THE MALAYAN RACE.
Physical Conformation of the Malays--Betel Chewing--Their Moral
Character--Limited Intelligence of the Malays--Their Maritime
Tastes--Piracy--Gambling--Cock-fighting--Running A-muck!--
Fishing--Malayan Superstitions--The Battas--Their Cannibalism--
Eating a Man alive--The Begus--Aërial Huts--Funeral Ceremonies--
The Dyaks--Head-hunting--The Sumpitan--Large Houses.
Unlike the apathetic Indian hunter, whose wishes are bounded by the
forest or the savannah, where the chase provides him with a scanty
subsistence, or the good-humoured Negro who, fond of agriculture, and
attached to the soil on which he was born, never thinks of wandering of
his own free will to distant countries, the roving race of the Malays
has scattered its colonies far and wide over the Indian Archipelago.
The colour of the various tribes of this remarkable people is a
yellowish-brown, and varies but little throughout the numerous islands
extending from Sumatra and the peninsula of Malacca to the Moluccas.
The hair is black, coarse and straight, the beard scanty. The stature
is below the average European size, the breast well developed,
the limbs meagre. The face is broad and somewhat flat, with high
cheek-bones, a small nose, a large mouth with broad lips, and black
eyes with angular orbits. The children and young people of both sexes
are often really handsome in face and graceful in figure, but as they
advance in age their features become hard, and frequently present a
repulsive appearance.
Like most nations in a rude state of society, they are in the habit of
permanently disfiguring parts of the body under the idea of ornament.
Considering blackness a becoming colour for the teeth--for dogs, they
say, have them white--they file the enamel so that the bone may be
tinged by the juice of the pungent betel, which, wrapped round the
nut of the areca palm, and mixed with lime, they are in the habit of
chewing from morning till night. This combination, besides discolouring
the teeth, has the disgusting property of dyeing the saliva of so deep
a red that the lips and gums appear as if coloured with blood; yet it
is in universal use throughout the whole Indian Archipelago, and, as
excuses are never failing to justify bad habits, is said to have tonic
effects and to promote digestion.
The Malays are not a demonstrative people; their behaviour towards
strangers is marked by a reserve, a distrust, or even a timidity
which inclines the observer to tax with exaggeration the wild and
bloodthirsty character which is generally ascribed to their race.
The feelings of astonishment, admiration, and fear are never openly
expressed, and their slow and considerate speech shows how careful they
are not to give offence.
To indulge in a joke is quite contrary to their natural disposition,
and they deeply feel, and are ever ready to resent, a breach of
etiquette or a personal affront. The higher classes are extremely
polite, and have all the quiet manners and dignity of the best
educated Europeans. But this external polish is united with a reckless
cruelty and contempt for human life which forms the dark side of their
character. Hence it is not to be wondered at that different authors
give us such totally contradictory accounts of them.
An old traveller, Nicolo Conti, who wrote in 1430, says that ‘the
inhabitants of Java and Sumatra surpass all other people in cruelty,’
while Drake praises their love of truth and justice. Mr. Crawfurd
describes the Javanese as a peaceable and industrious people, but
Barbosa, who visited Malacca about the year 1660, informs us that they
are extremely cunning and great cheats; that they seldom speak the
truth, and are ever ready for a villanous deed.
Their intelligence seems to be incapable of any higher flight. They
comprehend nothing which goes beyond the simplest combination of ideas,
and have little taste and energy to obtain an increase of knowledge.
The civilisation they possess shows no traces of original growth, but
is entirely confined to those nations or states which have adopted the
Mahometan religion, or in still earlier times received their culture
from India.
It must, however, be remarked in their favour that the curse both of
domestic tyranny and of a foreign yoke weighs heavily upon them, and
that the extension of European domination in the Indian Ocean has been
as fatal to their race as it has been in America and Africa to the
Red-skin and the Negro.
‘The first voyagers from the west,’ says Rajah Brooke, ‘found the
natives rich and powerful, with strong established governments, a
flourishing literature, and a thriving trade with all parts of the
eastern world. The rapacious European has reduced them to their present
abject condition. Their governments have been broken up; the old states
decomposed by treachery, by bribery, and intrigue; their possessions
wrested from them under flimsy pretences, their trade restricted, their
vices encouraged, and their virtues repressed.’
‘Among the Malays of the present day,’ says Newbold, ‘we look in
vain for that desire of knowledge which excited their ancestors to
transplant the flowers of Arabian literature among their own forests.
