ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
ART OF MEDICINE.
SCIENCES.
ARITHMETIC.
GEOGRAPHY.
ASTRONOMY.
MUSIC, ETC.
ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
I shall now take a view of those arts and manufactures which the
Sumatrans are skilled in, and which are not merely domestic but
contribute rather to the conveniences, and in some instances to the
luxuries, than to the necessaries of life. I must remind the reader that
my observations on this subject are mostly drawn from the Rejangs, or
those people of the island who are upon their level of improvement. We
meet with accounts in old writers of great foundries of cannon in the
dominion of Achin, and it is certain that firearms as well as krises are
at this day manufactured in the country of Menangkabau; but my present
description does not go to these superior exertions of art, which
certainly do not appear among those people of the island whose manners,
more immediately, I am attempting to delineate.
FILIGREE.
What follows, however, would seem an exception to this limitation; there
being no manufacture in that part of the world, and perhaps I might be
justified in saying, in any part of the world, that has been more admired
and celebrated than the fine gold and silver filigree of Sumatra. This
indeed is, strictly speaking, the work of the Malayan inhabitants; but as
it is in universal use and wear throughout the country, and as the
goldsmiths are settled everywhere along the coast, I cannot be guilty of
much irregularity in describing here the process of their art.
MODE OF WORKING IT.
There is no circumstance that renders the filigree a matter of greater
curiosity than the coarseness of the tools employed in the workmanship,
and which, in the hands of a European, would not be thought sufficiently
perfect for the most ordinary purposes. They are rudely and
inartificially formed by the goldsmith (pandei) from any old iron he can
procure. When you engage one of them to execute a piece of work his first
request is usually for a piece of iron hoop to make his wire-drawing
instrument; an old hammer head, stuck in a block, serves for an anvil;
and I have seen a pair of compasses composed of two old nails tied
together at one end. The gold is melted in a piece of a priuk or earthen
rice-pot, or sometimes in a crucible of their own making, of common clay.
In general they use no bellows but blow the fire with their mouths
through a joint of bamboo, and if the quantity of metal to be melted is
considerable three or four persons sit round their furnace, which is an
old broken kwali or iron pot, and blow together. At Padang alone, where
the manufacture is more considerable, they have adopted the Chinese
bellows. Their method of drawing the wire differs but little from that
used by European workmen. When drawn to a sufficient fineness they
flatten it by beating it on their anvil; and when flattened they give it
a twist like that in the whalebone handle of a punch-ladle, by rubbing it
on a block of wood with a flat stick. After twisting they again beat it
on the anvil, and by these means it becomes flat wire with indented
edges. With a pair of nippers they fold down the end of the wire, and
thus form a leaf or element of a flower in their work, which is cut off.
The end is again folded and cut off till they have got a sufficient
number of leaves, which are all laid on singly. Patterns of the flowers
or foliage, in which there is not very much variety, are prepared on
paper, of the size of the gold plate on which the filigree is to be laid.
According to this they begin to dispose on the plate the larger
compartments of the foliage, for which they use plain flat wire of a
larger size, and fill them up with the leaves before mentioned. To fix
their work they employ a glutinous substance made of the small red pea
with a black spot before mentioned, ground to a pulp on a rough stone.
This pulp they place on a young coconut about the size of a walnut, the
top and bottom being cut off. I at first imagined that caprice alone
might have directed them to the use of the coconut for this purpose; but
I have since reflected on the probability of the juice of the young fruit
being necessary to keep the pulp moist, which would otherwise speedily
become dry and unfit for the work. After the leaves have been all placed
in order and stuck on, bit by bit, a solder is prepared of gold filings
and borax, moistened with water, which they strew or daub over the plate
with a feather, and then putting it in the fire for a short time the
whole becomes united. This kind of work on a gold plate they call karrang
papan: when the work is open, they call it karrang trus. In executing the
latter the foliage is laid out on a card, or soft kind of wood covered
with paper, and stuck on, as before described, with the paste of the red
seed; and the work, when finished, being strewed over with their solder,
is put into the fire, when, the card or soft wood burning away, the gold
remains connected. The greatest skill and attention is required in this
operation as the work is often made to run by remaining too long or in
too hot a fire. If the piece be large they solder it at several times.
