The History of Sumatra Part 31

COME UP WITH THE ENEMY.

26th. The officer commanding the advanced party sent word that the enemy were at a short distance ahead; that they had felled a number of trees to obstruct the road, and had thrown an entrenchment across it, extending from one swamp and precipice to another, where they waited to receive us.

When the whole of the detachment had come up we marched on to the attack, scrambled over the trees, and with great difficulty got the mortar over.

FIRST ATTACK FAILS.

The first onset was not attended with success, and our men were dropping fast, not being able to advance on account of the ranjaus, which almost pinned their feet to the ground. Seeing that the entrenchments were not to be carried in front, a subedar with thirty sepoys and the bugis-guard were ordered to endeavour to pa.s.s the swamp on the right, find out a pathway, and attack the enemy on the flank and rear, while the remainder should, on a preconcerted signal, make an attack on the front at the same time. To prevent the enemy from discovering our intentions the drums were kept beating, and a few random shots fired. Upon the signal being given a general attack commenced, and our success was complete.

ENTRENCHMENTS CARRIED.

The enemy, of whom there were, as we reckon, three or four hundred within the entrenchments, were soon put to the rout, and, after losing great numbers, among whom was the head dupati, a princ.i.p.al instigator of the disturbances, fled in all directions. We lost two sepoys killed and seven wounded, beside several much hurt by the ranjaus. The mortar played during the time, but is not supposed to have done much execution on account of the surrounding trees.

THEIR CONSTRUCTION.

The entrenchments were constructed of large trees laid horizontally between stakes driven into the ground, about seven feet high, with loopholes for firing. Being laid about six feet thick, a cannonball could not have penetrated. They extended eighty or ninety yards. The headman's quarters were a large tree hollowed at the root.

As soon as litters could be made for the wounded, and the killed were buried, we continued our march in an eastern direction, and in about an hour arrived at another battery, which however was not defended. In front of this the enemy had tied a number of long sharp stakes to a stone, which was suspended to the bough of a tree, and by swinging it their plan was to wound us.

ARRIVE AT A STREAM RUNNING INTO THE JAMBI RIVER.

Crossed the Tambesi rivulet, flowing from south to north, and one of the contributary streams to the Jambi River, which discharges itself into the sea on the eastern side of the Island. Built our huts near a field of maize and padi.

KOTO TUGGOH.

27th. Marched to Koto Tuggoh, from whence the inhabitants fled on our throwing one sh.e.l.l and firing a few muskets, and we took possession of the place. It is situated on a high hill, nearly perpendicular on three sides, the easiest entrance being on the west, but it is there defended by a ditch seven fathoms deep and five wide. The place contains the ballei and about twenty houses, built in general of plank very neatly put together, and carved; and some of them were also roofed with planks or shingles about two feet long and one broad. The others with the leaves of the puar or cardamum, which are again very thinly covered with iju. This is said to last long, but harbours vermin, as we experienced. When we entered the village we met with only one person, who was deformed, dumb, and had more the appearance of a monkey than a human creature.

DESTROYED. ENTER KOTO BHARU.

March 1st. After completely destroying Koto Tuggoh we marched in a north and afterwards an east direction, and arrived at Koto Bharu. The head dupati requesting a parley, it was granted, and, on our promising not to injure his village, he allowed us to take possession of it. We found in the place a number of Batang Asei and other people, armed with muskets, blunderbusses, and spears. At our desire, he sent off people to the other Sungei-tenang villages to summon their chiefs to meet us if they chose to show themselves friends, or otherwise we should proceed against them as we had done against Koto Tuggoh.

PEACE CONCLUDED.

This dupati was a respectable-looking old man, and tears trickled down his cheeks when matters were amicably settled between us: indeed for some time he could hardly be convinced of it, and repeatedly asked, "Are we friends?" 2nd. The chiefs met as desired, and after a short conversation agreed to all that we proposed. Papers were thereupon drawn up and signed and sworn to under the British colours. After this a sh.e.l.l was thrown into the air at the request of the chiefs, who were desirous of witnessing the sight.

MODE OF TAKING AN OATH.

Their method of swearing was as follows: The young shoots of the anau-tree were made into a kind of rope, with the leaves hanging, and this was attached to four stakes stuck in the ground, forming an area of five or six feet square, within which a mat was spread, where those about to take the oath seated themselves. A small branch of the p.r.i.c.kly bamboo was planted in the area also, and benzoin was kept burning during the ceremony. The chiefs then laid their hands on the koran, held to them by a priest, and one of them repeated to the rest the substance of the oath, who, at the pauses he made, gave a nod of a.s.sent; after which they severally said, "may the earth become barren, the air and water poisonous, and may dreadful calamities fall on us and our posterity, if we do not fulfil what we now agree to and promise."

