continue good and vendible for two years, but after that period grows hard and diminishes considerably in value. It is of a darker colour, and is supposed to have less strength than the Turkey opium. About a hundred and fifty chests are consumed annually on the west coast of Sumatra, where it is purchased, on an average, at three hundred dollars the chest, and sold again in smaller quant.i.ties at five or six. But on occasions of extraordinary scarcity I have known it to sell for its weight in silver, and a single chest to fetch upwards of three thousand dollars.

PREPARATION.

The method of preparing it for use is as follows. The raw opium is first boiled or seethed in a copper vessel; then strained through a cloth to free it from impurities; and then a second time boiled. The leaf of the tambaku, shred fine, is mixed with it, in a quant.i.ty sufficient to absorb the whole; and it is afterwards made up into small pills, about the size of a pea, for smoking. One of these being put into the small tube that projects from the side of the opium pipe, that tube is applied to a lamp, and the pill being lighted is consumed at one whiff or inflation of the lungs, attended with a whistling noise. The smoke is never emitted by the mouth, but usually receives vent through the nostrils, and sometimes, by adepts, through the pa.s.sage of the ears and eyes. This preparation of the opium is called maddat, and is often adulterated in the process by mixing jaggri, or pine sugar, with it; as is the raw opium, by incorporating with it the fruit of the pisang or plantain.

EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

The use of opium among these people, as that of intoxicating liquors among other nations, is a species of luxury which all ranks adopt according to their ability, and which, when once become habitual, it is almost impossible to shake off. Being however like other luxuries expensive, few only among the lower or middling cla.s.s of people can compa.s.s the regular enjoyment of it, even where its use is not restrained, as it is among the pepper-planters, to the times of their festivals. That the practice of smoking opium must be in some degree prejudicial to the health is highly probable; yet I am inclined to think that effects have been attributed to it much more pernicious to the const.i.tution than it in reality causes. The bugis soldiers and others in the Malay bazaars whom we see most attached to it, and who use it to excess, commonly appear emaciated; but they are in other respects abandoned and debauched. The Limun and Batang a.s.sei gold-traders, on the contrary, who are an active, laborious cla.s.s of men but yet indulge as freely in opium as any others whatever, are notwithstanding the most healthy and vigorous people to be met with on the island. It has been usual also to attribute to the practice destructive consequences of another nature from the frenzy it has been supposed to excite in those who take it in quant.i.ties. But this should probably rank with the many errors that mankind have been led into by travellers addicted to the marvellous; and there is every reason to believe that the furious quarrels, desperate a.s.sa.s.sinations, and sanguinary attacks, which the use of opium is said to give birth to, are idle notions, originally adopted through ignorance and since maintained from the mere want of investigation, without having any solid foundation. It is not to be controverted, that those desperate acts of indiscriminate murder, called by us mucks, and by the natives mengamok, do actually take place, and frequently too in some parts of the East (in Java in particular) but it is not equally evident that they proceed from any intoxication except that of their unruly pa.s.sions. Too often they are occasioned by excess of cruelty and injustice in their oppressors. On the west coast of Sumatra about twenty thousand pounds weight of this drug are consumed annually, yet instances of this crime do not happen (at least within the scope of our knowledge) above once in two or three years. During my residence there I had an opportunity of being an eyewitness but to one muck. The slave of a Portuguese woman, a man of the island of Nias, who in all probability had never handled an opium pipe in his life, being treated by his mistress with extreme severity for a trifling offence, vowed he would have revenge if she attempted to strike him again, and ran down the steps of the house with a knife in each hand, as it is said. She cried out, mengamok! The civil guard was called, who, having the power in these cases of exercising summary justice, fired half a dozen rounds into an outhouse where the unfortunate wretch had sheltered himself on their approach, and from whence he was at length dragged, covered with wounds.

Many other mucks might perhaps be found, upon scrutiny, of the nature of the foregoing, where a man of strong feelings was driven by excess of injury to domestic rebellion.

It is true that the Malays, when in a state of war they are bent on any daring enterprise, fortify themselves with a few whiffs of opium to render them insensible to danger, as the people of another nation are said to take a dram for the same purpose; but it must be observed that the resolution for the act precedes, and is not the effect of, the intoxication. They take the same precaution previous to being led to public execution; but on these occasions show greater signs of stupidity than frenzy. Upon the whole it may be reasonably concluded that the sanguinary achievements, for which the Malays have been famous, or infamous rather, in history, are more justly to be attributed to the natural ferocity of their disposition, or to the influence upon their manners of a particular state of society, than to the qualities of any drug whatever. The pretext of the soldiers of the country-guard for using opium is that it may render them watchful on their nightly posts: we on the contrary administer it to procure sleep, and according to the quant.i.ty it has either effect. The delirium it produces is known to be so very pleasing that Pope has supposed this to have been designed by Homer when he describes the delicious draught prepared by Helen, called nepenthe, which exhilarated the spirits and banished from the mind the recollection of woe.

