BRITISH DEPENDENCIES IN THE MALAYAN PENINSULA.--THE OCEANIC STOCK
AND ITS DIVISIONS.--THE MALAY, SEMANG, AND DYAK TYPES.--THE ORANG
BINUA.--JAKUNS.--THE BIDUANDA KALLANG.--THE ORANG SLETAR.--THE
SARAWAK TRIBES.--THE NEW ZEALANDERS.--THE AUSTRALIANS.--THE
TASMANIANS.
Our isolated and small settlements in the Malayan Peninsula,[63] the
depôt at Labuan, Sir James Brooke's Rajahship of Sarawak, New Zealand,
the joint protectorate of the Sandwich Islands and Tahiti, Australia,
and Van Dieman's Land, bring us to a new division of the human species,
which is conveniently called the _Oceanic_.
Its divisions and subdivisions are as follows:--
{ PROTONESIANS { MICRONESIANS
{ AMPHINESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS
{ { MALAGASI { PROPER
OCEANIC-{
{ { PAPUANS
{ KELÆNONESIANS-{ AUSTRALIANS
{ TASMANIANS.
Our settlements are limited to the Protonesian, Proper Polynesian,
Australian, and Tasmanian sections: and we have no political authority
over any of the Malagasi, Micronesians, or Papuans.
With the exception of the occupants of the Malayan Peninsula, all the
Oceanic population occupy islands. This explains the term _Oceanic_.
Their _distribution_ is as remarkable as their _extension_. The
Amphinesian[64] stream of population, originating in the peninsula of
Malacca, is continued through Borneo, the Moluccas, and the Philippines,
Lord North's Island, Sonsoral, the Pelew group, the Caroline and
Marianne Isles, the Ralik and Radack chains, the Kingsmill group and the
Gilbert and Scarborough Islands, to the Navigators', Society, Friendly,
Marquesas, Sandwich, and New Zealand groups; having become _Micronesian_
rather than _Protonesian_, after passing the Philippines, and _Proper
Polynesian_ rather than _Micronesian_, after passing the Scarborough and
Gilbert Archipelagoes. In this course it passes _round_ New Guinea and
Australia; in each of which islands the population is Kelænonesian.
The Malay of the Malacca peninsula is no longer either monosyllabic or
uninflectional, although in immediate contact with the southern
dialects of the Siamese. Hence, the transition is abrupt; although by no
means conclusive as to any broad and trenchant line of ethnological
demarcation.
The differences of physical form are less than those of language. No one
has denied that the Malay configuration is a modification of the
Mongolian--_at least in some of its varieties_.
I say _at least in some of its varieties_, because within the narrow
range of the Malaccan peninsula and the island of Borneo we find no less
than three different types. In _Polynesia_ one of these, and in
_Kelænonesia_ another becomes exaggerated--so much so, as to suggest the
idea of a different origin for the populations.
_a._ The _Malays_ are referable to the first type. Mahometans in
religion, they partake of the civilization of the Arab and Indian, and
differ but slightly from the Indo-Chinese nations; the complexion being
dark and the hair straight. The Mahometan Malays, however, are no true
aborigines. They are not only a new people on the peninsula, but they
consider themselves as such; and those occupants which they recognize as
older than themselves, they call _Orang Binua_, or _men of the soil_. Of
these some have a darker complexion and crisper hair than the intruding
population: and when we reach a particular section called--
_b._ The _Semang_, we find them described as having curly, crisp,
matted, and even woolly hair, thick lips, and a black skin. These, like
most of the other _Orang Binua_, are Pagans. Still their language is
essentially Malay; and their physical conformation passes into that of
the Malays by numerous transitions.
_c._ Thirdly, we find in Borneo the _Dyaks_. Many of these are as much
fairer than the Malays as the Semang are darker. Their language,
however, belongs to the Malay class; whilst their religion and
civilization may reasonably be supposed to be that of the Malays
previous to the influences of Brahminism from India, Mahometanism from
Arabia, and the changes effected in their habits, language, and
appearance effected thereby.