Works of science are now no longer translated from the Arabic, and
creations of the imagination have almost ceased to appear. The few
children educated among them learn nothing but to mumble in an unknown
tongue a few passages from the Koran, entirely neglecting arithmetic
and the acquirement of any useful manual art or employment. Painting,
sculpture, architecture, mechanics, geography, are totally unknown to
the Malays. Their literature declined with the fall of their empire in
the Archipelago, nor could it well be expected to flourish under the
Upas trees of Portuguese intolerance, Dutch oppression, and British
apathy.’
Essentially maritime in their tastes, the Malays have been named the
Phœnicians of the East; but not satisfied with the peaceful pursuits of
the fisherman or the merchant, many of them infest the Indian Ocean as
merciless pirates.
Encouraged by the weakness and distraction of the old-established Malay
governments, the facilities offered by natural situation, and the total
absence of all restraint from European nations, except now and then the
destruction of some mud fort or bamboo-village, which is soon rebuilt,
the Illanuns, the Balagnini, and other sea-robbing tribes, issue forth
like beasts of prey, enslave or murder the inhabitants on the coasts or
at the entrance of rivers, and attack ill-armed or stranded European
vessels.
The Illanuns of Mindanao are particularly noted for their daring and
long-protracted piratical excursions, which they undertake in large
junks with sails, netting, and heavy guns. On one occasion the ‘Rajah
Brooke’ met eighteen Illanun boats on neutral ground, and learned
from their two chiefs that they had been two years absent from home;
and from the Papuan slaves on board it was evident that their cruise
had extended from the most eastern islands of the Archipelago to the
north-western coast of Borneo.
The Balagnini inhabit a cluster of small islands in the vicinity of
Sooloo, where they probably find encouragement and a slave market. They
cruise in large prahus, and to each of these a fleet boat or ‘sampan’
is attached, which on occasion can carry from ten to fifteen men. They
seldom have large guns like the Illanuns, but, in addition to their
other arms, brass pieces, carrying from a one- to a three-pound ball.
They use long poles with barbed iron points, with which, during an
engagement or flight, they hook their prey. By means of their sampans
they are able to capture all small boats; and it is a favourite device
with them to disguise one or two men, whilst the rest lie concealed
in the bottom of the boat, and thus to surprise prahus at sea, and
fishermen or others at the mouths of rivers. Their cruising grounds are
very extensive; they frequently make the circuit of Borneo; Gillolo
and the Moluccas lie within their range, and it is probable that
Papua is occasionally visited by them. The Borneans, from being so
harassed by these freebooters, who yearly take a considerable number
of this unwarlike people into slavery, call the easterly monsoon
‘the pirate wind.’ Their own native governments are probably without
exception participators in or victims to piracy, and in many cases
both--purchasing from one set of pirates and enslaved and plundered by
another; and whilst their dependencies are abandoned, the unprotected
trade goes to ruin. Thus piracy rests like a blighting curse upon lands
pre-eminently blessed by Nature, and proves as ruinous to the welfare
of the Eastern Archipelago as the black stain of the African slave
trade to that of the Negroes.
The Malays are inveterate gamblers, and, perhaps for want of some
nobler object on which to expend their mental energies, carry the mania
of betting at cock-fights to a ruinous excess. Passionately addicted
to this favourite amusement, they will lose all their property on a
favourite bird, and having lost that, stake their families, and after
the loss of wife and children, their own personal liberty, being
prepared to serve as slaves in case of losing. Whole poems are devoted
to enthusiastic descriptions of cock-fighting, which is regulated by
universally acknowledged laws as minute as those of the Hoyleian Code.
The birds are not trimmed as in England, but fight in full feather,
armed with straight or curved artificial spurs, sharp as razors and
about two and a half inches long. Large gashes are inflicted by these
murderous instruments, and it rarely happens that both cocks survive
the battle. One spur only is used, and is generally fastened near the
natural spur on the inside of the left leg. Cocks of the same colour
are seldom matched. The weight is adjusted by the setters-to, passing
them to and from each other’s hands as they sit facing each other in
the cock-pit. Should there be any difference, it is brought down to an
equality by the spur being fixed so many scales higher on the leg of
the heavier cock, or as deemed fair by both parties. In adjusting these
preliminaries the professional skill of the setters-to is called into
action, and much time is taken up in grave deliberation, which often
terminates in wrangling. The birds, after various methods of irritating
them have been practised, are then set to. During the continuance of
the battle the excitement and interest taken by the gambling spectators
in the barbarous exhibition is vividly depicted in their animated
looks and gestures.