It is remarkable that at Batavia, where the a.s.sa.s.sins just now described, when taken alive, are broken on the wheel, with every aggravation of punishment that the most rigorous justice can inflict, the mucks yet happen in great frequency, whilst at Bencoolen, where they are executed in the most simple and expeditious manner, the offence is extremely rare.

Excesses of severity in punishment may deter men from deliberate and interested acts of villainy, but they add fuel to the atrocious enthusiasm of desperadoes.

PIRATICAL ADVENTURES.

A further proof of the influence that mild government has upon the manners of people is that the piratical adventures so common on the eastern coast of the island are unknown on the western. Far from our having apprehensions of the Malays, the guards at the smaller English settlements are almost entirely composed of them, with a mixture of Bugis or Makasar people. Europeans, attended by Malays only, are continually travelling through the country. They are the only persons employed in carrying treasure to distant places; in the capacity of secretaries for the country correspondence; as civil officers in seizing delinquents among the planters and elsewhere; and as masters and supercargoes of the tambangans, praws, and other small coasting vessels. So great is the effect of moral causes and habit upon a physical character esteemed the most treacherous and sanguinary.

CHAPTER 15.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.

EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.

ORATORY.

CHILDREN.

NAMES.

CIRc.u.mCISION.

FUNERALS.

RELIGION.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.

Whether to blunt the edge of painful reflection, or owing to an aversion our natures have to total inaction, most nations have been addicted to the practice of enjoying by mastication or otherwise the flavour of substances possessing an inebriating quality. The South Americans chew the cocoa and mambee, and the eastern people the betel and areca, or, as they are called in the Malay language, sirih and pinang. This custom has been accurately described by various writers, and therefore it is almost superfluous to say more on the subject than that the Sumatrans universally use it, carry the ingredients constantly about them, and serve it to their guests on all occasions--the prince in a gold stand, and the poor man in a bra.s.s box or mat bag. The betel-stands of the better rank of people are usually of silver embossed with rude figures.

The Sultan of Moco-moco was presented with one by the India Company, with their arms on it; and he possesses beside another of gold filigree. The form of the stand is the frustum of a hexagonal pyramid reversed, about six or eight inches in diameter. It contains many smaller vessels fitted to the angles, for holding the nut, leaf, and chunam, which is quicklime made from calcined sh.e.l.ls; with places for the instruments (kachip) employed in cutting the first, and spatulas for spreading the last.

When the first salutation is over, which consists in bending the body, and the inferior's putting his joined hands between those of the superior, and then lifting them to his forehead, the betel is presented as a token of hospitality and an act of politeness. To omit it on the one hand or to reject it on the other would be an affront; as it would be likewise in a person of subordinate rank to address a great man without the precaution of chewing it before he spoke. All the preparation consists in spreading on the sirih leaf a small quant.i.ty of the chunam and folding it up with a slice of the pinang nut. Some mix with these gambir, which is a substance prepared from the leaves of a tree of that name by boiling their juices to a consistence, and made up into little b.a.l.l.s or squares, as before spoken of: tobacco is likewise added, which is shred fine for the purpose, and carried between the lip and upper row of teeth. From the mastication of the first three proceeds a juice which tinges the saliva of a bright red, and which the leaf and nut, without the chunam, will not yield. This hue being communicated to the mouth and lips is esteemed ornamental; and an agreeable flavour is imparted to the breath. The juice is usually (after the first fermentation produced by the lime) though not always swallowed by the chewers of betel. We might reasonably suppose that its active qualities would injure the coats of the stomach, but experience seems to disprove such a consequence. It is common to see the teeth of elderly persons stand loose in the gums, which is probably the effect of this custom, but I do not think that it affects the soundness of the teeth themselves. Children begin to chew betel very young, and yet their teeth are always beautifully white till pains are taken to disfigure them by filing and staining them black. To persons who are not habituated to the composition it causes a strong giddiness, astringes and excoriates the tongue and fauces, and deadens for a time the faculty of taste. During the puasa, or fast of ramadan, the Mahometans among them abstain from the use of betel whilst the sun continues above the horizon; but excepting at this season it is the constant luxury of both s.e.xes from an early period of childhood, till, becoming toothless, they are reduced to the necessity of having the ingredients previously reduced to a paste for them, that without further effort the betel may dissolve in the mouth. Along with the betel, and generally in the chunam, is the mode of conveying philtres, or love charms. How far they prove effectual I cannot take upon me to say, but suppose that they are of the nature of our stimulant medicines, and that the direction of the pa.s.sion is of course indiscriminate. The practice of administering poison in this manner is not followed in latter times; but that the idea is not so far eradicated as entirely to prevent suspicion appears from this circ.u.mstance, that the guest, though taking a leaf from the betel-service of his entertainer, not unfrequently applies to it his own chunam, and never omits to pa.s.s the former between his thumb and forefinger in order to wipe off any extraneous matter. This mistrustful procedure is so common as not to give offence.