It is not too much to say that within the peninsula of Malaya, the
Johore Archipelago, and the island of Borneo, each of these types, and
every intermediate form as well, is to be found.
_Malacca._--The town of Malacca is a town of Mahometan Malays, but I
believe that the eastern parts of Wellesley province are on the frontier
of the _Jokong_, _Jakon_, or _Jakun_. These are _Orang Binua_, or
aborigines--at least as compared with the true Malays.
In the eighth century--I am drawing an illustration from the history of
our own island, and its relations to continental Germany--the
Anglo-Saxons of Great Britain, themselves originally Pagan Germans, took
an interest in the spiritual welfare of the so-called Old Saxons, a
tribe of Westphalia, immediately related to their own continental
ancestors, these Old Saxons having retained their primitive Paganism.
The mission partly succeeded, and partly failed.
Now, if in addition to this partial success of the Anglo-Saxon mission,
there had been a partial Anglo-Saxon colonization as well, and if, side
by side with this, fragments of the old unmodified Paganism had survived
amongst the fens and forests up to the present time, we should have had,
in the relations of England and Germany, precisely what I imagine to
have been the case with the Malayan peninsula and the island of Sumatra.
Like Germany, the peninsula would have supplied the original stock to
the island; but, in the island, that stock would have undergone certain
modifications. With these modifications it would--so to say--have been
_reflected_ back upon the continent--_re_-colonizing the old
mother-country. Now just what the Old Saxons of Westphalia were to the
Anglo-Saxons of the eighth century, are the Jakun to the true Malays.
They differ from them in being something other than Mahometan; _i.e._,
in being nearly what the Mahometan Malays were before their conversion.
The Jakun are Malays, _minus_ those points of Malay civilization which
are referable to the religion of the Koran.
But the Jakun are only a few out of many; a single branch of a great
stem.
The most convenient term for the members in general of this class is
_Orang Binua_--a term already explained.
_The Biduanda Kallang._--The next, then, of the _Orang Binua_ that comes
in contact with a British dependency--many others _not_ thus politically
connected with us being passed over--are the _Biduanda Kallang_ of the
parts about Sincapore. Their present locality is the banks of the most
southern of the rivers of the peninsula, the Pulai. Thither they were
removed when the British took possession of the island of Sincapore; of
which they were previously the joint occupants--joint occupants, because
they shared it with the tribe which will be next mentioned. They were an
_Orang Laut_ in one sense of the word, but not in another. _Orang_ means
_men_ or _people_, and _laut_ means _sea_ in Malay; and the Biduanda
Kallang were boatmen rather than agriculturists. But they were only
freshwater sailors; since, though they lived on the water, they avoided
the open sea. They formerly consisted of one hundred families; but have
been reduced by small-pox to eight.
Their priest or physician is called _bomo_, and he invokes the _hantu_,
or deities, the _anito_ of the Philippine Islanders, the _tii_ of the
Tahitians; and, probably, the _Wandong_ and _Vintana_ of Australia and
Madagascar respectively.
They bury their dead after wrapping the corpse in a mat; and placing on
the grave one cup of woman's milk, one of water, and one of rice; when
they entreat the deceased to seek nothing more from them.
Persons of even the remotest degree of relationship are forbidden to
intermarry.
The accounts of their physical appearance is taken from too few
individuals to justify any generalization. Two, however, of them had the
forehead broader than the cheek-bones, so that the head was pear-shaped.
In a third, it was lozenge-shaped. The head was small, and the face
flat. The lower jaw projected; but not the upper--so that "when viewed
in profile, the features seem to be placed on a straight line, from
which the prominent parts rise very slightly."[65]
_The Orang Sletar._--The original joint-occupants of Sincapore with the
Biduanda Kallang, were the _Orang Sletar_, or _men of the river Sletar_;
differing but little from the former. Of the two families they are the
shyer, and the more squalid; numbering about two hundred individuals and
forty boats. Their dialect is Malay, spoken with a guttural
pronunciation, and with a clipping of the words.