The Malays who are not slaves go always armed; they would think
themselves disgraced if they went abroad without their crees or
poniards, which, to render them more formidable, are often steeped
in poison. These weapons, which thus afford them the ready means for
avenging an affront, are probably the chief cause which renders their
outward deportment to each other remarkably punctilious and courteous,
but they sometimes become highly dangerous in the hands of a people
whose nervous temperament is liable to sudden explosions of frantic
rage. Like the old Berserks of the heroic ages of Scandinavia, a Malay
is capable of so far working himself into fury, of so far yielding to
some spontaneous impulse, or of so far exciting himself by stimulants,
as to become totally regardless of what danger he exposes himself to.
In this state, which is called ‘running a-muck,’ he rushes forth as
an infuriated animal and attacks all who fall in his way, until he is
either struck down like a wild beast, or having expended his morbid
rage he falls down exhausted.
The Malays are bad agriculturists and artisans but excellent sportsmen.
From the small birds which they entangle in their snares to the large
animals of the forest, which they shoot or entrap in pit-falls, or
destroy by spring-guns, nothing worth catching escapes their attention.
Such is their delight in fishing, that even women and children may be
seen in numbers during the rains angling in the swampy rice grounds.
Spearing excursions against the swordfish are undertaken during the
dark of the moon by the light of torches. A good eye, a steady hand
are necessary, and a perfect knowledge of the places where the fish
are to be found. Each canoe carries a steersman, a man with a long
pole to propel the vessel, and a spearsman, who, armed with a long
slender javelin having a head composed of the sharpened spikes of the
Nibong palm, and holding in his left hand a large blazing torch, takes
his station at the stern of the canoe. They thus glide slowly and
noiselessly over the still surface of the clear water, till the rays
of the flambeau either attract the prey to the surface or discover it
lying seemingly asleep at a little depth below. The sudden splash of
the swiftly descending spear is heard, and the fish is the next moment
seen glittering in the air, either transfixed by the spikes or caught
in the interstices as the weapon is withdrawn.
As a natural consequence of their extreme ignorance, the Malays, even
the best educated, are inordinately superstitious, and people the
invisible world with a host of malignant spirits. The Pamburk roams the
forest, like the wild huntsman of the Haruz, with demon dogs, and the
storm fiend Hantu Ribut howls in the blast and revels in the whirlwind.
Tigers are considered in many instances to be the receptacles of the
souls of departed human beings, and they believe that some men have
the faculty of transforming themselves at pleasure into tigers, and
that others enjoy the privilege of invulnerability. They rely firmly on
the efficacy of charms, spells, amulets, talismans, lucky and unlucky
moments, magic, and judicial astrology. To pull down or repair a
seriously damaged house is considered unlucky, so that whenever a Malay
has occasion to build a new house he leaves the old one standing.
While the coasts of Borneo and Sumatra are occupied by the more
civilised Mahometan Malays, the interior of these vast islands is
inhabited by nations, probably of the same race, who, secluded
from the rest of the world, exhibit in their customs a strange and
almost incredible mixture of good and evil, of humane tendencies and
diabolical barbarism.
Thus the Battas, who next to the Malays are the most numerous people
of Sumatra, have the same polite and ceremonious manner, they possess
an ancient code of law, they write books, and are fond of music,
they build commodious houses, which they ornament with tasteful
carvings, they wear handsome tissues and know the art of smelting and
amalgamating metals; they are extremely good-natured, and yet they not
only eat human flesh, but eat it under circumstances of unexampled
atrocity.
According to their own traditions, their ancestors knew nothing of this
horrid practice, which was first instigated by the demon of war about
the year 1630, and from being originally an act of vengeance or fury,
became at length one of their institutions in times of peace, and is
now legally sanctioned as a punishment for certain heavy crimes. In
some cases the delinquent is first killed and then eaten, in others
he is eaten alive, an aggravated punishment which, however, is only
reserved for traitors, spies, and enemies seized arms in hand. Before
the day appointed for execution, messengers are sent to all friends
and allies, and preparations made as for a great festival. The victim,
tied to a stake, awaits his horrible fate, while the air resounds with
music and the clamour of hundreds of spectators. The rajah of the
village steps forward, draws his knife, addresses the assembly, relates
the crimes which justify the sentence, and says that now the moment is
come for punishing the doomed wretch, whom he describes as a hellish
scoundrel, as a Satan in a human form. At these words the actors in the
shocking drama about to be performed feel, as they say, an invincible
longing to swallow a piece of the villain’s flesh, as they then feel
sure that he can do them no further harm, and impatiently brandish
their knives.
The rajah or the injured person, such is his privilege, now cuts off
the first piece of flesh, which he generally selects from the inner
side of the forearm (this being esteemed the most delicate morsel), or
from the cheek when sufficiently fat, holds it up triumphantly, and
tastes some of the flowing blood, his eyes at the same time sparkling
with delight. He then hurries to one of the fires that have been
kindled close by to broil his piece of meat before swallowing it,
while the whole troop falls upon the miserable wretch, who, hacked to
pieces, and bleeding from a hundred wounds, in a few moments expires.
