The Pagan Tribes of Borneo Part 44

[189] -- The horn of the small and rare Bornean rhinoceros is the most highly valued of the various substances out of which the sword hilts are carved.

[190] -- Although it is impossible to form any estimate of the numbers of such imported slaves of negroid type, it is, we a.s.sert, a fact that some have been imported. We have trustworthy information of the possession of two Abyssinian slaves in recent times by a Malay n.o.ble.

[191] -- In the course of measuring and observing the physical characters of some 350 individuals of the various tribes, we recorded in each case the eye characters. Of a group of 80 subjects made up of Kenyahs, Klemantans, and Punans (who in this respect do not differ appreciably from one another), we noted a moderately marked Mongolian fold in 14 subjects, the rest having in equal numbers either no fold or but a slight trace of it. As regards obliquity of the aperture, in rather more than half it was recorded as slight, in one quarter as lacking, and in the rest as moderate. As regards the size of palpebral apertures, half were noted as medium, and about one quarter as small, and the remaining quarter as large. In the main, obliquity and smallness of aperture go with the presence of the Mongolian fold. The most common form of eye in this group may therefore be described as very slightly oblique, moderately large, and having a slight trace of the Mongolian fold.

[192] -- THE RACES OF MAN, p. 486, London, 1900.

[193] -- OP. CIT. p. 392.

[194] -- MAN, PAST AND PRESENT, London, 1899, pp. 562 and 143.

[195] -- Prof. A. H. Keane (MAN, PAST AND PRESENT, p. 206), after citing the statements of various observers to the effect that persons of almost purely Caucasic or European type are not infrequently encountered among several of the tribes of Upper Burma, Tonking, and a.s.sam, notably the Shans, and the allied peoples known as Chins, Karens, Kyens, and Kakhyens, writes: "Thus is again confirmed by the latest investigations, and by the conclusions of some of the leading members of the French school of anthropology, the view first advanced by me in 1879, that peoples of the Caucasic (here called 'Aryan') division had already spread to the utmost confines of south-east Asia in remote prehistoric times, and had in this region even preceded the first waves of Mongolic migration radiating from their cradleland on the Tibetian plateau." While we accept this view, so ably maintained by Keane, it is only fair to point out that J. R. Logan, in a paper published in 1850, had maintained that a Gangetic people (by WHICH HE meant a people formed in the Gangetic plain by the blending of Caucasic and Mongoloid stocks) bad wandered at a remote epoch into the area that is now Burma, following the sh.o.r.e of the Indo-Malayan sea; and that he recognised the Karens and Kakhyens as the modern representatives of this people of partially Caucasic origin ("The Ethnology of Eastern Asia," THE JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, vol. iv. p. 481, 1850).

[196] -- Nieuwenhuis publishes a photograph of such carvings found in the Mahakan or Upper Kotei river. They included fragments of a cylindrical column and what seems to be a caparisoned kneeling elephant. QUER DURCH BORNEO, vol. ii. p. 116.

[197] -- "The Ethnology of Eastern Asia," JOURN. OF INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, vol. iv. p. 478.

[198] -- We have not been able to find any full and satisfactory description of the Karens, but we have brought together whatever statements about them and the tribes most nearly related to them seem significant for our purpose from the following sources. The figures in brackets in the text refer to this list.

(1) J. R. Logan, "The Ethnology of Eastern Asia," LOC. CIT.

(2) Lieut.-Col. James Low on "The Karean Tribes of Martaban and Javai,"

JOURN. OF INDIAN ARCH., vol. iv.

(3) A. R. McMahon, THE KARENS OF THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE, London, 1876.

(4) E. B. Cross, "The Karens," JOURN. OF THE AMER. ORIENTAL SOC., 1854.

(5) T. Mason, "The Karens," JOURN. OF THE ASIATIC SOC., 1866, part ii.

(6) D. M. Smeaton, THE LOYAL KARENS OF BURMA, London, 1887.

(7) J. Anderson, FROM MANDALAY TO MOMIEN.

(8) Lieut.-Col. Waddell, "Tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley," JOURN. OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOC., 1900.

(9) A. R. Colquhoun, AMONG THE SHANS, London, 1885.

(10) T. C. Hodson, NAGA TRIBES OF MANIPUR, London, 1911.