When the work is finished they give it that fine high colour they so much
admire by an operation which they term sapoh. This consists in mixing
nitre, common salt, and alum, reduced to powder and moistened, laying the
composition on the filigree and keeping it over a moderate fire until it
dissolves and becomes yellow. In this situation the piece is kept for a
longer or shorter time according to the intensity of colour they wish the
gold to receive. It is then thrown into water and cleansed. In the
manufacture of baju buttons they first make the lower part flat, and,
having a mould formed of a piece of buffalo's horn, indented to several
sizes, each like one half of a bullet mould, they lay their work over one
of these holes, and with a horn punch they press it into the form of the
button. After this they complete the upper part. The manner of making the
little balls with which their works are sometimes ornamented is as
follows. They take a piece of charcoal, and, having cut it flat and
smooth, they make in it a small hole, which they fill with gold dust, and
this melted in the fire becomes a little ball. They are very inexpert at
finishing and polishing the plain parts, hinges, screws, and the like,
being in this as much excelled by the European artists as these fall
short of them in the fineness and minuteness of the foliage. The Chinese
also make filigree, mostly of silver, which looks elegant, but wants
likewise the extraordinary delicacy of the Malayan work. The price of the
workmanship depends upon the difficulty or novelty of the pattern. In
some articles of usual demand it does not exceed one-third of the value
of the gold; but, in matters of fancy, it is generally equal to it. The
manufacture is not now (1780) held in very high estimation in England,
where costliness is not so much the object of luxury as variety; but, in
the revolution of taste, it may probably be again sought after and
admired as fashionable.
IRON MANUFACTURES.
But little skill is shown amongst the country people in forging iron.
They make nails however, though not much used by them in building, wooden
pins being generally substituted; also various kinds of tools, as the
prang or bill, the banchi, rembe, billiong, and papatil, which are
different species of adzes, the kapak or axe, and the pungkur or hoe.
Their fire is made with charcoal; the fossil coal which the country
produces being rarely, if ever, employed, except by the Europeans; and
not by them of late years, on the complaint of its burning away too
quickly: yet the report made of it in 1719 was that it gave a surer heat
than the coal from England. The bed of it (described rather as a large
rock above ground) lies four days' journey up Bencoolen River, from
whence quantities are washed down by the floods. The quality of coal is
rarely good near the surface. Their bellows are thus constructed: two
bamboos, of about four inches diameter and five feet in length, stand
perpendicularly near the fire, open at the upper end and stopped below.
About an inch or two from the bottom a small joint of bamboo is inserted
into each, which serve as nozzles, pointing to, and meeting at, the fire.
To produce a stream of air bunches of feathers or other soft substance,
being fastened to long handles, are worked up and down in the upright
tubes, like the piston of a pump. These, when pushed downwards, force the
air through the small horizontal tubes, and, by raising and sinking each
alternately, a continual current or blast is kept up; for which purpose a
boy is usually placed on a high seat or stand. I cannot retrain from
remarking that the description of the bellows used in Madagascar, as
given by Sonnerat, Volume 2 page 60, so entirely corresponds with this
that the one might almost pass for a copy of the other.
CARPENTER'S WORK.
The progress they have made in carpenter's work has been already pointed
out, where there buildings were described.
TOOLS.
They are ignorant of the use of the saw, excepting where we have
introduced it among them. Trees are felled by chopping at the stems, and
in procuring boards they are confined to those the direction of whose
grain or other qualities admit of their being easily split asunder. In
this respect the species called maranti and marakuli have the preference.
The tree, being stripped of its branches and its bark, is cut to the
length required, and by the help of wedges split into boards. These being
of irregular thickness are usually dubbed upon the spot. The tool used
for this purpose is the rembe, a kind of adze. Most of their smaller
work, and particularly on the bamboo, is performed with the papatil,
which resembles in shape as much as in name the patupatu of the New
Zealanders, but has the vast superiority of being made of iron. The
blade, which is fastened to the handle with a nice and curious kind of
rattan-work, is so contrived as to turn in it, and by that means can be
employed either as an adze or small hatchet. Their houses are generally
built with the assistance of this simple instrument alone. The billiong
is no other than a large papatil, with a handle of two or three feet in
length, turning, like that, in its socket.
CEMENTS.
The chief cement they employ for small work is the curd of buffalomilk,
called prakat. It is to be observed that butter is made (for the use of
Europeans only; the words used by the Malays, for butter and cheese,
monteiga and queijo, being pure Portuguese) not as with us, by churning,
but by letting the milk stand till the butter forms of itself on the top.