ACCOUNT OF SUNGEI-TENANG COUNTRY.

We met here with little or no fruit excepting plantains and pineapples, and these of an indifferent sort. The general produce of the country was maize, padi, potatoes, sweet-potatoes, tobacco, and sugar-cane. The princ.i.p.al part of their clothing was procured from the eastern side of the island. They appear to have no regular season for sowing the grain, and we saw plantations where in one part they had taken in the crop, in another part it was nearly ripe, in a third not above five inches high, and in a fourth they had but just prepared the ground for sowing. Upon the whole, there appeared more cultivation than near the coast.

MANNERS OF PEOPLE.

It is a practice with many individuals among these people (as with mountaineers in some parts of Europe) to leave their country in order to seek employment where they can find it, and at the end of three or four years revisit their native soil, bringing with them the produce of their labours. If they happen to be successful they become itinerant merchants, and travel to almost all parts of the island, particularly where fairs are held, or else purchase a matchlock gun and become soldiers of fortune, hiring themselves to whoever will pay them, but always ready to come forward in defence of their country and families. They are a thick stout dark race of people, something resembling the Achinese; and in general they are addicted to smoking opium. We had no opportunity of seeing the Sungei-tenang women. The men are very fantastical in their dress. Their bajus have the sleeves blue perhaps whilst the body is white, with stripes of red or any other colour over the shoulders, and their short breeches are generally one half blue and the other white, just as fancy leads them. Others again are dressed entirely in blue cotton cloth, the same as the inhabitants of the west coast. The bag containing their sirih or betel hangs over the shoulder by a string, if it may be so termed, of bra.s.s wire. Many of them have also twisted bra.s.s wire round the waist, in which they stick their krises.

CHARMS.

They commonly carry charms about their persons to preserve them from accidents; one of which was shown to us, printed (at Batavia or Samarang in Java) in Dutch, Portuguese, and French. It purported that the writer was acquainted with the occult sciences, and that whoever possessed one of the papers impressed with his mark (which was the figure of a hand with the thumb and fingers extended) was invulnerable and free from all kinds of harm. It desired the people to be very cautious of taking any such printed in London (where certainly none were ever printed), as the English would endeavour to counterfeit them and to impose on the purchasers, being all cheats. (Whether we consider this as a political or a mercantile speculation it is not a little extraordinary and ridiculous).

The houses here, as well as in the Serampei country, are all built on posts of what they call paku gajah (elephant-fern, Chamaerops palma, Lour.), a tree something resembling a fern, and when full-grown a palm-tree. It is of a fibrous nature, black, and lasts for a great length of time. Every dusun has a ballei or town hall, about a hundred and twenty feet long and proportionably broad, the woodwork of which is neatly carved. The dwelling-houses contain five, six, or seven families each, and the country is populous. The inhabitants both of Sungei-tenang and Serampei are Mahometans, and acknowledge themselves subjects of Jambi. The former country, so well as we were able to ascertain, is bounded on the north and north-west by Korinchi and Serampei, on the west and south-west by the Anak-sungei or Moco-moco and Ipu districts, on the south by Labun, and on the east by Batang Asei and Pakalang-jambu. 3rd.

Marched on our return to the coast, many of the princ.i.p.al people attending us as far as the last of their plantations. It rained hard almost the whole of this day.

RETURN TO THE COAST.

On the 14th arrived at Moco-moco; on the 22nd proceeded for Bencoolen, and arrived there on the 30th March 1805, after one of the most fatiguing and hara.s.sing expeditions any detachment of troops ever served upon; attended with the sickness of the whole of the party, and the death of many, particularly of Mr. Alexander, the surgeon.

End of Lieutenant Dare's narrative.

It is almost unnecessary to observe that these were the consequences of the extreme impolicy of sending an expedition up the country in the heart of the rainy season. The public orders issued on the occasion were highly creditable to Lieutenant Dare.

CHAPTER 18.

MALAYAN STATES.

ANCIENT EMPIRE OF MENANGKABAU.

ORIGIN OF THE MALAYS AND GENERAL ACCEPTATION OF NAME.

EVIDENCES OF THEIR MIGRATION FROM SUMATRA.

SUCCESSION OF MALAYAN PRINCES.

PRESENT STATE OF THE EMPIRE.

t.i.tLES OF THE SULTAN.

CEREMONIES.

CONVERSION TO MAHOMETAN RELIGION.