(11) T.C. Hodson, "The a.s.sam Hills, " a paper read before the Geographical Society of Liverpool in 1905.

(12) Sir J. G. Scott, BURMA.

(13) A. H. Keane, MAN, PAST AND PRESENT, London, 1899.

(14) J. Deniker, THE RACES OF MAN, London, 1900.

[199] -- The cross-bow is used as a toy by Kayan boys only.

[200] -- Cp. the Kayan APO LEGGAN, vol. ii. p. 40.

[201] -- This, however, is a statement which perhaps might loosely be made of the Kayans. Cp. vol. ii. p. 34.

[202] -- [The Kuki's are normally not considered Nagas. They live in the same area, but are far more recent immigrants from Burma, and differ considerably from the Nagas. -- J.H.]

[203] -- It is worthy of note that the Kayans have long used and highly prize for the decoration of their swords the hair of the Tibetan goat dyed a dark red, and have continued to obtain this hair at a great price from Malay and Chinese traders. The wild tribes of the Chin hills, said to be closely akin to the Kukis, adorn their shields with ta.s.sels of goat's hair dyed red (see THE CHIN HILLS, by B. S. Carey and H. N. Tuck, Rangoon, 1896). According to the same authorities, these Chins are inveterate head-hunters. They read omens in the livers of pigs and other beasts, and in the cries of birds; they wear a loincloth like the Kayan Bah; they scare pests from their PADI fields by means of an apparatus like that used by Kayans (vol. i. p. 102); they floor their houses with huge planks hewn out with an adze very similar to the Kayan adze.

[204] -- Some communities of Malanaus never plant rice, but rely for their princ.i.p.al food supply upon the numerous sago-palms which they have planted round about their villages. It is doubtful whether these have ever cultivated PADI on any considerable scale.

[205] -- Deniker (RACES OF MAN, p. 392) describes, under the name MOIS, an aboriginal tribe of Annam in terms which show that they present many points of similarity with the Muruts.

[206] -- The Malay does not, like the Iban, make use of the various animal designs, but confines himself to simple geometrical patterns -- but this difference is probably a result of the adoption of the Moslem religion.

[207] -- Most Ibans now procure the PARANG ILANG of the Kayans and copy their wooden shields.

[208] -- The fire-piston is found also in North Borneo, but with this exception is peculiar to the Ibans among the pagan tribes. It has been widely used by the Malays of the peninsula and those of Menangkaban in Sumatra (see H. Balfour, "The Fire Piston," in volume of essays in honour of E. B. Tylor).

[209] -- The general use of this mat is common to the Kenyahs, Punans, and most of the Klemantans, but it is comparatively rare among the Kayans; this is a significant fact, for such a mat is more needed by a jungle dweller than by one whose home is a well-built house. We have not met with any mention of such a mat among the tribes of the mainland.

[210] -- See the vocabularies of the Kayan, Kenyah, and Kalabit (Murut) languages recently published by Mr. R. S. Douglas, Resident of the Baram district, in the JOURNAL OF THE SARAWAK MUSEUM, Feb. 1911.

[211] -- This is clearly shown in the article "BALI" of Monier Williams's SANSKRIT DICTIONARY.

[212] -- For a full account of these transactions and for the later history of Sarawak in general the reader may be referred to the recently published SARAWAK UNDER TWO WHITE RAJAHS, by Messrs. Bampfylde and Baring-Gould, London, 1909.

[213] -- The principles according to which the government has been conducted cannot be better expressed than in the following words of H. H. Sir Charles Brooke, the present Rajah. Writing in the SARAWAK GAZETTE of September 2, 1872, he observed that a government such as that of Sarawak may "start from things as we find them, putting its veto on what is dangerous or unjust and supporting what is fair and equitable in the usages of the natives, and letting system and legislation wait upon occasion. When new wants are felt it examines and provides for them by measures rather made on the spot than imported from abroad; and, to ensure that these shall not be contrary to native customs, the consent of the people is gained for them before they are put in force. The white man's so-called privilege of cla.s.s is made little of and the rules of government are framed with greater care for the interests of the majority who are not European than for those of the minority of superior race."

[214] -- See pp. 417 -- 420 of Messrs. Bampfylde and Baring Gould's TWO WHITE RAJAHS.

