Part 33 (1/2)

Round about the northern coasts are to be found many small bands of Lanuns and Bajaus, living largely in boats. They are mostly Mohammedans, and descend from the notorious piratical communities whose headquarters were in the Sulu Islands and other islands off the north-east coast.

In the foregoing pages we have said very little about the languages spoken by the tribes of Borneo. Although one of us has a practical command of the Kayan, Kenyah, Sea Dayak, and Malay languages, and a tolerably intimate acquaintance with a number of the Klemantan dialects, we do not venture upon the task of discussing their systematic positions and relations to languages of other areas. For this would be a task of extreme difficulty and complexity which only an accomplished linguistic scholar could profitably undertake. Nevertheless, we think it worth while to add a few words regarding the bearing of the languages on the foregoing ethnological discussion. It seems clear that in the main the differences and affinities between the many languages and dialects spoken by the pagan tribes bear out, so far as they are known to us, the princ.i.p.al conclusions of our argument. The Sea Dayak or Iban tongue stands distinctly apart from all the rest, and is indisputably very closely allied to the Malay. The Kenyahs, Klemantans, and Punans speak a great variety of tongues, which are, however, so closely similar, and the extreme members of which are connected by so many intermediate forms, that it would seem they may properly be regarded as but dialects of one language. The Kayan language, on the other hand, stands apart from both the Iban and the Klemantan languages, but is much nearer to the latter than the former. The Kenyah dialects especially contain many words or roots that appear also in the Kayan, and seem to be more closely allied to it than is any of the Klemantan tongues. This may well be due to the more intimate contact with the Kayans enjoyed by the Kenyahs, who, as we have seen, have a.s.similated the Kayan culture more completely than any other of the indigenous tribes, and who may well have taken up many Kayan words together with other culture elements.

The Murut languages again seem to stand apart from the Iban, Kayan, and Kenyah-Klemantan, as a distinct group whose vocabulary has little in common with those others.[210]

In conclusion, we venture to make a suggestion which we admit to be widely speculative and by which we wish only to draw attention to a remote possibility which, if further evidence in its favour should be discovered, would be one of great interest. We have throughout maintained the view, now adopted by many others, of which Professor Keane has been the princ.i.p.al exponent, namely, the view that the Indonesian stock was largely, probably predominantly, of Caucasic origin. In our chapter on animistic beliefs concerning animals and plants, and in the chapter on religion, we have shown that the Kayans believe in a multiplicity of anthropomorphic deities which, with Lake Tenangan at the head of a galaxy of subordinate G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses presiding over special departments of nature, strangely resembles the group of divine beings who, in the imagination of the fathers of European culture, dwelt in Olympus. And we have shown that the system of divination practised by the Kayans (the taking of omens from the flight and cries of birds, and the system of augury by the entrails of sacrificial victims) strangely resembles, even in many details, the corresponding system practised by the early Romans. Our suggestion is, then, that these two systems may have had a common root; that, while the Aryans carried the system westward into Europe, the Indonesians, or some Caucasic people which has been merged in the Indonesian stock, carried it eastward; and that the Kayans, with their strongly conservative tendencies, their serious religious temperament, and strong tribal organisation, have, of all the Indonesians, preserved most faithfully this ancient religious system and have imparted it in a more or less partial manner to the tribes to whom they have given so much else of culture, custom, and belief.

It is perhaps not without significance in this connection that the Karens, whom we regard as the nearest relatives of the Kayans, were found to wors.h.i.+p a Supreme Being, and have proved peculiarly apt pupils of the Christian missionaries who have long laboured among them.

By way of crowning the indiscretion of the foregoing paragraphs, we point out that there are certain faint indications of linguistic support for this speculative suggestion. BALI, which, as we have explained, is used by Kayans and Kenyahs to denote whatever is sacred or is connected with religious practices, is undoubtedly a word of Sanskrit derivation.[211] FLAKI, the name of the bird of most importance in augury, bears a suggestive resemblance to the German FALKE and the Latin FALCO. The Kayan word for omen is AMAN, the resemblance of which to the Latin word is striking. Are these resemblances merely accidental? If more of the words connected with the religious beliefs and practices could be shown to exhibit equally close resemblances, we should be justified in saying -- No.

CHAPTER 22

Government

In an earlier chapter we have sketched the history of government in Borneo from the earliest times of which any record remains, up to the time at which the whole island was brought under European control. In this chapter we propose to describe the way in which the European governments have extended their spheres of influence and have secured the co-operation of the natives in the maintenance of peace and order and freedom.