The avidity with which they devour his quivering flesh, untouched by
his shrieks and supplications, is the more to be wondered at as in
other cases they show themselves susceptible of a tender pity for the
sufferings of others. As if scenes like these were not sufficiently
horrible, it has even been affirmed that the Battas eat their aged
parents alive, but we hardly need the authority of Dr. Junghuhn, who,
during a residence of two years among the Battas, only heard of three
cases of public cannibalism, that this report has no foundation in
truth. So much, however, is certain, that this singular people have a
great liking for human flesh, and in all cases where a simple execution
takes place seize the opportunity of quietly carrying home some
favourite joint.
The Battas have no priests, no temples, no idols.[23] They believe in
a number of evil spirits, or Begus, who have their seat in the various
diseases of the human body, and in a few good spirits, or Sumongot,
the immortal souls of great forefathers, who reside on the high
mountain tops. The souls only of such persons as die of a violent death
ascend into the invisible land of immortality, and this may be some
consolation to the poor wretches whom they horribly cut up at their
cannibal feasts, while all persons dying of illness are considered as
having fallen into the power of the Begus, and as totally annihilated.
They have no idea of a Supreme Being, and their only religious
ceremony, if such it may be called, is that on festival occasions they
scatter rice to the four quarters of the wind, in order to propitiate
the Begus.
In consequence of the general state of anarchy in which their
unfortunate country is plunged, they live in small fortified villages,
surrounded by palisades and deep ditches so as to leave but two gates
for a passage.
As in the feudal times, eminences strong by nature are frequently
selected for the sites of these settlements, where the Batta, though
removed from the more fruitful plains, cultivates his small field
of mountain rice in greater security. In some districts, where
hostile invasions are less to be feared, he possesses, besides his
village residence, a detached hut in a forest clearance near some
river navigable by canoes. To be out of the reach of wild animals or
inundations, these huts are frequently built on trees whose central
branches have been lopped off, while the outer ones have been left
standing, so as to afford a grateful shade to the little aërial
dwelling.
From this eminence, which the proprietor reaches by a ladder from
twenty-five to thirty feet high, he looks down complacently upon his
paddy field below, and as he is no sportsman, the undisturbed denizens
of the forest afford him many a pastime. Monkeys gambol without fear
on the trees around him; long-tailed squirrels leap from bough to
bough; elephants bathe in the river; lemurs and fox-bats fly about in
the evening; stags feed in the thicket beneath; and the only enemy he
seeks to destroy is the Leguan lizard, who, intent on plundering his
hen-roost, lies concealed among the reeds on the river’s bank.
The Battas, having frequently suffered by foreign invasions, suspect
all strangers of evil intentions, and desire to be as little as
possible disturbed by their visits. For this reason, as well as for
additional security against hostile incursions, they have no roads
nor bridges, and as the villages are generally many miles apart and
separated from each other by jungles or woods, this total want of the
means of communication presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the
traveller. Their distrust of strangers extends even to the members of
their own nation, so that Battas of one province cannot enter another
without running the risk of being seized as spies and eaten alive.
While two of the great events of human life--birth and marriage--
pass almost unnoticed among the Battas, the third and last act of
this ‘strange eventful history’ gives rise to ceremonies which one
would hardly expect to meet with among a nation of cannibals. When the
rajah of a large village dies, his body is kept so long in the house,
until the rice which is sown on the day of his death by his son or his
brother comes to maturity. When the rice is about to ripen, a buffalo
is killed, and its bones sent round to all friends and relations
among the rajahs of the neighbourhood as an invitation to the burial,
which is to take place on the tenth day after the reception of these
strange missives. Every rajah who accepts the invitation is obliged
to bring with him a buffalo. The coffin is placed on a bier before
the house, and on the arrival of the guests their buffaloes are tied
to strong poles close by. The wives, sons, and other near relations
of the deceased, now walk seven times with loud lamentations round
the buffaloes, after which the oldest or first wife breaks a pot of
boiled rice grown from the seed sown on the dying day on the forehead
of one of the buffaloes. This is the signal for a frantic explosion of
grief among the mourning women, whose piercing cries are accompanied
by the incessant beating of drums and brass kettles in the house.