It is then taken off with a spoon, stirred about with the same in a flat
vessel, and well washed in two or three waters. The thick sour milk left
at the bottom, when the butter or cream is removed, is the curd here
meant. This must be well squeezed, formed into cakes, and left to dry,
when it will grow nearly as hard as flint. For use you must scrape some
of it off, mix it with quick lime, and moisten it with milk. I think
there is no stronger cement in the world, and it is found to hold,
particularly in a hot and damp climate, much better than glue; proving
also effectual in mending chinaware. The viscous juice of the saga-pea
(abrus) is likewise used in the country as a cement.
INK.
Ink is made by mixing lamp-black with the white of egg. To procure the
former they suspend over a burning lamp an earthen pot, the bottom of
which is moistened, in order to make the soot adhere to it.
DESIGNING.
Painting and drawing they are quite strangers to. In carving, both in
wood and ivory, they are curious and fanciful, but their designs are
always grotesque and out of nature. The handles of the krises are the
most common subjects of their ingenuity in this art, which usually
exhibit the head and beak of a bird, with the folded arms of a human
creature, not unlike the representation of one of the Egyptian deities.
In cane and basketwork they are particularly neat and expert; as well as
in mats, of which some kinds are much prized for their extreme fineness
and ornamental borders.
LOOMS.
Silk and cotton cloths, of varied colours, manufactured by themselves,
are worn by the natives in all parts of the country; especially by the
women. Some of their work is very fine, and the patterns prettily
fancied. Their loom or apparatus for weaving (tunun) is extremely
defective, and renders their progress tedious. One end of the warp being
made fast to a frame, the whole is kept tight, and the web stretched out
by means of a species of yoke, which is fastened behind the body, when
the person weaving sits down. Every second of the longitudinal threads,
or warp, passes separately through a set of reeds, like the teeth of a
comb, and the alternate ones through another set. These cross each other,
up and down, to admit the woof, not from the extremities, as in our
looms, nor effected by the feet, but by turning edgeways two flat sticks
which pass between them. The shuttle (turak) is a hollow reed about
sixteen inches long, generally ornamented on the outside, and closed at
one end, having in it a small bit of stick, on which is rolled the woof
or shoot. The silk cloths have usually a gold head. They use sometimes
another kind of loom, still more simple than this, being no more than a
frame in which the warp is fixed, and the woof darned with a long
small-pointed shuttle. For spinning the cotton they make use of a machine
very like ours. The women are expert at embroidery, the gold and silver
thread for which is procured from China, as well as their needles. For
common work their thread is the pulas before mentioned, or else filaments
of the pisang (musa).
EARTHENWARE.
Different kinds of earthenware, I have elsewhere observed, are
manufactured in the island.
PERFUMES.
They have a practice of perfuming their hair with oil of benzoin, which
they distil themselves from the gum by a process doubtless of their own
invention. In procuring it a priuk, or earthen rice-pot, covered close,
is used for a retort. A small bamboo is inserted in the side of the
vessel, and well luted with clay and ashes, from which the oil drops as
it comes over. Along with the benzoin they put into the retort a mixture
of sugar-cane and other articles that contribute little or nothing to the
quantity or quality of the distillation; but no liquid is added. This oil
is valued among them at a high price, and can only be used by the
superior rank of people.
OIL.
The oil in general use is that of the coconut, which is procured in the
following manner. The fleshy part being scraped out of the nut, which for
this use must be old, is exposed for some time to the heat of the sun. It
is then put into a mat bag and placed in the press (kampahan) between two
sloping timbers, which are fixed together in a socket in the lower part
of the frame, and forced towards each other by wedges in a groove at top,
compressing by this means the pulp of the nut, which yields an oil that
falls into a trough made for its reception below. In the farther parts of
the country this oil also, owing to the scarcity of coconuts, is dear;
and not so much used for burning as that from other vegetables, and the
dammar or rosin, which is always at hand.
TORCHES.
When travelling at night they make use of torches or links, called suluh,
the common sort of which are nothing more than dried bamboos of a
convenient length, beaten at the joints till split in every part, without
the addition of any resinous or other inflammable substance. A superior
kind is made by filling with dammar a young bamboo, about a cubit long,
well dried, and having the outer skin taken off.