[215] -- These three masks were afterwards given to the Resident, and are now in the British Museum.

[216] -- "A Savage Peace-Conference," by W. McDougall, THE EAGLE, the magazine of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1900.

[217] -- The dollar is the Straits Settlements dollar; its value in English money is two shillings and fourpence.

[218] -- This Company has enjoyed, for more than half a century, the right to work minerals in Sarawak, paying royalty to the government; it has been and is the princ.i.p.al channel through which the natural products of the country have been brought into the world's markets. It has always worked in harmony with the government, and to the judicious conduct of its affairs the present material prosperity of the country is largely due. An important development of the Company's activity in recent years has been the planting of large areas with the Para rubber-plant.

[219] -- The beneficent and active interest taken by the Rajah in the prosperity of the natives, and the paternal character of his government, are well ill.u.s.trated by a recently issued order. It is within the memory of all that in the years 1910 and 1911 occurred the great rubber "boom" in the markets of Europe. With the hope of vast profits, speculators hurried to every region where rubber was known to grow. The seeds of the Para rubber-plant had been introduced to Sarawak many years before; the suitability of the soil and climate for the production of the best quality of Para rubber had been abundantly demonstrated and the natives had been encouraged to plant for their own profit the seeds and young plants which were distributed to them from the government stations, so that when the boom came many of them possessed small plantations of the trees that "lay the golden eggs." The speculators were everywhere seeking to buy these plantations at prices which, though they seemed handsome to the natives, were low enough to provide a very large profit to the buyers. The Rajah caused warnings to be published and brought to the notice of the natives, and informed them that they were at full liberty to appropriate jungle. land for the formation of rubber plantations, and that their tenure of such lands would be secured to them so long as they cared for the trees and worked the rubber properly. He further ordered that no sales of rubber plantations should be effected without the knowledge and approval of the government.

[220] -- The Rajahs of Sarawak have personally chosen and appointed their white officers with the greatest care; and their good judgment has secured for, their country the services of a number of Englishmen of high abilities and sterling moral quality. Of those members of the Sarawak service who have pa.s.sed away, the following have pre-eminent claims to be gratefully remembered by the people of the country: James Brooke Brooke (nephew of the first Rajah), W. Brereton, A. C. Crookshank, J. B. Cruickshank, C. C. de Crespigny, A. H. Everett, H. Brooke Low, C. S. Pea.r.s.e, and, above all, F. R. O. Maxwell.

[221] -- Crawford, a leading authority on the history of the East Indian Islands, wrote of the Dutch in Borneo of the early times -- "Their sole object, according to the commercial principles of the time, was to obtain, through arrangements with the native prince, the staple products of the country at prices below their natural cost, and to sell them above it... . The result of these (arrangements) was the decline of the trade of Banjermasin; its staple product, pepper, which had at one time been considerable, having become nearly extinct"

(DICTIONARY OF THE INDIAN ISLANDS, Lond., 1865, p. 65).

[222] -- 'QUER DURCH BORNEO,' by A. W. Nieuwenhuis.

[223] -- Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis, "Anthropometrische Untersuchungen bei den Dajak." Bearbeitet durch Dr. J. H. F. Kohlbrugge, MITT. AUS DEM NIEDERL. REICHSMUS. FUR VOLKERK. ser. ii. No. 5, Haarlem, 1903. Owing to the inaccessibility of this memoir, I have incorporated his more important observations in this essay.

[224] -- Swaving, G., NATUURK. TIJDSCHR. V. NED. IND., xxiii., 1861, xxiv., 1862.

Hoeven, J. van der, CATALOGUS CRANIORUM DIVERSARUM GENTIUM.

Virchow, R., Z.F.E., xvii., 1885, p. (270), in which he states that of 47 "Dayak" skulls in the museums of Paris, Amsterdam, and the Royal College of Surgeons, London, 20 were dolichocephalic, 12 mesaticephalic, and 15 brachycephalic. Cf. also Z.F.E., xxiv., 1892, p. (435).

Hagen, B., VERH. D. KON. AKAD. D. WETENSCH. NATUURKUND, xxviii., Amsterdam, 1890.

Waldeyer, W., Z.F.E., xxvi., 1894, p. (383).