For some years after Mr. James Brooke became Rajah of Sarawak (1841), his rule was confined to the territory then known as Sarawak. This area, still known as Sarawak proper, is some 7000 square miles in extent and comprises the basins of the following rivers: the Sarawak, the Samarahan, the Sadong, and the Lundu. The Batang Lupar and Saribas rivers, which enter the sea to the north of this area, were infested by pirate bands under the leaders.h.i.+p of Malay Serifs who, though they professed allegiance to the Sultan of Bruni, were but little controlled by him. The depredations of these unruly neighbours led Sir James Brooke to undertake several expeditions against them. In the year 1849, Captain Sir Harry Keppel of H.M.S. DIDO lent his aid (not for the first time), and the combined forces finally swept out those hornets'

nests and put an end to piracy in those regions. With the approval of the Sultan of Bruni, Rajah Brooke established stations in the lower waters of the Saribas and Skarang rivers, and a little later at Kanowit on the Rejang River. This was the first of a series of similar steps by which the area of the Raj has been successively extended, until now it comprises about 60,000 square miles, more than eight times its original extent. In each of these out-stations one or two English officers were appointed to represent the Rajah's government. In each station a small wooden fort was built, and in some cases the fort was surrounded with a stockade. This served as residence for the officer, or officers, and their small band of native police, generally some ten or twelve Malays armed with rifles and a small cannon. The prime duty of these officers, ent.i.tled Governors (or later, Residents), was to protect the local population from the oppression and depredations of the Serifs, and generally to discourage and punish bloodshed and disorder. The general policy followed in all these new districts was to elicit the co-operation of the local chiefs and headmen, and, when the people had begun to appreciate the benefits of peace, including the opening of the rivers to Malay and Chinese traders, to impose a small poll-tax to defray the expenses of administration. The area of control was then gradually extended farther into the interior by securing the voluntary adhesion of communities and tribes settled in the tributaries and higher waters of each river. This policy, steadily pursued in one district after another, has invariably succeeded, although the time required for complete pacification has, of course, varied considerably; and it was only during the early years of this century that the process seemed to reach its final stage among the Sea Dayaks in the interiors of the Batang Lupar and Rejang districts.

The stability of the Rajah's government was seriously threatened in 1857 by the insurrection of Chinese gold-workers at Bau in Sarawak proper. But this rebellion, in the course of which Sir James Brooke narrowly escaped death at the hands of the rebels, was soon suppressed, largely by the energy of the Tuan Muda (the present Rajah), who came to the aid of Sir James with a strong force of Sea Dayaks and Malays.

The process of establis.h.i.+ng order and good government in the new territory was complicated by the intrigues of the Bruni n.o.bles or PANGIRANS and of the independent Malay chiefs, who, seeing their power to oppress and misrule the coast districts seriously curtailed, and indeed threatened with extinction, by the growing influence of the Europeans in Borneo, conspired with others of similar status in Dutch Borneo to rid the island of these unwelcome innovators. In the year 1859 two English officers of the Sarawak government at Kanowit on the lower Rejang (Messrs. Fox and Steele) were murdered by a gang of Malanaus. There was good reason to believe that this incident, together with several murders of Europeans in Dutch Borneo, was the result of a loosely concerted action of the Malay chiefs, and that the Kanowit murders were directly instigated by Serif Masahor and Pangiran Dipa; the latter a Bruni n.o.ble who misruled Muka and the surrounding area. Rajah Brooke visited the Sultan of Bruni and secured his authorisation for the punishment of these and others concerned in the murders; and in 1860 an expedition, led by his two nephews, captured Muka and would have expelled the Serif and the Pangiran but for the untimely interference of the British Consul at Bruni, who seems to have been misinformed of the nature of the situation.[212]

In the following year the Rajah, visiting the Sultan at Bruni, found him willing to cede Muka and the basins of the adjoining rivers, the Oya, Tatau, and Bintulu, in return for a perpetual annual payment of 16,000 dollars, an arrangement which was accepted and which still holds good. Thus the intrigues of the Malay n.o.bles, which for a time had seriously threatened the stability of the Rajah's government, resulted in the addition of an area of some 7000 square miles to the Sarawak territory.