These torches are carried with a view, chiefly, to frighten away the
tigers, which are alarmed at the appearance of fire; and for the same
reason it is common to make a blaze with wood in different parts round
their villages. The tigers prove to the inhabitants, both in their
journeys and even their domestic occupations, most fatal and destructive
enemies. The number of people annually slain by these rapacious tyrants
of the woods is almost incredible. I have known instances of whole
villages being depopulated by them. Yet, from a superstitious prejudice,
it is with difficulty they are prevailed upon, by a large reward which
the India Company offers, to use methods of destroying them till they
have sustained some particular injury in their own family or kindred, and
their ideas of fatalism contribute to render them insensible to the risk.
TIGER-TRAPS.
Their traps, of which they can make variety, are very ingeniously
contrived. Sometimes they are in the nature of strong cages, with falling
doors, into which the beast is enticed by a goat or dog enclosed as a
bait; sometimes they manage that a large timber shall fall, in a groove,
across his back; he is noosed about the loins with strong rattans, or he
is led to ascend a plank, nearly balanced, which, turning when he is past
the centre, lets him fall upon sharp stakes prepared below. Instances
have occurred of a tiger being caught by one of the former modes, which
had many marks in his body of the partial success of this last expedient.
The escapes, at times, made from them by the natives are surprising, but
these accounts in general carry too romantic an air to admit of being
repeated as facts. The size and strength of the species which prevails on
this island are prodigious. They are said to break with a stroke of their
forepaw the leg of a horse or a buffalo; and the largest prey they kill
is without difficulty dragged by them into the woods. This they usually
perform on the second night, being supposed, on the first, to gratify
themselves with sucking the blood only. Time is by this delay afforded to
prepare for their destruction; and to the methods already enumerated,
beside shooting them, I should add that of placing a vessel of water,
strongly impregnated with arsenic, near the carcase, which is fastened to
a tree to prevent its being carried off: The tiger having satiated
himself with the flesh, is prompted to assuage his thirst with the
tempting liquor at hand, and perishes in the indulgence. Their chief
subsistence is most probably the unfortunate monkeys with which the woods
abound. They are described as alluring them to their fate, by a
fascinating power, similar to what has been supposed of the snake, and I
am not incredulous enough to treat the idea with contempt, having myself
observed that when an alligator, in a river, comes under an overhanging
bough of a tree, the monkeys, in a state of alarm and distraction, crowd
to the extremity, and, chattering and trembling, approach nearer and
nearer to the amphibious monster that waits to devour them as they drop,
which their fright and number renders almost unavoidable. These
alligators likewise occasion the loss of many inhabitants, frequently
destroying the people as they bathe in the river, according to their
regular custom, and which the perpetual evidence of the risk attending it
cannot deter them from. A superstitious idea of their sanctity also (or,
perhaps, of consanguinity, as related in the journal of the Endeavour's
voyage) preserves these destructive animals from molestation, although,
with a hook of sufficient strength, they may be taken without much
difficulty. A musket-ball appears to have no effect upon their
impenetrable hides.
FISHING.
Besides the common methods of taking fish, of which the seas that wash
the coasts of Sumatra afford an extraordinary variety and abundance, the
natives employ a mode, unpractised, I apprehend, in any part of Europe.
They steep the root of a certain climbing plant, called tuba, of strong
narcotic qualities, in the water where the fish are observed, which
produces such an effect that they become intoxicated and to appearance
dead, float on the surface of the water, and are taken with the hand.
This is generally made use of in the basins of water formed by the ledges
of coral rock which, having no outlet, are left full when the tide has
ebbed.* In the manufacture and employment of the casting-net they are
particularly expert, and scarcely a family near the sea-coast is without
one. To supply this demand great quantities of the pulas twine are
brought down from the hill-country to be there worked up; and in this
article we have an opportunity of observing the effect of that
conformation which renders the handiwork of orientals (unassisted by
machinery) so much more delicate than that of the western people. Mr.
Crisp possessed a net of silk, made in the country behind Padang, the
meshes of which were no wider than a small fingernail, that opened
sixteen feet in diameter. With such they are said to catch small fish in
the extensive lake situated on the borders of Menangkabau.
(*Footnote. In Captain Cook's second voyage is a plate representing a
plant used for the same purpose at Otaheite, which is the exact
delineation of one whose appearance I was well acquainted with in
Sumatra, and which abounds in many parts of the sea-beach, but which is a
different plant from the tuba-akar, but may be another kind, named
tuba-biji. In South America also, we are informed, the inhabitants
procure fish after this extraordinary manner, employing three different
kinds of plants; but whether any of them be the same with that of
Otaheite or Sumatra I am ignorant. I have lately been informed that this
practice is not unknown in England, but has been prohibited. It is termed
foxing: the drug made use of was the Coculus indicus.)
