Man, Past and Present - Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (most popular novels txt) 📗

since no survivals either of Hindu or Muhammadan rites appear to have been detected amongst the aborigines. It is of course possible that they may have reached the island at some remote time, and since relapsed into savagery, from which the Orang-laut were never very far removed. But in the absence of proof, it will be safer to regard all the wild tribes as partly of Indonesian, partly of proto-Malayan origin.

This view is also in conformity with the character of the numerous Formosan dialects, whose affinities are either with the Gyarung and others of the Asiatic Indonesian tongues, or else with the Austronesian organic speech generally, but not specially with any particular member of that family, least of all with the comparatively recent standard Malay. Thus Arnold Schetelig points out that only about a sixth part of the Formosan vocabulary taken generally corresponds with modern Malay[564]. The analogies of all the rest must be sought in the various branches of the Oceanic stock language, and in the Gyarung and the non-Chinese tongues of Eastern China[565]. Formosa thus presents a curious ethnical and linguistic connecting link between the Continental and Oceanic populations.

In the Nicobar archipelago are distinguished two ethnical groups, the coast people, i.e. the Nicobarese[566] proper, and the Shom Pen, aborigines of the less accessible inland districts in Great Nicobar. But the distinction appears to be rather social than racial, and we may now conclude with E. H. Man that all the islanders belong essentially to the Mongolic division, the inlanders representing the pure type, the others being "descended from a mongrel Malay stock, the crosses being probably in the majority of cases with Burmese and occasionally with natives of the opposite coast of Siam, and perchance also in remote times with such of the Shom Pen as may have settled in their midst[567]."

Among the numerous usages which point to an Indo-Chinese and Oceanic connection are pile-dwellings; the chewing of betel, which appears to be here mixed with some earthy substance causing a dental incrustation so thick as even to prevent the closing of the lips; distention of the ear-lobe by wooden cylinders; aversion from the use of milk; and the couvade, as amongst some Bornean Dayaks. The language, which has an extraordinarily rich phonetic system (as many as 25 consonantal and 35 vowel sounds), is polysyllabic and untoned, like the Austronesian, and the type also seems to resemble the Oceanic more than the Continental Mongol subdivision. Mean height 5 ft. 3 in. (Shom Pen one inch less); nose wide and flat; eyes rather obliquely set; cheekbones prominent; features flat, though less so than in the normal Malayan; complexion mostly a yellowish or reddish brown (Shom Pen dull brown); hair a dark rusty brown, rarely quite black, straight, though not seldom wavy and even ringletty, but Shom Pen generally quite straight.

On the other hand they approach nearer to the Burmese in their mental characters; in their frank, independent spirit, inquisitiveness, and kindness towards their women, who enjoy complete social equality, as in Burma; and lastly in their universal belief in spirits called iwi or siya, who, like the nats of Indo-China, cause sickness and death unless scared away or appeased by offerings. Like the Burmese, also, they place a piece of money in the mouth or against the cheek of a corpse before burial, to help in the other world.

One of the few industries is the manufacture of a peculiar kind of rough painted pottery, which is absolutely confined to the islet of Chowra, 5 miles north of Teressa. The reason of this restriction is explained by a popular legend, according to which in remote ages the Great Unknown decreed that, on pain of sudden death, an earthquake, or some such calamity, the making of earthenware was to be carried on only in Chowra, and all the work of preparing the clay, moulding and firing the pots, was to devolve on the women. Once, a long time ago, one of these women, when on a visit in another island, began, heedless of the divine injunction, to make a vessel, and fell dead on the spot. Thus was confirmed the tradition, and no attempt has since been made to infringe the "Chowra monopoly[568]."