After this lugubrious scene, which soon terminates with the real or
feigned exhaustion of the actors, each of the rajahs now in his turn
walks seven times round the buffalo which he brought with him, and
kills it with a stroke of his lance. The coffin is then removed to
the burial-place, and placed on the side of the open grave, amid the
profound silence of the assembly. Its lid is opened, and the eldest
son of the deceased, stepping forward, looks at the corpse, the face
of which is turned towards the sun, and, raising his hand to the sky,
says, ‘Now, father, thou seest for the last time the sun, which thou
wilt never see again.’ After this short but affecting allocution
the lid is closed and the coffin lowered into the grave, upon which
the company returns to the village, where meantime the slaughtered
buffaloes have been made ready for the funeral feast. Their horns,
skulls, and jaw-bones, fastened to stakes, are placed as ornaments
round the grave, which has no other monument or inscription. On each of
the two following days some food is carried to it, a welcome treat for
the dogs, and then it is consigned to the neglect which is the ultimate
fate of all.
The mystical sowing of rice, and the touching words spoken at the
grave, prove that the Battas, though without any fixed religious
worship, have still religious feelings, and may serve to confirm the
truth of the remark, that there is no nation, however barbarous, which
does not show at least some traces of a belief in the Divinity, and
reveal, however obscurely, that man has been born for something higher
than a mere animal existence.
Among the Dyaks, a name indiscriminately applied to all the wild people
on the island of Borneo, we find no less revolting customs than among
the Battas of Sumatra. They are hunters of their kind, not merely for
the sake of an unnatural feast, but simply for the sake of collecting
heads. Skulls are the commonest ornaments of a Dyak house, and the
possession of them is the best token of manly courage. A Dyak youth
is despised by all the maidens of his village as long as he has not
cut off the head of an enemy or waylaid a stranger; returning from a
successful chase with one of these ghastly trophies, he is welcomed as
a hero. The head is stuck upon a pole, and old and young dance around
it, singing and beating gongs. Murder of the most revolting atrocity,
which anywhere else would make its perpetrator be considered the enemy
of his kind, is thus by a horrible perversity one of the elements of
courtship. The same atrocious custom is found among the Harafuras of
Celebes, the Nias Islanders, and some other Malay nations of the Indian
Archipelago. When the Harafuras go to war, they first steal some heads,
boil them, and drink the broth to render themselves invulnerable.
The Minkokas of Celebes limit the custom of taking heads to funeral
or festive occasions, more especially on the death of their rajah or
chief. When this occurs they sally forth, with a white band across
their forehead to notify their object, and destroy alike their enemies
and strangers. From twenty to forty heads, according to the rank of the
deceased rajah, being procured, buffaloes are killed, rice boiled, and
a solemn funeral feast is held, and, whatever time may elapse, the body
is not previously buried. The heads, on being cleaned, are hung up in
the houses of the three principal persons of the tribe, and regarded
with great veneration and respect.
The national weapon of the Dyaks, though not in use among all their
tribes, is the Sumpitan, a blow-pipe about five feet long, with an
arrow made of wood, thin, light, sharp-pointed, and dipped in the
poison of the upas tree. As this is fugacious, the points are generally
dipped afresh when wanted. For about twenty yards the aim is so true
that no two arrows shot at the same mark will be above an inch or two
apart. On a calm day the utmost range may be a hundred yards. Though
impregnated with a poison less deadly than the Wourali of the American
Indians, yet the shafts of the sumpitan are formidable weapons from the
frequency with which they can be discharged, and the skill of those who
use them. The arrows are contained in a bamboo case, hung at the side,
and at the bottom of this quiver is the poison of the upas. When they
face an enemy the box at the side is open, and, whether advancing or
retreating, they fire the poisoned missiles with great precision.
The style of building of the Dyaks is very peculiar; most of their
villages consisting of a single house, in which from fifteen to twenty
families live together, in separate compartments.
The floor of these long buildings, which are thatched with palm leaves,
rests on piles about six or ten feet from the ground, and the simple
furniture consists of some mats, baskets, and a few knives, pots, a
very primitive loom, and some dried heads by way of ornament.
Though habitual assassins from ignorance and superstitious motives,
the Dyaks are said to be of a mild, good-natured, and by no means
bloodthirsty character. They are hospitable when well used, grateful
for kindness, industrious and honest, and so truthful that the word
of one of them might safely be taken before the oath of half-a-dozen
civilised Malays.
The celebrated traveller, Mrs. Ida Pfeiffer, who had the courage to
wander among the Dyaks, and the good fortune to return with her head on
her shoulders, speaks highly of their patriarchal life, the love they
have for their children, and the respectful conduct of the children
towards their parents.
As to their personal appearance, she affirms that, though some authors
describe them as fine men, they are only a little less ugly than the
Malays.
[Illustration: CORAL ISLAND.]