BIRD-CATCHING.
Birds, particularly the plover (cheruling) and quails (puyu) are caught
by snares or springs laid for them in the grass. These are of iju, which
resembles horsehair, many fathoms in length, and disposed in such a
manner as to entangle their feet; for which purpose they are gently
driven towards the snares. In some parts of the country they make use of
clasp-nets. I never observed a Sumatran to fire a shot at a bird, though
many of them, as well as the more eastern people, have a remarkably fine
aim; but the mode of letting off the matchlocks, which are the pieces
most habitual to them, precludes the possibility of shooting flying.
GUNPOWDER.
Gunpowder is manufactured in various parts of the island, but less in the
southern provinces than amongst the people of Menangkabau, the Battas,
and Achinese, whose frequent wars demand large supplies. It appears
however, by an agreement upon record, formed in 1728, that the
inhabitants of Anak-sungei were restricted from the manufacture, which
they are stated to have carried to a considerable extent. It is made, as
with us, of proportions of charcoal, sulphur, and nitre, but the
composition is very imperfectly granulated, being often hastily prepared
in small quantities for immediate use. The last article, though found in
the greatest quantity in the saltpetre-caves before spoken of, is most
commonly procured from goat's dung, which is always to be had in plenty.
SUGAR.
Sugar (as has already been observed) is commonly made for domestic use
from the juice of a species of palm, boiled till a consistence is formed,
but scarcely at all granulated, being little more than a thick syrup.
This spread upon leaves to dry, made into cakes, and afterwards folded up
in a peculiar vegetable substance called upih, which is the sheath that
envelopes the branch of the pinang tree where it is inserted in the stem.
In this state it is called jaggri, and, beside its ordinary uses as
sugar, it is mixed with chunam in making cement for buildings, and that
exquisite plaster for walls which, on the coast of Coromandel, equals
Parian marble in whiteness and polish. But in many parts of the island
sugar is also made from the sugar-cane. The rollers of the mill used for
this purpose are worked by the endless screw instead of cogs, and are
turned with the hand by means of a bar passing through one of the rollers
which is higher than the other. As an article of traffic amongst the
natives it is not considerable, nor have they the art of distilling
arrack, the basis of which is molasses, along with the juice of the anau
or of the coconut palm in a state of fermentation. Both however are
manufactured by Europeans.*
(*Footnote. Many attempts have been made by the English to bring to
perfection the manufacture of sugar and arrack from the canes; but the
expenses, particularly of the slaves, were always found to exceed the
advantages. Within these few years (about 1777) that the plantations and
works were committed to the management of Mr. Henry Botham, it has
manifestly appeared that the end is to be obtained by employing the
Chinese in the works of the field and allowing them a proportion of the
produce for their labour. The manufacture had arrived at considerable
perfection when the breaking out of war gave a check to its progress; but
the path is pointed out, and it may be worth pursuing. The sums of money
thrown into Batavia for arrack and sugar have been immense.)
SALT.
Salt is here, as in most other countries, an article of general
consumption. The demand for it is mostly supplied by cargoes imported,
but they also manufacture it themselves. The method is tedious. They
kindle a fire close to the sea-beach, and gradually pour upon it sea
water. When this has been continued for a certain time, the water
evaporating, and the salt being precipitated among the ashes, they gather
these in baskets, or in funnels made of the bark or leaves of trees, and
again pour seawater on them till the particles of salt are well
separated, and pass with the water into a vessel placed below to receive
them. This water, now strongly impregnated, is boiled till the salt
adheres in a thick crust to the bottom and sides of the vessel. In
burning a square fathom of firewood a skilful person procures about five
gallons of salt. What is thus made has so considerable a mixture of the
salt of the wood that it soon dissolves, and cannot be carried far into
the country. The coarsest grain is preferred.
ART OF MEDICINE.
The art of medicine among the Sumatrans consists almost entirely in the
application of simples, in the virtues of which they are well skilled.
Every old man and woman is a physician, and their rewards depend upon
their success; but they generally procure a small sum in advance under
the pretext of purchasing charms.* The mode of practice is either by
administering the juices of certain trees and herbs inwardly, or by
applying outwardly a poultice of leaves chopped small upon the breast or
part affected, renewing it as soon as it becomes dry. For internal pains
they rub oil on a large leaf of a stimulant quality, and, heating it
before the fire, clap it on the body of the patient as a blister, which
produces very powerful effects. Bleeding they never use, but the people
of the neighbouring island of Nias are famous for their skill in cupping,
which they practise in a manner peculiar to themselves.
