A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908

Bruni is variously spelt Brunai, Brunei, Bruné, Borneo, Borney, Bornei, Porne, and Burni by old writers; all corruptions of Bruni. The Sanskrit word Bhurni, meaning land or country, has been suggested as the origin of the name.

8

See page 34.

9

Everett (A. Hart). "Notes on the Distribution of the Useful Minerals in Sarawak," in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1878. Mr. Everett was a distinguished naturalist. He served for eight years in the Sarawak service, and died in 1898.

10

Odoardo Beccari, Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo, 1904.

11

Probably the first European to discover these strange insects was the Italian Pigafetta, who in 1521 noticed them in the island of Palawan, to the north of Borneo, and thus quaintly describes them: "In this island are found certain trees, the leaves of which, when they fall off, are animated, and walk." He surmised they lived upon air. —Magellan, Hakluyt Society.

12

St. John mentions one that was killed at Brooketon 26 feet 2 inches in length. —Life in the Forests of the Far East, 1863.

13

With regard to the collection of orchids it has also been found necessary to do this. Collectors would ruthlessly destroy all orchids, especially the rarer kinds, which they could not carry away, in order to prevent others from collecting these.

14

In about 1825 a large bone was found in a cave at Bau which was pronounced to be that of an elephant. These animals are common in parts of N. Borneo, and Pigafetta found them at Bruni in 1521.

15

The Ptilocercus Lowii, only found in Borneo. It has been awarded a genus all to itself, and is one of the rarest of Bornean curiosities. – J. Hewitt, Sarawak Gazette, September 1, 1908.

16

"According to Mr. Boulanger, Borneo can boast of producing the longest legged frog and the longest legged toad in the world." —Idem.

17

"Mr. St. John (Forests of the Far East, p. 190) mentions stones or pebbles of a dark colour considered by the natives as sacred. Some such, found at Quop, were said to have been lost during the civil wars. They are possibly paleolithic implements." – Beccari, op. cit. p. 367.

18

The late Rajah wrote in 1838: "We know scarcely anything of these varieties of the human race beyond the bare fact of their existence." We have since learnt something of their languages and customs; of their origin nothing.

19

Mr. F. D. de Rozario. The Sarawak Gazette, September 2, 1901. Mr. de Rozario, the officer in charge of Kapit Fort, has been in the Government service for some fifty years, of which nearly all have been spent in the Upper Rejang, and his knowledge of the natives, their customs and languages, is unique.

20

See note 2, page 18.

21

The Indra Lila (brother of the Lila Pelawan, who was the present Rajah's Malay chief at Lingga over fifty years ago), was their chief. Trouble arose owing to Akam Nipa, the celebrated Kayan chief, who will be noticed hereafter, having fallen in love with a Malay girl of rank. His suit being rejected, he threatened to forcibly abduct the lady, a threat which he could have carried out with ease, so the Malays fled with her to Lingga. This occurred some eighty years ago.

22

One of Magellan's chroniclers records that in 1521 men were found in Gilo (Gilolo or Jilolo, to the east of, and near to the Celebes), "with ears so long and pendulous that they reached to their shoulders." —Magellan, Hakluyt Society. Marsden, History of Sumatra, says that the people of Neas island off the west coast of Sumatra elongate their ears in the same manner; so do the Sagais of Belungan. The sculptures above mentioned, and the fact that this curious custom still exists in southern India, point to it being one of Hindu origin.

23

Human sacrifices are still in vogue amongst the Kayans and Kenyahs in the Batang Kayan and Mahkam rivers.

24

The Kajamans, Sekapans, Sians, and Lanans are said to have been the first to cross over from the Bantang Kayan (Belungan) into the Balui (Rejang). They were probably then one tribe.

25

Muka is the Malay for face. The word has been carried into the English language as mug, contemptuously "an ugly mug," from the Sanskrit word muhka, the face.