LITERATURE.

ARTS.

WARFARE.

GOVERNMENT.

MALAYAN STATES.

I shall now take a more particular view of the Malayan states, as distinguished from those of the people termed orang ulu or countrymen, and orang dusun or villagers, who, not being generally converted to the Mahometan religion, have thereby preserved a more original character.

EMPIRE OF MENANGKABAU.

The princ.i.p.al government, and whose jurisdiction in ancient times is understood to have comprehended the whole of Sumatra, is Menangkabau,*

situated under the equinoctial line, beyond the western range of high mountains, and nearly in the centre of the island; in which respect it differs from Malayan establishments in other parts, which are almost universally near the mouths of large rivers. The appellations however of orang menangkabau and orang malayo are so much identified that, previously to entering upon an account of the former, it will be useful to throw as much light as possible upon the latter, and to ascertain to what description of people the name of Malays, bestowed by Europeans upon all who resemble them in features and complexion, properly belongs.

(*Footnote. The name is said to be derived from the words menang, signifying to win, and karbau, a buffalo; from a story, carrying a very fabulous air, of a famous engagement on that spot between the buffaloes and tigers, in which the former are stated to have acquired a complete victory. Such is the account the natives give; but they are fond of dealing in fiction, and the etymology has probably no better foundation than a fanciful resemblance of sound.)

ORIGIN OF MALAYS.

It has. .h.i.therto been considered as an obvious truth, and admitted without examination that, wherever they are found upon the numerous islands forming this archipelago, they or their ancestors must have migrated from the country named by Europeans (and by them alone) the Malayan peninsula or peninsula of Malacca, of which the indigenous and proper inhabitants were understood to be Malays; and accordingly in the former editions of this work I spoke of the natives of Menangkabau as having acquired their religion, language, manners, and other national characteristics from the settling among them of genuine Malays from the neighbouring continent. It will however appear from the authorities I shall produce, amounting as nearly to positive evidence as the nature of the subject will admit, that the present possessors of the coasts of the peninsula were on the contrary in the first instance adventurers from Sumatra, who in the twelfth century formed an establishment there, and that the indigenous inhabitants, gradually driven by them to the woods and mountains, so far from being the stock from whence the Malays were propagated, are an entirely different race of men, nearly approaching in their physical character to the negroes of Africa.

MIGRATION FROM SUMATRA.

The evidences of this migration from Sumatra are chiefly found in two Malayan books well known, by character at least, to those who are conversant with the written language, the one named Taju a.s.salatin or Makuta segala raja-raja, The Crown of all Kings, and the other, more immediately to the purpose, Sulalat a.s.salatin or Penurun-an segala rajaraja, The Descent of all (Malayan) Kings. Of these it has not been my good fortune to obtain copies, but the contents, so far as they apply to the present subject, have been fully detailed by two eminent Dutch writers to whom the literature of this part of the East was familiar.

Petrus van der Worm first communicated the knowledge of these historical treatises in his learned Introduction to the Malayan Vocabulary of Gueynier, printed at Batavia in the year 1677; and extracts to the same effect were afterwards given by Valentyn in Volume 5 pages 316 to 320 of his elaborate work, published at Amsterdam in 1726. The books are likewise mentioned in a list of Malayan Authors by G.H. Werndly, at the end of his Maleische Spraak-kunst, and by the ingenious Dr. Leyden in his Paper on the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations, recently published in Volume 10 of the Asiatic Researches. The substance of the information conveyed by them is as follows; and I trust it will not be thought that the mixture of a portion of mythological fable in accounts of this nature invalidates what might otherwise have credit as historical fact. The utmost indeed we can pretend to ascertain is what the natives themselves believe to have been their ancient history; and it is proper to remark that in the present question there can be no suspicion of bias from national vanity, as we have reason to presume that the authors of these books were not Sumatrans.

The original country inhabited by the Malayan race (according to these authorities) was the kingdom of Palembang in the island of Indalus, now Sumatra, on the river Malayo, which flows by the mountain named Maha-meru, and discharges itself into the river Tatang (on which Palembang stands) before it joins the sea. Having chosen for their king or leader a prince named Sri Turi Buwana, who boasted his descent from Iskander the Great, and to whom, on that account, their natural chief Demang Lebar Daun submitted his authority, they emigrated, under his command (about the year 1160), to the south-eastern extremity of the opposite peninsula, named Ujong Tanah, where they were at first distinguished by the appellation of orang de-bawah angin or the Leeward people, but in time the coast became generally known by that of Tanah malayo or the Malayan land.