The basin of the Rejang, the largest river of Sarawak, was the next region to be added to the Raj. Here Sir James Brooke's government first came into contact with the Kayans (in the year 1863). The reputation of the Kayans as a dominant tribe of warriors, whose raids were feared even as far as Bruni, had rendered them proud and self. confident- and unready to appreciate the benefits of the Rajah's government. Their continued hostility rendered advisable a demonstration of force. Accordingly in the year 1863 the Tuan Muda (the present Rajah, H. H. Sir Charles Brooke) led an expedition of some 10,000 or more native levies, consisting chiefly of Sea Dayaks and Malays, up the Rejang as far as the mouth of the Baloi Peh, a spot some 250 miles from the mouth of the Rejang and in the edge of the Kayan country. The Kayans could not withstand so large a force and retreated farther up river after but little show of resistance. Several of their long houses were destroyed, and a message demanding their submission to the Rajah's government was sent by a captive to Oyong Hang, the most influential of the Kayan chiefs. The messenger carried a cannon-ball and the Sarawak flag, and was instructed to ask Oyang Hang which he would choose; to which question the chief is said to have returned the answer that he wanted neither. Although the expedition failed to secure the submission of any large number of the Kayans and Kenyahs, it established the Rajah's authority as far as it had penetrated; for a number of Klemantan villages settled in the middle reaches of the Rejang accepted the offer of peace, and a number of their chiefs brought the Sarawak flag down river and celebrated the traditional peace-making rites with the Rajah's representative. The Kayans have never since attempted to raid the lower reaches of the river; but it was not until the early eighties, during the Residency of the late Mr. H. B. Low, that the bulk of the Kayans of the Rejang acknowledged the Rajah's authority and began to co-operate in his administration, a result achieved without any repet.i.tion of the large expedition of 1863. From that time (about 1885) the Baloi or Upper Rejang may be regarded as having formed part of Sarawak.

In the year 1882 the northern boundary of Sarawak was again pushed forward by the cession to the Rajah by the Sultan of Bruni of the basin of the Baram, an area of some 10,000 square miles, on condition of a perpetual annual payment of 6000 dollars. This was an area in which, except along the coast, the Sultan's authority had never been exercised, and which had been kept closed to trade and the depredations of the Malays, by the fear of the Kayans. For the Kayans, who dominated all the middle waters of the Baram, had in the past threatened even Bruni. The Sultan was no doubt glad to see the Rajah undertake the task of controlling his formidable neighbours, who, dwelling within striking distance of his capital, were a perpetual menace to his power and even to his personal safety. The Baram district has been brought completely under the Rajah's rule without the introduction of any armed force from outside; and as the process of establis.h.i.+ng peace and order has there followed a normal and undisturbed course, and is familiarly known to us, we propose to describe it in some detail on a later page. Since the date of the inclusion of the Baram, the Raj of Sarawak has been again extended towards the north on three. occasions. The first of these additions was the basin of the Trusan River. In this case the Sultan offered to sell the territory for a lump sum, and his offer was accepted by the Rajah, whose officers occupied it in the year 1885. In 1890, the people living on the Limbang River, whose basin adjoins that of the Baram on its northern border, were in a state of rebellion against the Sultan, and the region had for several years been in a very disturbed state. The present Rajah therefore proposed to annex the country in return for an annual payment. The British Government was asked to approve this step and to fix the amount of the sum to be paid to the Sultan. A favourable reply having been given by the Foreign Office, and the annual sum of 6000 dollars having been awarded as a fair return for the cession, the administration of the country was peacefully entered upon by the Rajah's officers, who where warmly welcomed by the greater part of the inhabitants.

The latest and presumably the final extension of the boundaries of Sarawak was effected in 1905, when the basin of the small river Lawas was bought from the British North Borneo Company.

In the opening year of this century a small part of Borneo still remained under purely native control, namely, the town of Bruni and an area about it of 1700 square miles, comprising the basins of the small rivers Balait and Tutong. By agreement with the Sultan this area was placed under the administration of a Resident representing the British Government in the year 1906. Thus the European occupation of Borneo was completed.

The history of the establishment of Dutch rule throughout the larger part of Borneo has been similar to that of the acquisition of Sarawak by its two English Rajahs. Dutch trading stations were established in the south-west corner of Borneo as early as 1604. In the seventeenth century stations were established in southern Borneo by both British and Dutch traders; but the Dutch traders extended their influence more rapidly than their rivals, and by the middle of the eighteenth century had secured a practically exclusive influence in those parts. The British held possession of all the Dutch East Indies during the brief period (1811 -- 1816) which was terminated by the Congress of Vienna. On the retirement of the British, the Dutch Government took over all the rights acquired by the Dutch traders; and since that time it has continued to consolidate its control and to extend the area of its administration farther into the interior along the courses of the great rivers. There were in the area that is now Dutch Borneo several independent Malay Sultans, of which the princ.i.p.al had their capitals at Pontianak, Banjermasin, and Kotei. In 1823 the Sultan of Banjermasin ceded a large part of his territory to the Dutch government; in 1844 the Sultan of Kotei accepted its protection; and by similar steps by far the larger part of the island has been marked out as the Dutch sphere of influence. The water parting from which the princ.i.p.al rivers flow east and west has been agreed upon by the Dutch and the Sarawak governments as the boundary between their territories; and though the upper waters of the great rivers which flow west and south through Dutch Borneo have up to the present time hardly been explored, the authority of the Dutch Government is well established over all the tribes of the coastal regions and, especially in the south, extends far into the interior, but is still little more than nominal in the head waters of the rivers. The system of administration now practised by the Dutch closely resembles in most essential respects that obtaining in Sarawak, and it has brought to the natives of the greater part of Dutch Borneo the same great benefits, peace, freedom, justice, and trade.