At the birth of a child they have no ceremonies; at marriage a present
of tobacco and rice to the bride's mother confirms the match; at death
the deceased is wrapped in his garments and interred.
Skin diseases and deformities are common; nevertheless, many of their
women are given in marriage to both the Malays and Chinese; but I know
of no account of the mixed progeny.
A low retreating forehead throws the face of the _Orang Sletar_
forwards, though the jaw is rather perpendicular than projecting.[66]
Such are the _Orang Binua_ originally, or at present, in contact with
the small and isolated possessions of the British in the Malayan
peninsula.
Of the proper Malays I have said next to nothing. Excellent works give
full accounts of them;[67] whilst it is not through _them_ that the true
ethnological problems are to be worked.
I believe that when we reach Borneo, the equivalents to the _Orang
Binua_, or the original populations in opposition to the Mahometan
Malays, become referable to a fresh type, and that instead of being
_darker_ than the true Malays they are often _lighter_. At any rate, one
thing is certain, _viz._, that, whether the skin be brown, blackish, or
fair, the language belongs to the same stock.
Again--although in one area the darker tribes may preponderate, it is
not to the absolute exclusion of the fairer. The Dyaks of Borneo are,
generally speaking, light-complexioned; yet, there is special evidence
to the existence of dark tribes in that island. On the other hand there
is equal evidence to the existence of families lighter-skinned than the
true Malays in the peninsula. Nevertheless, as a general rule, the
departure from the type of that population is towards darkness of colour
on the continent, and towards lightness in Borneo.
With what physical conditions these differences coincide is not always
easy to be discerned. In the South Sea Islands, where in one and the
same Archipelago, we find some tribes tall and fair, whereas others are
dark and ill-featured, it has been remarked by Captain Beechy that this
contrast of complexion coincides with the geological structure of the
soil. The lower and more coralline the island, the blacker the
islanders; the more elevated and volcanic, the lighter. In Africa, it is
the low alluvia of rivers that favour the Negro configuration.
Mountains or table-lands, on the other hand, give us red or yellow
skins, rather than sable.
The Dyaks, then, are light-coloured Pagans, speaking languages allied to
the Malay; little touched by Arabic, and less by Hindú influences; with
manners and customs that, more or less, re-appear amongst the Battas (or
ruder tribes of Sumatra), and the so-called Harafuras of Celebes--and
not only here but elsewhere. In other words, in all the islands, where
Indian and Arabic civilization have not succeeded in wholly changing
the primitive character, analogues of the _Orang Binua_ are to be
found; their greatest differences being those of stature and
complexion--differences upon which good judges have laid great stress;
but differences which will probably be found to coincide with certain
geological conditions in the way of physical, and with a lower level of
civilization in the way of moral causes--these moral causes having
indirectly a physical action.
The Dyaks, in general, use the _sumpitan_, or blow-pipe, about five feet
long; out of which some tribes shoot simple, others poisoned arrows. The
utmost distance that the sumpitan carries is about one hundred yards. At
twenty it is sure in its aim. The differences between the Dyak weapon,
and one in use with the Arawaks of Guiana is but trifling--perhaps it
amounts to nothing at all.
Some Dyak tribes tattoo their bodies; others do not.
Before a Dyak youth marries he must lay at the feet of the bride-elect
the head of an enemy. This makes _head-hunting_ a normal item of Dyak
courtship.
Traces of the Indian mythology--measures of the Indian influence in
other respects--just exist amongst the Dyaks--_e.g._, _Battara_ is a
name in their Pantheon, and this is an alteration of the Brahminic
_Avatar_.