(*Footnote. Charms are there hung about the necks of children, as in
Europe, and also worn by persons whose situations expose them to risk.
They are long narrow scrolls of paper, filled with incoherent scraps of
verse, which are separated from each other by a variety of fanciful
drawings. A charm against an ague I once accidentally met with, which
from circumstances I conclude to be a translation of such as are employed
by the Portuguese Christians in India. Though not properly belonging to
my subject, I present it to the reader. "(Sign of the cross). When Christ
saw the cross he trembled and shaked; and they said unto him hast thou an
ague? and he said unto them, I have neither ague nor fever; and whosoever
bears these words, either in writing or in mind, shall never be troubled
with ague or fever. So help thy servants, O Lord, who put their trust in
thee!" From the many folds that appear in the original I have reason to
apprehend that it had been worn, and by some Englishmen, whom frequent
sickness and the fond love of life had rendered weak and superstitious
enough to try the effects of this barbarous and ridiculous quackery.)
FEVERS.
In fevers they give a decoction of the herb lakun, and bathe the patient,
for two or three mornings, in warm water. If this does not prove
effectual, they pour over him, during the paroxysm, a quantity of cold
water, rendered more chilly by the daun sedingin (Cotyledon laciniata)
which, from the sudden revulsion it causes, brings on a copious
perspiration. Pains and swellings in the limbs are likewise cured by
sweating; but for this purpose they either cover themselves over with
mats and sit in the sunshine at noon, or, if the operation be performed
within doors, a lamp, and sometimes a pot of boiling herbs, is enclosed
in the covering with them.
LEPROSY.
There are two species of leprosy known in these parts. The milder sort,
or impetigo, as I apprehend it to be, is very common among the
inhabitants of Nias, great numbers of whom are covered with a white scurf
or scales that renders them loathsome to the sight. But this distemper,
though disagreeable from the violent itching and other inconveniences
with which it is attended, does not appear immediately to affect the
health, slaves in that situation being bought and sold for field and
other outdoor work. It is communicated from parents to their offspring,
but though hereditary it is not contagious. I have sometimes been induced
to think it nothing more than a confirmed stage of the serpigo or
ringworm, or it may be the same with what is elsewhere termed the
shingles. I have known a Nias man who has effected a temporary removal of
this scurf by the frequent application of the golinggang or daun kurap
(Cassia alata) and such other herbs as are used to cure the ringworm, and
sometimes by rubbing gunpowder and strong acids to his skin; but it
always returned after some time. The other species with which the country
people are in some instances affected is doubtless, from the description
given of its dreadful symptoms, that severe kind of leprosy which has
been termed elephantiasis, and is particularly described in the Asiatic
Researches Volume 2, the skin coming off in flakes, and the flesh falling
from the bones, as in the lues venerea. This disorder being esteemed
highly infectious, the unhappy wretch who labours under it is driven from
the village he belonged to into the woods, where victuals are left for
him from time to time by his relations. A prang and a knife are likewise
delivered to him, that he may build himself a hut, which is generally
erected near to some river or lake, continual bathing being supposed to
have some effect in removing the disorder, or alleviating the misery of
the patient. Few instances of recovery have been known. There is a
disease called the nambi which bears some affinity to this, attacking the
feet chiefly, the flesh of which it eats away. As none but the lowest
class of people seem to suffer from this complaint I imagine it proceeds
in a great degree from want of cleanliness.
SMALLPOX.
The smallpox (katumbuhan) sometimes visits the island and makes terrible
ravages. It is regarded as a plague, and drives from the country
thousands whom the infection spares. Their method of stopping its
progress (for they do not attempt a cure) is by converting into a
hospital or receptacle for the rest that village where lie the greatest
number of sick, whither they send all who are attacked by the disorder
from the country round. The most effectual methods are pursued to prevent
any person's escape from this village, which is burnt to the ground as
soon as the infection has spent itself or devoured all the victims thus
offered to it. Inoculation was an idea long unthought of, and, as it
could not be universal, it was held to be a dangerous experiment for
Europeans to introduce it partially, in a country where the disorder
makes its appearance at distant intervals only, unless those periods
could be seized and the attempts made when and where there might be
well-founded apprehension of its being communicated in the natural way.