TOBACCO.

Beside the mode before-mentioned of enjoying the flavour of tobacco it is also smoked by the natives and for this use--after shredding it fine whilst green and drying it well it is rolled up in the thin leaves of a tree, and is in that form called roko, a word they appear to have borrowed from the Dutch. The rokos are carried in the betel-box, or more commonly under the destar or handkerchief which, in imitation of a turband, surrounds the head. Much tobacco is likewise imported from China and sells at a high price. It seems to possess a greater pungency than the Sumatran plant, which the people cultivate for their own use in the interior parts of the island.

EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.

The custom of sending emblematical presents in order to make known, in a covert manner, the birth, progress, or change of certain affections of the mind, prevails here, as in some other parts of the East; and not only flowers of various kinds have their appropriate meaning, but also cayenne-pepper, betel-leaf, salt, and other articles are understood by adepts to denote love, jealousy, resentment, hatred, and other strong feelings.

ORATORY.

The Sumatrans in general are good speakers. The gift of oratory seems natural to them. I knew many among them whose harangues I have listened to with pleasure and admiration. This may be accounted for perhaps from the const.i.tution of their government, which being far removed from despotism seems to admit, in some degree, every member of the society to a share in the public deliberations. Where personal endowments, as has been observed, will often raise a private man to a share of importance in the community,superior to that of a nominal chief, there is abundant inducement for the acquisition of these valuable talents. The forms of their judicial proceedings likewise, where there are no established advocates and each man depends upon his own or his friend's abilities for the management of his cause, must doubtless contribute to this habitual eloquence. We may add to these conjectures the nature of their domestic manners, which introduce the sons at an early period of life into the business of the family, and the counsels of their elders. There is little to be perceived among them of that pa.s.sion for childish sports which marks the character of our boys from the seventh to the fourteenth year.

In Sumatra you may observe infants, not exceeding the former age, full dressed and armed with a kris, seated in the circle of the old men of the dusun, and attending to their debates with a gravity of countenance not surpa.s.sed by their grandfathers. Thus initiated they are qualified to deliver an opinion in public at a time of life when an English schoolboy could scarcely return an answer to a question beyond the limits of his grammar or syntax, which he has learned by rote. It is not a little unaccountable that this people, who hold the art of speaking in such high esteem, and evidently pique themselves on the attainment of it, should yet take so much pains to destroy the organs of speech in filing down and otherwise disfiguring their teeth; and likewise adopt the uncouth practice of filling their mouths with betel whenever they prepare to hold forth. We must conclude that it is not upon the graces of elocution they value an orator, but his artful and judicious management of the subject matter; together with a copiousness of phrase, a perspicuity of thought, an advantageous arrangement, and a readiness, especially, at unravelling the difficulties and intricacies of their suits.

CHILD-BEARING.

The curse entailed on women in the article of child-bearing does not fall so heavy in this as in the northern countries. Their pregnancy scarcely at any period prevents their attendance on the ordinary domestic duties; and usually within a few hours after their delivery they walk to the bathing-place, at a small distance from the house. The presence of a sage femme is often esteemed superfluous. The facility of parturition may probably be owing to the relaxation of the frame from the warmth of the climate; to which cause also may be attributed the paucity of children borne by the Sumatran women and the early decay of their beauty and strength. They have the tokens of old age at a season of life when European women have not pa.s.sed their prime. They are like the fruits of the country, soon ripe and soon decayed. They bear children before fifteen, are generally past it at thirty, and grey-headed and shrivelled at forty. I do not recollect hearing of any woman who had six children except the wife of Raddin of Madura, who had more; and she, contrary to the universal custom, did not give suck to hers.

TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.