All things considered, it may be inferred that the archipelago was originally occupied by primitive peoples of Malayan stock now represented by the Shom Pen of Great Nicobar, and was afterwards re-settled on the coastlands by Indo-Chinese and Malayan intruders, who intermingled, and either extirpated or absorbed, or else drove to the interior the first occupants. Nicobar thus resembles Formosa in its intermediate position between the continental and Oceanic Mongol populations. Another point of analogy is the absence of Negritoes from both of these insular areas, where anthropologists had confidently anticipated the presence of a dark element like that of the Andamanese and Philippine Aeta.

FOOTNOTES:

[492] Here E. T. Hamy finds connecting links between the true Malays and the Indonesians in the Bicols of Albay and the Bisayas of Panay ("Les Races Malaiques et Americaines," in L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 136). Used in this extended sense, Hamy's Malaique corresponds generally to our Malayan as defined presently.

[493] Ethnically Malayo-Polynesian is an impossible expression, because it links together the Malays, who belong to the Mongol, and the Polynesians, who belong to the Caucasic division. But as both undoubtedly speak languages of the same linguistic stock the expression is permitted in philology, although, as P. W. Schmidt points out, "Malay" and "Polynesian" are not of equal rank: and the combination is as unbalanced as "Indo-Bavarian" for "Indo-Germanic"; it is best therefore to adopt Schmidt's term Austronesian for this family of languages (Die Mon-Khmer Voelker, 1906, p. 69).

[494] Indonesian type: undulating black hair, often tinged with red; tawny skin, often rather light; low stature, 1.54 m.-1.57 m. (5 ft. 0-1/2 in.-5 ft. 1-3/4 in.); mesaticephalic head (76-78) probably originally dolichocephalic; cheek-bones sometimes projecting; nose often flattened, sometimes concave. It is difficult to isolate this type as it has almost everywhere been mixed with a brachycephalic Proto-Malay stock, but the Muruts of Borneo (cranial index 73) are probably typical (A. C. Haddon, The Races of Man, 1909, p. 14).

[495] Recent literature on this area includes F. A. Swettenham, The Real Malay, 1900, British Malaya, 1906; W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, 1900; N. Annandale and H. C. Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, 1903; W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, 1903.

[496] J. Leyden, Malay Annals, 1821, p. 44.

[497] In some places quite recent, as in Rembau, Malay Peninsula, whose inhabitants are mainly immigrants from Sumatra in the seventeenth century; and in the neighbouring group of petty Negri Sembilan States, where the very tribal names, such as Anak Acheh, and Sri Lemak Menangkabau, betray their late arrival from the Sumatran districts of Achin and Menangkabau.

[498] The Malay Archipelago, p. 310.

[499] For Celebes see Von Paul und Fritz Sarasin, Reisen in Celebes ausgefuehrt in den Jahren 1893-6 und 1902-3, 1905, and Versuch einer Anthropologie der Insel Celebes, 1905.

[500] In 1898 a troop of Javanese minstrels visited London, and one of them, whom I addressed in a few broken Malay sentences, resented in his sleepy way the imputation that he was an Orang-Malayu, explaining that he was Orang Java, a Javanese, and (when further questioned) Orang Solo, a native of the Solo district, East Java. It was interesting to notice the very marked Mongolic features of these natives, vividly recalling the remark of A. R. Wallace, on the difficulty of distinguishing between a Javanese and a Chinaman when both are dressed alike. The resemblance may to a small extent be due to "mixture with Chinese blood" (B. Hagen, Jour. Anthrop. Soc. Vienna, 1889); but occurs over such a wide area that it must mainly be attributed to the common origin of the Chinese and Javanese peoples.

[501] A. H. Keane, Eastern Geography, 2nd ed. 1892, p. 121.

[502] Academy, May 1, 1897, p. 469.

[503] Cool, p. 139.

[504] The Malay Archipelago, p. 175.

[505] In Malay Sketches, 1895.

[506] Cf. M. A. Czaplicka on Arctic Hysteria in Aboriginal Siberia, 1914, p. 307.

[507] On these national pastimes see Sir Hugh Clifford, In Court and Kampong, 1897, p. 46 sq.