Such an opportunity presented itself in 1780, when great numbers of
people (estimated at a third of the population) were swept away in the
course of that and the two following years; whilst upon those under the
immediate influence of the English and Dutch settlements inoculation was
practised with great success. I trust that the preventive blessing of
vaccination has or will be extended to a country so liable to be
afflicted with this dreadful scourge. A distemper called chachar, much
resembling the smallpox, and in its first stages mistaken for it, is not
uncommon. It causes an alarm but does not prove mortal, and is probably
what we term the chickenpox.
VENEREAL DISEASE.
The venereal disease, though common in the Malay bazaars, is in the
inland country almost unknown. A man returning to his village with the
infection is shunned by the inhabitants as an unclean and interdicted
person. The Malays are supposed to cure it with the decoction of a
china-root, called by them gadong, which causes a salivation.
INSANITY.
When a man is by sickness or otherwise deprived of his reason, or when
subject to convulsion fits, they imagine him possessed by an evil spirit,
and their ceremony of exorcism is performed by putting the unfortunate
wretch into a hut, which they set fire to about his ears, suffering him
to make his escape through the flames in the best manner he can. The
fright, which would go nigh to destroy the intellects of a reasonable
man, may perhaps have under contrary circumstances an opposite effect.
SCIENCES.
The skill of the Sumatrans in any of the sciences, is, as may be
presumed, very limited.
ARITHMETIC.
Some however I have met with who, in arithmetic, could multiply and
divide, by a single multiplier or divisor, several places of figures.
Tens of thousands (laksa) are the highest class of numbers the Malay
language has a name for. In counting over a quantity of small articles
each tenth, and afterwards each hundredth piece is put aside; which
method is consonant with the progress of scientific numeration, and
probably gave it origin. When they may have occasion to recollect at a
distance of time the tale of any commodities they are carrying to market,
or the like, the country people often assist their memory by tying knots
on a string, which is produced when they want to specify the number. The
Peruvian quipos were I suppose an improvement upon this simple invention.
MEASURES.
They estimate the quantity of most species of merchandise by what we call
dry measure, the use of weights, as applied to bulky articles, being
apparently introduced among them by foreigners; for the pikul and catti
are used only on the sea-coast and places which the Malays frequent. The
kulah or bamboo, containing very nearly a gallon, is the general standard
of measure among the Rejangs: of these eight hundred make a koyan: the
chupah is one quarter of a bamboo. By this measure almost all articles,
even elephants' teeth, are bought and sold; but by a bamboo of ivory they
mean so much as is equal in weight to a bamboo of rice. This still
includes the idea of weight, but is not attended with their principal
objection to that mode of ascertaining quantity which arises, as they
say, from the impossibility of judging by the eye of the justness of
artificial weights, owing to the various materials of which they may be
composed, and to which measurement is not liable. The measures of length
here, as perhaps originally among every people upon earth, are taken from
the dimensions of the human body. The deppa, or fathom, is the extent of
the arms from each extremity of the fingers: the etta, asta, or cubit, is
the forearm and hand; kaki is the foot; jungka is the span; and jarri,
which signifies a finger, is the inch. These are estimated from the
general proportions of middle-sized men, others making an allowance in
measuring, and not regulated by an exact standard.
GEOGRAPHY.
The ideas of geography among such of them as do not frequent the sea are
perfectly confined, or rather they entertain none. Few of them know that
the country they inhabit is an island, or have any general name for it.
Habit renders them expert in travelling through the woods, where they
perform journeys of weeks and months without seeing a dwelling. In places
little frequented, where they have occasion to strike out new paths (for
roads there are none), they make marks on trees for the future guidance
of themselves and others. I have heard a man say, "I will attempt a
passage by such a route, for my father, when living, told me that he had
left his tokens there." They estimate the distance of places from each
other by the number of days, or the proportion of the day, taken up in
travelling it, and not by measurement of the space. Their journey, or
day's walk, may be computed at about twenty miles; but they can bear a
long continuance of fatigue.
ASTRONOMY.