The pirates who harass the coasts of Borneo and the Chinese
Seas--destined, at some future time to be, like the Kaffres, but too
well-known to the English tax-payers--are Malays rather than _Orang
Binua_, or their equivalents; the navigation of the Dyaks being chiefly
confined to rivers.
The particular tribes of Sarawak are the following--the Lundu, the
Sarambo, the Singé, the Suntah, the Sow, and the Sibnow. It is almost
unnecessary to name the great fountain-head for all our recent knowledge
of Borneo--Sir James Brooke.
The Dyak type predominates amongst the _Orang Binua_ of Borneo. In the
Philippines the Semang complexion re-appears. But the prolongation of
the eastward line of migration takes us through the Mariannes and
Ladrones to Polynesia; and here the magnitude of the islands decreases;
in other words, the influences of the sea-air become greater. The
aliment becomes almost wholly vegetable. The separation from the
civilizational influences of Asia amounts to absolute isolation. Of the
general ethnology of the South Sea Islanders I say nothing. The reasons
which took me over China, Arabia, and the Malayan peninsula, _sicco
pede_, spare the necessity of details here.
In the Sandwich Islands there is a constitution. In Tahiti, a school of
native Christian Missionaries.
New Zealand exhibits the contrast between the darker and
lighter-coloured Oceanic populations in so remarkable a manner as to
have engendered the notion that two stocks occupy the island. If it were
so, the fact would be remarkable and mysterious. How _one_ population
found its way to a locality so distant is by no means an easy question;
whilst the assumption of a second family of immigrants just doubles its
difficulty.[68]
* * * * *
In Java the proper Malay influences have been so great as to leave but
few traces of the _Orang Binua_; and, earlier even than these, those of
India were actively at work.
East of Bali, however, the _Orang Binua_ re-appear, and here the type is
that of the Semangs. From Ombay, parts of Ende, and parts of Sumbawa, we
have short vocabularies--short, but not too scanty to set aside the
hasty, but accredited, assertion of the Australian language, having
nothing in common with those of the Indian Archipelago.[69]
I feel as satisfied that Australia was peopled from either Timor or
Rotti, as I do about the Gallic origin of the ancient Britons.
I believe this because the geographical positions of the countries
suggest it.
I believe it, because the older and more aboriginal populations of Timor
and Rotti approach, in physical character, the Australian.
I believe it, because the proportion of words in the vocabularies
alluded to is greater than can be attributed to accident; whilst the
words themselves are not of that kind which is introduced by
intercourse. Besides which, no such intercourse either occurs at the
present moment, or can be shown to have ever existed.
Australia agrees with parts of Africa, South America, and Polynesia, in
being partially intertropical and wholly south of the equator--no part
of continental Asia or Europe coming under these conditions. But it
differs from Polynesia in being continental rather than insular in
climate; from South America in the absence of great rivers and vast
alluvial tracts; and from Africa in being wholly isolated from the
Northern Hemisphere. It is with South Africa, however, that its closest
analogies exist. Both have but small water-systems; both vast tracts of
elevated barren country; and both a distinctive vegetation. The animal
kingdoms, however, of the two areas have next to nothing in common. The
comparative non-existence of Australian mammalia, higher in rank than
the marsupials, is a subject for the zoologist. Ethnology only indicates
its bearing upon the sustenance of man. Poor in the vegetable elements
of food, and beggarly in respect to the animal, the vast continental
expanse of Australia supports the scantiest aboriginal population of the
world, and nourishes it worst. The steppes of Asia feed the horse; the
_tundras_, the reindeer; the circumpolar icebergs, the seal; and each of
these comparatively inhospitable tracts is more kindly towards its
Mongolian, its Samoeid, and its Eskimo occupant, than Australia with its
intertropical climate, but wide and isolated deserts.
Except that his hair (which is often either straight, or only crisp or
wavy) has not attained its _maximum_ of frizziness, and has seldom or
never been called _woolly_, the Australian is a Semang under a South
African climate, on a South African soil, and with more than a South
African isolation.