26

Mr. E. A. W. Cox, formerly Resident of the Trusan, and latterly of the Bintulu, says the Kadayan tradition is that many generations back they were brought from Deli in Sumatra by a former Sultan of Bruni. They have always been the immediate followers of the sultans, forming their main bodyguard. They have no distinctive language of their own, and talk a low Bruni patois; their dress is peculiar; and their system of rice cultivation is far in advance of all other Borneans.

27

The Hindu sacred bull.

28

Writing of the Rafflesia, "those extraordinary parasitical plants, whose huge and startling conspicuous flowers spring from the ground like gigantic mushrooms," Beccari (op. cit. p. 102) says, "The Land-Dayaks called the variety he found at Poi (and which he named R. Tuan-Mudæ, in honour of the present Rajah) 'Bua pakma'; evidently a corruption of 'patma' or 'padma,' the sacred lotus (Nelumbian speciosum) of the Hindus, which is not a native of Borneo. This is, no doubt, one of the many traces of the ancient faith once professed by the Dayaks, who have preserved the memory of the emblematical flower, transferring its name to that of another plant conspicuous for its size and singular appearance. In Java, as well as in Sumatra, the Rafflesia is known as 'Patma'; but there the fact is not surprising, for the prevalence of Hinduism in those islands is a matter of not very remote history." Pakma or patma is the Malay name for the lotus.

The late Sir Hugh Low notes that the Land-Dayaks, who (in common with most of the inland tribes) regulate their farming seasons by the motions of the Pleiades, call that constellation Sakara, probably from the Batara Sakra of the Hindu-Javan mythology, to whose particular care the earth was confided. —Sarawak.

Hindu gold ornaments and a Persian coin, bearing a date corresponding with the year 960 A.D., have been discovered up the Sarawak river, and some in the centre of the Land-Dayak country, which shows that the people of the ancient Hindu-Javan settlement at Santubong must have spread into the interior, and have mixed with the natives.

29

Afterwards Admiral of the Fleet.

30

Disappointment in marriage and unkindness or harshness on the part of relatives are common causes of suicide by man or woman, but the most common motive is shame, particularly in cases of an unmarried woman, when enceinte, being unable to prove to the tribe who the father of her child is. A whole family has been known to poison themselves to escape the consequences and disgrace which would have befallen them owing to one of them having been the accidental cause of a long communal house being destroyed by fire. Suicide is invariably committed by eating the poisonous root of the tuba plant, derris elliptica.

31

The worst on record in Sarawak was committed in 1894 by a half-bred Chinaman (his mother was a Segalang, and he was brought up as one) at Seduan village, three miles from Sibu, in the Rejang. This man, who had just been discharged from jail, arose in the middle of the night, and speared or cut down all the inmates of the house – thirteen women and children, of whom only two or three survived. He was shot by Mr. Q. A. Buck, then the Resident at Sibu (joined 1874, retired 1899), who was quickly on the spot, and was the means of preventing a further loss of life.

32

The Sea-Dayaks say that they were constructed by the gods when they made the sky, out of a small surplus of the blue.

33

St. John, op. cit., mentions that the late Sultan Mumin of Bruni had an ancient jar which was reputed to be able to speak, and that it moaned sorrowfully the night before his first wife died. He refused £2000 for it.

34

Naga, a dragon; benaga, having a dragon.

35

Meaning a deer in Malay and Sea-Dayak.

36

A misprint for "Tunggang."

37

Late Resident-General of the Federated Malay States.

38

This was written in 1866.

39

Amongst Eastern people any attempt to make a systematic census is liable to be misapprehended, and to give rise to a bad feeling, and even to dangerous scares, and for that reason no census has been made by the Government. This census was an approximation based upon the amount paid in direct taxation, such as head and door taxes, allowing an average of so many people to a family.

40

And so Orang-Murut means a hill-man, murut, or more correctly murud, meaning a hill —bulud in Sulu.