[508] Cujo officio he rubar e pescar, "whose business it is to rob and fish" (Barros). Many of the Bajaus lived entirely afloat, passing their lives in boats from the cradle to the grave, and praying Allah that they might die at sea.

[509] Thucydides, Pel. War, I. 1-16.

[510] These are the noted Illanuns, who occupy the south side of the large Philippine island of Mindanao, but many of whom, like the Bajaus of Celebes and the Sulu Islanders, have formed settlements on the north-east coast of Borneo. "Long ago their warfare against the Spaniards degenerated into general piracy. Their usual practice was not to take captives, but to murder all on board any boat they took. Those with us [British North Borneo] have all settled down to a more orderly way of life" (W. B. Pryer, Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1886, p. 231).

[511] The Malay Archipelago, p. 341.

[512] In Central Africa "the belief in 'were' animals, that is to say in human beings who have changed themselves into lions or leopards or some such harmful beasts, is nearly universal. Moreover there are individuals who imagine they possess this power of assuming the form of an animal and killing human beings in that shape." Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 439.

[513] In Court and Kampong, p. 63.

[514] Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1886, p. 227. The Rajah gives the leading features of the character of his countrymen as "pride of race and birth, extraordinary observance of punctilio, and a bigoted adherence to ancient custom and tradition."

[515] The Pygmies (Translation), 1895, p. 26, fig. 15.

[516] The Distribution of the Negritos, 1899, p. 50.

[517] In the Appendix to C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1912, p. 311.

[518] J. H. Kohlbrugge, L'Anthropologie, IX. 1898.

[519] A. C. Haddon, "A Sketch of the Ethnography of Sarawak," Archivio per l'Antropologia e l'Etnologia, XXXI. 1901; C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1912, Appendix, p. 314.

[520] H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, 1896.

[521] O. Beccari, Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo, 1904, p. 54.

[522] Schwaner, in H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak, etc., 1896.

[523] A. C. Haddon, Head-Hunters, Black, White and Brown, 1901, p. 324.

[524] A. C. Haddon, Head-Hunters, Black, White and Brown, 1901, pp. 327-8.

[525] For further literature on Borneo see W. H. Furness, The Home-life of the Borneo Head-Hunters, 1902; A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo, 1904; E. H. Gomes, Seventeen Years among the Sea-Dyaks of Borneo, 1911; C. Hose and W. McDougall, Journ. Anthr. Inst., XXXI. 1901, and The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1912.

[526] Not only in the southern districts for centuries subject to Javanese influences, but also in Battaland, where they were first discovered by H. von Rosenberg in 1853, and figured and described in Der Malayische Archipel, Leipzig, 1878, Vol. I. p. 27 sq. "Nach ihrer Form und ihren Bildwerken zu urtheilen, waren die Gebaeude Tempel, worin der Buddha-Kultus gefeiert wurde" (p. 28). These are all the more interesting since Hindu ruins are otherwise rare in Sumatra, where there is nothing comparable to the stupendous monuments of Central and East Java.

[527] Von Rosenberg, op. cit. Vol. I. p. 189. Amongst the points of close resemblance may be mentioned the outriggers, for which Mentawi has the same word (abak) as the Samoan (va'r = vaka); the funeral rites; taboo; the facial expression; and the language, in which the numerical systems are identical; cf. Ment. limongapula with Sam. limagafulu, the Malay being limapulah (fifty), where the Sam. infix ga (absent in Malay) is pronounced gna, exactly as in Ment.

[528] See Fr. Mueller, Ueber den Ursprung der Schrift der Malaiischen Voelker, Vienna, 1865; and my Appendix to Stanford's Australasia, First Series, 1879, p. 624.

[529] Die Mangianenschrift von Mindoro, herausgegeben von A. B. Meyer u. A. Schadenberg, speciell bearbeitet von W. Foy, Dresden, 1895; see also my remarks