Few Australians count as far as five, and fewer still beyond it. This
paucity of numerals is South American as well--the Brazilian and Carib,
and other systems of numeration being equally limited.
The sound of _s_ is wanting in the majority of Australian languages. So
it is in many of the Polynesian.
The social constitution is of extreme simplicity. Many degrees removed
from the industrial, almost as far from the agricultural state, the
Australian is hardly even a hunter--except so far as the kangaroo or
wombat are beasts of chase. Families--scarcely large enough to be called
tribes or clans--wander over wide but allotted areas. Nowhere is the
approach to an organized polity so imperfect.
This makes the differences between section and section of the Australian
population, both broad and numerous. Nevertheless, the fundamental unity
of the whole is not only generally admitted, but--what is better--it has
been well illustrated. The researches of Captain Grey, Teichelmann,
Schurrmann, and others, have chiefly contributed to this.
The appreciation of certain apparent characteristic peculiarities has
been less satisfactory; differences having been over-rated and points of
similarity wondered at rather than investigated.
The well-known instrument called the _boomerang_ is Australian, and it
is, perhaps, exclusively so.
Circumcision is an Australian practice--a practice common to certain
Polynesians and Negroes, besides--to say nothing of the Jews and
Mahometans.
The recognition of the _maternal_ rather than the _paternal_ descent is
Australian. Children take the name of their mother. What other points it
has in common with the Malabar polyandria has yet to be ascertained.
When an Australian dies, those words which are identical with his name,
or (in case of compounds) with any part of it, cease to be used; and
some synonym is adopted instead; just as if, in England, whenever a Mr.
_Smith_ departed this life, the parish to which he belonged should cease
to talk of _blacksmiths_, and say _forgemen_, _forgers_, or something
equally respectful to the deceased, instead. This custom re-appears in
Polynesia, and in South America; Dobrizhoffer's account of the
Abiponian custom being as follows:--The "Abiponian language is involved
in new difficulties by a ridiculous custom which the savages have of
continually abolishing words common to the whole nation, and
substituting new ones in their stead. Funeral rites are the origin of
this custom. The Abipones do not like that anything should remain to
remind them of the dead. Hence appellative words bearing any affinity
with the names of the deceased are presently abolished. During the first
years that I spent amongst the Abipones, it was usual to say _Hegmalkam
kahamátek_, when will there be a slaughtering of oxen? On account of the
death of some Abipon, the word _Kahamátek_ was interdicted, and, in its
stead, they were all commanded by the voice of a crier to say,
_Hegmalkam négerkatà?_ The word _nihirenak_, a tiger, was exchanged for
_apanigehak_; _peû_, a crocodile, for _Kaeprhak_, and _Kaáma_,
Spaniards, for _Rikil_, because these words bore some resemblance to the
names of Abipones lately deceased. Hence it is that our vocabularies are
so full of blots occasioned by our having such frequent occasions to
obliterate interdicted words, and insert new ones."
The following custom is Australian, and it belongs to a class which
should always be noticed when found. This is because it appears and
re-appears in numerous parts of the world, in different forms, and,
apparently, independent of ethnological affinities.
A family selects some natural object as its symbol, badge, or armorial
bearing.
All natural objects of the same class then become sacred; _i.e._, the
family which has adopted, respects them also.
The modes of showing this respect are various. If the object be an
animal, it is not killed; if a plant, not plucked.
The native term for the object thus chosen is _Kobong_.
A man cannot marry a woman of the same _Kobong_.
Until we know the sequence of the cause and effect in the case of the
Australian _Kobong_, we have but little room for speculation as to its
origin. Is the plant or animal adopted by a particular family selected
because it was previously viewed with a mysterious awe, or is it
invested with the attributes of sacro-sanctity because it has been
chosen by the family? This has yet to be investigated.