The Malays as well as the Arabs and other Mahometan nations fix the
length of the year at three hundred and fifty-four days, or twelve lunar
months of twenty-nine days and a half; by which mode of reckoning each
year is thrown back about eleven days. The original Sumatrans rudely
estimate their annual periods from the revolution of the seasons, and
count their years from the number of their crops of grain (taun padi); a
practice which, though not pretending to accuracy, is much more useful
for the general purposes of life than the lunar period, which is merely
adapted to religious observances. They as well as the Malays compute time
by lunations, but do not attempt to trace any relation or correspondence
between these smaller measures and the solar revolution. Whilst more
polished nations were multiplying mistakes and difficulties in their
endeavours to ascertain the completion of the sun's course through the
ecliptic, and in the meanwhile suffering their nominal seasons to become
almost the reverse of nature, these people, without an idea of
intercalation, preserved in a rude way the account of their years free
from essential, or at least progressive, error and the confusion which
attends it. The division of the month into weeks I believe to be unknown
except where it has been taught with Mahometanism; the day of the moon's
age being used instead of it where accuracy is required; nor do they
subdivide the day into hours. To denote the time of day at which any
circumstance they find it necessary to speak of happened, they point with
their finger to the height in the sky at which the sun then stood. And
this mode is the more general and precise as the sun, so near the
equator, ascends and descends almost perpendicularly, and rises and sets
at all seasons of the year within a few minutes of six o'clock. Scarcely
any of the stars or constellations are distinguished by them. They notice
however the planet Venus, but do not imagine her to be the same at the
different periods of her revolution when she precedes the rising, and
follows the setting sun. They are aware of the night on which the new
moon should make its appearance, and the Malays salute it with the
discharge of guns. They also know when to expect the returns of the
tides, which are at their height, on the south-western coast of the
island, when that luminary is in the horizon, and ebb as it rises. When
they observe a bright star near the moon (or rubbing against her, as they
express it), they are apprehensive of a storm, as European sailors
foretell a gale from the sharpness of her horns. These are both, in part,
the consequence of an unusual clearness in the air, which, proceeding
from an extraordinary alteration of the state of the atmosphere, may
naturally be followed by a violent rushing of the circumjacent parts to
restore the equilibrium, and thus prove the prognostic of high wind.
During an eclipse they make a loud noise with sounding-instruments to
prevent one luminary from devouring the other, as the Chinese, to
frighten away the dragon, a superstition that has its source in the
ancient systems of astronomy (particularly the Hindu) where the nodes of
the moon are identified with the dragon's head and tail. They tell of a
man in the moon who is continually employed in spinning cotton, but that
every night a rat gnaws his thread and obliges him to begin his work
afresh. This they apply as an emblem of endless and ineffectual labour,
like the stone of Sisyphus, and the sieves of the Danaides.
With history and chronology the country people are but little acquainted,
the memory of past events being preserved by tradition only.
MUSIC.
They are fond of music and have many instruments in use among them, but
few, upon inquiry, appear to be original, being mostly borrowed from the
Chinese and other more eastern people; particularly the kalintang, gong,
and sulin. The violin has found its way to them from the westward. The
kalintang resembles the sticcado and the harmonica; the more common ones
having the cross-pieces, which are struck with two little hammers, of
split bamboo, and the more perfect of a certain composition of metal
which is very sonorous. The gongs, a kind of bell, but differing much in
shape and struck on the outside, are cast in sets regularly tuned to
thirds, fourth, fifth, and octave, and often serve as a bass, or under
part, to the kalintang. They are also sounded for the purpose of calling
together the inhabitants of the village upon any particular occasion; but
the more ancient and still common instrument for this use is a hollowed
log of wood named katut. The sulin is the Malayan flute. The country
flute is called serdum. It is made of bamboo, is very imperfect, having
but few stops, and resembles much an instrument described as found among
the people of Otaheite. A single hole underneath is covered with the
thumb of the left hand, and the hole nearest the end at which it is
blown, on the upper side, with a finger of the same hand. The other two
holes are stopped with the right-hand fingers. In blowing they hold it
inclined to the right side. They have various instruments of the drum
kind, particularly those called tingkah, which are in pairs and beaten
with the hands at each end. They are made of a certain kind of wood
hollowed out, covered with dried goat-skins, and laced with split
rattans. It is difficult to obtain a proper knowledge of their division
of the scale, as they know nothing of it in theory. The interval we call
an octave seems to be divided with them into six tones, without any
intermediate semitones, which must confine their music to one key. It
consists in general of but few notes, and the third is the interval that
most frequently occurs. Those who perform on the violin use the same
notes as in our division, and they tune the instrument by fifths to a
great nicety. They are fond of playing the octave, but scarcely use any
other chord. The Sumatran tunes very much resemble, to my ear, those of
the native Irish, and have usually, like them, a flat third: the same has
been observed of the music of Bengal, and probably it will be found that
the minor key obtains a preference amongst all people at a certain stage
of civilization.