Mothers carry the children not on the arm, as our nurses do, but straddling on the hip, and usually supported by a cloth which ties in a knot on the opposite shoulder. This practice I have been told is common in some parts of Wales. It is much safer than the other method, less tiresome to the nurse, and the child has the advantage of sitting in a less constrained posture: but the defensive armour of stays, and offensive weapons called pins, might be some objection to the general introduction of the fashion in England. The children are nursed but little, not confined by any swathing or bandages, and, being suffered to roll about the floor, soon learn to walk and shift for themselves. When cradles are used they are swung suspended from the ceiling of the rooms.

AGE OF THE PEOPLE.

The country people can very seldom give an account of their age, being entirely without any species of chronology. Among those country people who profess themselves Mahometans to very few is the date of the Hejra known; and even of those who in their writings make use of it not one in ten can p.r.o.nounce in what year of it he was born. After a few taun padi (harvests) are elapsed they are bewildered in regard to the date of an event, and only guess at it from some contemporary circ.u.mstance of notoriety, as the appointment of a particular dupati, the incursion of a certain enemy, or the like. As far as can be judged from observation it would seem that not a great proportion of the men attain to the age of fifty, and sixty years is accounted a long life.

NAMES.

The children among the Rejangs have generally a name given to them by their parents soon after their birth, which is called namo daging. The galar (cognomen), another species of name, or t.i.tle, as we improperly translate it, is bestowed at a subsequent, but not at any determinate, period: sometimes as the lads rise to manhood, at an entertainment given by the parent, on some particular occasion; and often at their marriage.

It is generally conferred by the old men of the neighbouring villages, when a.s.sembled; but instances occur of its being irregularly a.s.sumed by the persons themselves; and some never obtain any galar. It is also not unusual, at a convention held on business of importance, to change the galar of one or two of the princ.i.p.al personages to others of superior estimation; though it is not easy to discover in what this pre-eminence consists, the appellations being entirely arbitrary, at the fancy of those who confer them: perhaps in the loftier sound, or more pompous allusion in the sense, which latter is sometimes carried to an extraordinary pitch of bombast, as in the instance of Pengunchang b.u.mi, or Shaker of the World, the t.i.tle of a pangeran of Manna. But a climax is not always perceptible in the change.

FATHER NAMED FROM HIS CHILD.

The father, in many parts of the country, particularly in Pa.s.summah, is distinguished by the name of his first child, as Pa-Ladin, or Pa-Rindu (Pa for bapa, signifying the father of), and loses in this acquired his own proper name. This is a singular custom, and surely less conformable to the order of nature than that which names the son from the father.

There it is not usual to give them a galar on their marriage, as with the Rejangs, among whom the filionymic is not so common, though sometimes adopted, and occasionally joined with the galar; as Radin-pa-Chirano. The women never change the name given them at the time of their birth; yet frequently they are called, through courtesy, from their eldest child, Ma-si-ano, the mother of such a one; but rather as a polite description than a name. The word or particle Si is prefixed to the birth-names of persons, which almost ever consist of but a single word, as Si Bintang, Si Tolong; and we find from Captain Forrest's voyage that in the island of Mindanao the infant son of the Raja Muda was named Se Mama.

HESITATE TO p.r.o.nOUNCE THEIR OWN NAME.

A Sumatran ever scrupulously abstains from p.r.o.nouncing his own name; not as I understand from any motive of superst.i.tion, but merely as a punctilio in manners. It occasions him infinite embarra.s.sment when a stranger, unacquainted with their customs, requires it of him. As soon as he recovers from his confusion he solicits the interposition of his neighbour.

ADDRESS IN THE THIRD PERSON.

He is never addressed, except in the case of a superior dictating to his dependant, in the second person, but always in the third; using his name or t.i.tle instead of the p.r.o.noun; and when these are unknown a general t.i.tle of respect is subst.i.tuted, and they say, for instance, apa orang kaya punia suka, what is his honour's pleasure for what is your, or your honour's pleasure? When criminals or other ignominious persons are spoken to use is made of the p.r.o.noun personal kau (a contraction of angkau) particularly expressive of contempt. The idea of disrespect annexed to the use of the second person in discourse, though difficult to be accounted for, seems pretty general in the world. The Europeans, to avoid the supposed indecorum, exchange the singular number for the plural; but I think with less propriety of effect than the Asiatic mode; if to take off from the bluntness of address be the object aimed at.

CIRc.u.mCISION.

The boys are circ.u.mcised, where Mahometanism prevails, between the sixth and tenth year. The ceremony is called krat kulop and buang or lepas malu (casting away their shame), and a bimbang is usually given on the occasion; as well as at the ceremony of boring the ears and filing the teeth of their daughters (before described), which takes place at about the age of ten or twelve; and until this is performed they cannot with propriety be married.

FUNERALS.