41

Mr. J. Hewitt, B.A., Curator of the Sarawak Museum in the Sarawak Gazette, February 2, 1906.

42

Kuching Observatory.

43

The Sarawak Gazette.

44

Named by the Spaniards Mount St. Paul according to Pigafetta. J. Hunt gives St. Peter's Mount in his Sketch of Borneo, 1812, and a map by Mercator published in about 1595 gives St. Pedro, and old maps of subsequent dates also give the latter name.

45

But Mr. C. Vernon-Collins, of the Sarawak Civil Service, recently found a bead which has been pronounced at the British Museum to have been made in Venice prior to A.D. 1100. A similar one of the same date was presented by H.H. the Ranee to the British Museum some years ago. It is a bead highly esteemed by the Kayans.

46

"Book of the Descent," Sir Hugh Low. —Journal of the Straits Branch of the R.A.S., No. 5.

47

Jewata is the Land-Dayak name of a god from the Sanskrit word dewata, divinity, deity, gods. The Sea-Dyaks also have Jewata in their mythology, likewise Batara, from the Sanskrit bhatar, holy; neither means God, as some writers appear to think. The Dayaks have no idea of theism.

48

The late Rajah has recorded a tradition of several of the Land-Dayak tribes that in the old times they were under the government of Java, and their tribute was regularly sent there.

49

The title assumed by the rulers of Majapahit, from "Bhatara," noted above.

50

According to Crawfurd. Sir Stamford Raffles gives 1475.

51

Formerly a monarchy whose jurisdiction comprehended all Sumatra, and whose sovereign was talked of with respect in the farthest parts of the East. – Marsden's History of Sumatra.

52

Lima is a small town on the north coast of Portugal.

53

Sir Hugh Low, Book of the Descent, op. cit.

54

See note 2, p. 45.

55

A Collection of Voyages, 1729, Dampier.

56

Idem.

57

Forrest's Voyage to New Guinea, 1779.

58

Sarawak, Hugh Low, 1848.

59

Hunt, op. cit.

60

Dias, in 1487.

61

"Antiquity of Chinese Trade," J. R. Logan in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago, 1848.

62

Forrest, op. cit.

63

Logan, op. cit.

64

Mercator's map gives Melano, which confirms this supposition. Other places on the Sarawak coast mentioned in this map are Tamaio-baio, Barulo (Bintulu), Puchavarao (Muka), Tamenacrim, and Tamaratos. The first and two last cannot be identified. Tama is of course for tanah, land, and the last name simply means in Malay, the land of hundreds – of many people, which the first name may also imply. Varao being man in Spanish and Portuguese, Puchavarao means the place of the Pucha (Muka) people – Pucha also being a transcriber's error for Puka. It was near this place that the Portuguese captain, who afterwards became a Bruni pangiran (p. 42) was wrecked, and also near this place on Cape Sirik, a point which is continually advancing seaward, that some forty to fifty years ago the remains of a wreck were discovered a considerable distance from the sea, and so must have belonged to a ship wrecked many years before. When Rentap's stronghold in the Saribas was captured by the present Rajah in 1861, an old iron cannon dated 1515 was found there. Traditions exist pointing to wrecks and to the existence of hidden treasure at two or three places along the coast.

65

Meaning queen-consort.

66

Probably the Kalaka; the Malays in the Rejang came from that river.

67

A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, 1718.

68

The Dutch confiscated all foreign ships they could seize found trading in the Archipelago without permission from them to do so.

69

Borneo and Sumatra were then the great pepper producing countries.

70

Forrest, op. cit., confirms this, and adds "the Dutch forbid the natives to manufacture cloth."

71

Sir Hugh Low, op. cit.

72

Son of the late Sir Hugh Low, G.C.M.G. He served in the Sarawak Civil Service from 1869 to 1887, in which year he died. His knowledge of the natives, their languages, and customs, was unsurpassed. The notes he left formed the basis of Ling Roth's work, The Natives of Borneo, 1896.