Meanwhile, as Captain Gray truly remarks, the Australian _Kobong_ has
elements in common with the Polynesian _tabu_! Might he not have added
that the _names_ are probably the same? The change from _t_ to _k_, and
the difference between a nasal and a vowel termination, are by no means
insuperable objections.
He also adds that it has a counterpart with the American system of
_totem_; although the exact degree to which the comparison runs on all
fours is undetermined.
But the disuse of certain words on the death of kinsmen, and the
_Kobong_ are not the only customs common to the Australian and American.
The admission to the duties and privileges of manhood is preceded by a
probation. What this is in the Mandan tribe of the Sioux Americans, and
the extent to which it consists in the infliction and endurance of
revolting and almost incredible cruelties, may be seen in Mr. Catlin's
description--the description of an eye-witness. In Australia it is the
_Babu_ that cries for the youths that have arrived at puberty. Suddenly,
and at night, a cry is heard in the woods. Upon hearing this, the men of
the neighbourhood take the youths to a secluded spot previously fixed
upon. The ceremony then takes place. Sham fights, dances, partial
mutilations of the body, _e.g._, the knocking out of a front tooth, are
elements of it. And this is as much as is known of it; except that from
the time of initiation to the time of marriage, the young men are
forbidden to speak to, or even approach a female.
Surely, it is the common conditions of a hunter life which determine
these probationary preparations for the hardships which accompany it in
populations so remote as the Australian and the American of the prairie.
I say of the prairie, because we shall find that in the proportion as
the agricultural state replaces the erratic habits of the hunter,
ceremonies of the sort in question decrease both in number and
peculiarity of character.
A third regulation forbids the use of the more enviable articles of
diet, like fish, eggs, the emu, and the choicer sorts of opossum and
kangaroo to the Australian youth.
All that is known of the Australian religion is due to the researches of
the United States Exploring Expedition. The most specific fact in this
respect is the name _Wandong_ as applied to the evil spirit. I believe
this to be truly a word belonging to the Oceanic Pantheon in general,
and--as stated above--to be the same as _Vintana_ in Malagasi, and as
the root _anit_ in many of the Polynesian languages.
_The Tasmanians._--A few families, the remains of the aborigines of Van
Dieman's Land, occupy Flinder's Island, whither they have been removed.
I can give but little information concerning them.
From the Australians they differ but slightly in mental capacity, and
civilizational development. Perhaps their very low level in this
respect is the lower of the two.
The language seems to have fallen into not less than four mutually
unintelligible forms of speech.
Their _hair_ constituted their chief physical difference. This was
curled, frizzy, or mopped.
The _a priori_ view of their origin is that they crossed Torres Straits
from Australia. I have, however, stated elsewhere that a case may be
made out for either Timor or New Caledonia being their mother countries;
in which case the stream of population has gone _round_ Australia rather
than _across_ it. Certain peculiarities of the Tasmanian language give
us the ground for thus demurring to the _primâ facie_ view of their
descent. The same help us to account for the differences in texture of
the hair.[70]
FOOTNOTES:
[63] Malacca, Wellesley Province, Penang, and Sincapore. For excellent
information about the ethnology of these parts see Newbold's "British
Settlements," and the "Journal of the Indian Archipelago."
[64] From {amphi} (_amfi_) _roundabout_, and {nêsos} (_næsos_) _an
island_.
[65] Logan in "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," vol. i.
[66] Logan and Thompson in "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," vol. i.
[67] Especially Crawfurd's "Indian Archipelago," Sir Stamford Raffles'
"History of Java," and Marsden's "Sumatra."
[68] Dr. Dieffenbach's work on New Zealand is the repertory of details
here--a valuable and standard book.
[69] The collation of these may be seen in the Appendix to Mr. Jukes'
"Voyage of the Fly."
[70] In the Appendix to Jukes' "Voyage of the Fly," and in "Man and his
Migrations."