The northern extremity of Borneo, an area comprising some 31,000 square miles and 200,000 inhabitants, is now administered by the British North Borneo Company (chartered by the British Government in 1892), which acquired it by purchase in successive instalments from the Sultans of Bruni and Sulu. The Company has followed in the main an administrative policy similar to that of Sarawak, and has appointed as governors officers of large East Indian experience placed at their disposal by the British Government. The Company has attempted to achieve in a brief period a degree of commercial development which in Sarawak and Dutch Borneo has been reached only gradually in the course of several generations; and to this circ.u.mstance must be attributed many of the difficulties which for a time caused it ”to get into the newspapers.” But these difficulties have now been overcome, and the whole territory placed in a condition of prosperity and orderly progress.

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It has been widely recognised that Sarawak provides a most notable example of beneficent administration of the affairs of a population in a lowly state of culture by representatives of our Western civilisation. Among all such administrative systems that of Sarawak has been distinguished not only by the rapid establishment of peace, order, and a modest prosperity, with a minimum output of armed force, but especially by reason of the careful way in which the interests of the native population have constantly been made the prime object of the government's solicitude. The story of the success of the two white Rajahs of Sarawak has several times been told in whole or in part. But we think it is worth while to try to give some intimate glimpses of the working of the system as it affects the daily lives of the pagan tribes, taking our ill.u.s.trations in the main from incidents in which one of us has been personally concerned.

From the very inception of his rule, Sir James Brooke laid down and strictly adhered to the principle of a.s.sociating the natives with himself and his European a.s.sistants in the government of the country, and of respecting and maintaining whatever was not positively objectionable in the laws and customs of the people. And this policy has been as faithfully followed by the present Rajah.[213]

The Raj of which Sir James Brooke became the absolute ruler in the way described in Chapter II. was a country in which the supreme authority had been exercised for many generations by Malay rulers, and in which the only generally recognised system of law was the Mohammedan law administered by them. The two white Rajahs, instead of imposing any system of European-made laws upon the people, as in their Position of benevolent despot they might have been tempted to do, have accepted the Mohammedan law and custom in all matters affecting the population of the Mohammedan religion; and they have gradually introduced improvements when and where the defects and injustices of the system revealed themselves. In the work both of administration and legislation the Rajahs have always sought and enjoyed the advice and co-operation of Malays. They have maintained the princ.i.p.al ministries of State, and have continued the tenure of those offices by the Malay n.o.bles who occupied them at the time of Sir James Brooke's accession to power; and, as these have died or retired in the natural course, they have chosen leading Malays of the aristocratic cla.s.s to fill the vacancies. Three of these Malay officers, namely, the Datu Bandar, Datu Imaum, and the Datu Hakim, have been members of the Supreme Council since its inst.i.tution in 1855. The first of these offices may be best defined by likening it to that of a Lord Mayor; or better, perhaps, to that of the salaried Burgomaster of a German city; its occupant is understood to be the leading citizen of the Malay community of Kuching, the capital town of Sarawak. The Datu Imaum is the religious head of the Mohammedan community, and the Datu Hakim the princ.i.p.al of the Malay judges.

The Supreme Council consists of the three Malay officers named above together with three or four of the princ.i.p.al European officers, and the Rajah, who presides over its deliberations. It meets at least once a month to consider all matters referred to it by lower tribunals. It embodies the absolute authority of the Rajah; from its decrees there is no appeal. It decides questions of justice, administration, and legislation; and it continually enriches and improves the law by creating precedents, which serve to guide the local courts, by deliberately revising and repealing laws, and by adding new laws to the Statute Book. It is the sole legislative authority. The presence of the Malay members at the meetings of the Council is by no means a mere formality; they take an active part in its deliberations and decisions.

Beside the Supreme Council there exists a larger body whose functions are purely advisory. It is called the Council NEGRI or State Council, and consists of the Rajah and the members of the Supreme Council, the Residents in charge of the more important districts, and the princ.i.p.al ”Native Officers” and PENGHULUS, some seventy members in all. This Council meets at Kuching once in every three years under the presidency of the Rajah, who provides the members with suitable lodgings and entertains them at dinner. At the meeting of this council topics of general interest are discussed, and the Rajah makes some general review of the state of public affairs and the progress achieved since the previous meeting. But the princ.i.p.al purpose of the inst.i.tution is the bringing together, under conditions favourable for friendly intercourse, of the leading men of the whole country. Each new member is formally sworn in, taking an oath of loyalty to the Rajah and his government. The native chiefs return from these meetings with an enhanced sense of the importance and dignity of their office and with clearer notions of the whole system of government and of their places in it.