73

This was the serah, or forced trade formerly in force in all Malayan countries; and it appears to be still so, in a modified form, in Sumatra.

74

The Sarawak Malays were also so forced to mine by Pangiran Makota, and this forced labour was one of the principal causes of the rebellion of 1836-40 against the Sultan's Government.

75

This happened after this man had been banished by the late Rajah from Sarawak. See Chap. III. p. 87, for the fate he met and so richly merited.

76

Famous in Malay legends throughout the East as Nakoda Ragam, a renowned sea rover and conqueror.

77

W. P. Groeneveldt, Essays relating to Indo-China, 1887.

78

Camoen's Lusiad (Sir Richard Burton's translation.) Camoen here refers to the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, which he visited in his exile some 350 years ago.

79

St. John tells us that a few years before this an English ship that had put into the Sarawak river to water was treacherously seized; the Englishmen were murdered, and the Lascars sold into slavery.

80

Anglice, cat.

81

A short time before the commencement of this history this place had been attacked by the Saribas Dayaks, and 120 people were slain.

82

3000 feet.

83

Spencer St. John, Sir James Brooke, 1879.

84

Mr. Brooke. He was a good-looking man. Capt. the Hon. H. Keppel gives his portrait, the frontispiece to vol. i. of his Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido, which is incorrectly entitled the portrait of Rajah Muda Hasim.

85

Spelt Sahib by Mr. Brooke in his letters and journals, and by others, but correctly his name was Sahap. He had a reputation for bravery, and was styled by the Sekrang Dayaks "Bujang Brani," the brave man.

86

There is no strict law of primogeniture in Bruni, otherwise Rajah Muda Hasim could not have been heir-presumptive. As he was of royal blood, and the prince most fitted to succeed, he was looked upon as the heir to the throne, and was so acknowledged (publicly in 1846) by the Sultan, and was therefore more correctly heir-apparent. At this time Sultan Omar Ali had two sons, and the eldest, also named Hasim, must have been about thirty-five years of age. There was a disgraceful harem scandal in connection with their birth, which pointed to their having been the sons of a Nakoda, or merchant. Though this appears to have been generally credited, Hasim nevertheless became the 24th Sultan in 1885.

It may be noted here that Omar Ali himself was only de facto Sultan, as he was never able to obtain the legal investiture which in Bruni constitutes an election to the throne de jure, and which confers upon the sovereign the title of Iang de Pertuan, the Lord who rules, the most exalted title, and one which he never assumed.

87

Or an abbreviation of Muhammad Husain. In former works he is incorrectly styled Moksain (for Matsain), following Mr. Brooke's published letters and journals, which were badly edited in regard to native names and words.

88

Mr. Brooke.

89

Mr. Brooke.

90

The Bruni, not the Sarawak Malays.

91

Mr. Brooke.

92

Idem.

93

By which he was generally referred to, both in documents and verbally, by the Malays of Bruni and Sarawak. "Rajah of Sarawak" was a complimentary title given to him by Europeans only. He has been frequently styled Muda Hasim by former writers; this would be unintelligible to a Malay.

94

Such was this ascendency that they became the founders of the present ruling dynasties of Bruni (Chap. II., p. 1), Palembang (Sumatra), Pontianak, Sambas, Mindanau, and Sulu, and probably of other native states.

95

Land-Dayaks.

96

Shortly before Rajah Brooke's arrival, Sherip Sahap with a large force of Sekrang Dayaks had attacked the Sau tribe of Land-Dayaks in Upper Sarawak. Many were killed, their villages plundered and burnt, and nearly all the surviving women and children, to the number of some two hundred and fifty, carried off into slavery. The Rajah eventually recovered nearly all.

97

Meaning Rajah Muda Hasim.

98

Bruni.

99

Duit, Malay for a cent.

100

Rajah Brooke.

101

"I admit that Bruni has its points, but what irony to compare for a moment the city of marble palaces with the mass of miserable huts which a single match could easily reduce to ashes." – Beccari, op. cit. The Rajah called the place a "Venice of hovels." Mercator in his Atlas describes it as "being situated on a saltwater lagoon like Venice," hence probably it became known as the Venice of Borneo.

102

Kota batu, stone fort. The name still remains. It was built towards the close of the fifteenth century by Sherip Ali, the first Arab Sultan, with the aid of the Chinese subjects his wife's mother had brought to Bruni. The city was then nearer the mouth of the river. It was moved to its present position by Sultan Muadin about 200 years ago.

103

Magellan, Hakluyt Society, and the Portuguese Jorge de Menezes, who visited Bruni five years after Pigafetta, notices that the city was surrounded with a wall of brick, and possessed some noble edifices. Other early voyagers describe the sultans and rulers of Malayan States as maintaining great style, and their equipments, – such as swords of state, saddles, chairs, eating and drinking utensils – as being of pure gold. Allowing for some exaggeration, this would still point to a former condition of prosperity which enabled rulers and nobles to keep up a pageantry which has long since vanished.

104

This malformation, according to the laws of Bruni, would have disqualified him for the throne, for these provide that no person in any way imbecile in mind or deformed in person can enjoy the regal dignity, whatever title to it his birth might have given him. – Sir Hugh Low, op. cit. p. 108.

105

Saya, or more correctly, sahaya (mis-spelt suya in the Rajah's badly edited journals) is the Malay for I, mine; so amigo saya would be, My friend. Amigo was one of the few Spanish words the Sultan had.

106

Established in 1855.

107

Afterwards Admiral of the Fleet. He died, January 1904.

108

The Governor-General of Netherlands East Indies in a rescript, dated January 23, 1846, acknowledged that the exertions during the past twenty-five years effectually to suppress piracy on the coasts of Borneo had not been successful for want of combination, and for having been limited to the western coast.

109

A Collection of Voyages, 1729.

110

Sulu was the principal market for the disposal of captives and plunder.

111

A son of Captain Francis Light, who founded Penang in 1786, was named Lanoon, he having been born on the island at the time it was being blockaded by Lanun pirates.

112

Dayak war-boats, some having as many as 75 to the crew.

113

Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido, 1847.

114

On behalf of the Sultan, Saribas and Sekrang being beyond Rajah Brooke's jurisdiction.

115

Keppel, op. cit.

116

These Sea-Dayaks, together with those of the Undup, also an affluent of the Batang Lupar, subsequently became the mainstay of the Government against the Saribas and Sekrangs.

117

Life of Sir James Brooke, p. 84.

118

Sir Edward's report upon Sarawak appears to have been favourable; he pronounced the coal at Bruni, which he never examined, to be unworkable, and the Sultan to be a savage.

119

Pronounced by the natives Achi.

120

More correctly Putusan, or Pemutus. We retain the old spelling.

121

These guns realised £900 at public auction in Singapore.

122

The Patinggi was always ready and ever to the fore where tough work and hard knocks were going, and he was the guiding and leading spirit in such expeditions as was this. "Three fingered Jack" the Dido's crew had dubbed him, having that strong regard for him that brave men bear towards another though his skin be of a different complexion – for he had lost two fingers in a former encounter. The type has since changed, and the courtly, intrepid, and determined fighting Malay chief has gone – and he is missed. "I sigh for some of the old hands that could not read or write, but could work, and had more sound wisdom in their little fingers than many popinjay gentlemen of the present day carry in their heads," so wrote the present Rajah ten years ago.

123

Mr. George Steward, formerly of the H.E.I.C.'s maritime service, had been sent out by the Rajah's agent, Mr. Wise, on a trading venture. He joined the expedition as a volunteer, and had concealed himself in Patinggi Ali's boat, where he should not have been.