Part 35 (1/2)
Dr. E. T. Hamy in 1877 recognised a primitive element in the Malay Archipelago, for which he adopted the term Indonesian, a name previously invented by Logan for the non-Malay population of the East Indian Archipelago. De Quatref.a.ges and Hamy further established this stock in their CRANIA ETHNICA (1882), and de Quatref.a.ges in his HISTOIRE GENERALE DES RACES HUMAINES (1889) boldly states that these high- and narrow-headed peoples are ”un des rameaux de la branche blanche allophyle” (L.C. pp. 515, 521). Keane terms the Indonesians ”the pre-Malay Caucasic element in Oceania” (MAN PAST AND PRESENT, 1899, p. 231). Various investigators[224] have studied skulls obtained from this region which prove the wide extension of dolichocephaly. Kohlbrugge (1898), who investigated the Teriggerese, Indonesian mountaineers of Java, says: ”Les Indonesiens sont dolichocephales, les Malais brachycephales ou hyperbrachycephales. Le sang indonesien se decele donc par la longueur de la tete: plus celle-ci se rapproche du type dolichocephale, plus pur est le sang indonesien.” Volz confirms Hagen's observations of the existence among the Battak of North Sumatra of two types, a dolichocephalic Indonesian and a brachycephalic type.
The term Indonesian may now be regarded as definitely restricted to a dolichocephalic, and the term Proto-Malay to a brachycephalic race, of which the true Malays (Orang Malayu) are a specialised branch.
The next point to discuss is the presence of these two races in Borneo. The Dutch Expedition found three distinct types in the interior of Netherlands Borneo, the Ulu Ayars (Ulu Ajar)[225] or Ot Danum of the upper Kapuas, the Bahau-Kenyahs (Bahau-Kenja) of the middle or upper Mahakam (or Kotei) and the upper waters of the rivers to the north, and the Punans, nomadic hunters living in the highlands about the head-waters of the great rivers. The first of these may be cla.s.sed as predominantly Indonesian and the others as mainly Proto-Malay in origin. According to Nieuwenhuis the Bahaus and Kenyahs both remember that they came from Apo Kayan at the headwaters of the Kayan river; they were formerly known as the Pari tribes. In all the tribes of this group the social organisation is in the main similar, and this affinity is borne out by their material culture, thus they may be regarded as originally one people. Tribes calling themselves Bahau now live along the Mahakam above Mujub and include one Kayan group; on the upper Rejang are Bahau tribes under the name of Kayan, and a small section has advanced into the Kapuas area and settled on the Mendalam which again includes Kayans and kindred tribes. All the tribes still in Apo Kayan call themselves Kenyah, as also those of the eastward flowing Taw.a.n.g, Berau and Kayan (or Bulungan) rivers and those of the upper Limbang and Baram flowing northwards. The Kenyahs of Apo Kayan live along the Iwan, a tributary of the Kayan river (or Bulungan); to the north-east is another tributary called the Bahau which seems to have been the original home of the Bahau people since the tribes of Borneo habitually take their names from the rivers along which they live.[226]
Nieuwenhuis came to the conclusion that the three chief tribes measured by him represented three main groups of the population of Central Borneo, physically and culturally. Mr. E. B. Haddon drew attention (MAN, 1905 No. 13, p. 22) to the close similarity of the results published by Kohlbrugge (1903) with those published by me (1901). I recognised five main groups of peoples in Sarawak: Punan, Klemantan (or, as Dr. Hose and I then spelled it, Kalamantan), Kenyah-Kayan, Iban or Sea Dayak, and Malay. The Ibans are not referred to by either of the Dutch ethnologists, who, like myself, merely alluded to the Malay element. Kohlbrugge and I included the Bakatan or Beketan and the Ukit or Bukat in the Punan group, and also bracketed together the Kayans and Kenyahs. In Sarawak there are numerous and often small tribes which it is frequently very difficult or quite impossible to differentiate from one another, although the extremes of the series can be distinguished; we therefore decided to comprehend them under the non-committal term of Klemantan (p. 42). I showed that they were of mixed origin, and stated that, ”It is possible that the Kalamantans were originally a dolichocephalic people who mixed first with the indigenous brachycephals (Punan group) and later with the immigrant brachycephals (Kenyah-Kayan group) or the Kalamantans may have been a mixed people when they first arrived in Borneo and subsequently increased their complexity by mixing with these two groups” (L.C. p. 352). I also made it clear that I regarded the dolichocephalic element as of Indonesian stock and the brachycephalic of Proto-Malayan origin. It was with great satisfaction that I found Kohlbrugge had come to similar conclusions and that the Ulu Ayars exhibit such strong traces of an Indonesian origin, stronger perhaps than those of any tribe in Sarawak, with the possible exception of the scarcely studied Muruts and allied tribes.
Kohlbrugge states (1903, p. 2) that he has shown for the interior of Sumatra, Java, and Celebes that there are mesaticephalic peoples distinct in other respects from the coast peoples, but not dolichocephalic. He concludes that the (Ulu Ayar) Dayaks, being the only dolichocephals, are the only pure Indonesians, and the rest (Kayans and Punans) are more or less mixed with Malays. The mean cephalic index of 130 Tenggerese of the interior of Java is 79.7, but the Ulu Ayars const.i.tute a uniform group which ranges from 7 1 to 81.4, of which 9 are 74 or under and 9 are between 74.1 and 76 inclusive, the median of 26 adult males being 74.7.[227] [Although the median Kalabit index in the living subject is somewhat higher, that of the skulls, as well as the cranial index of Muruts and Trings (Table C), is very similar in this respect to that of the Ulu Ayars.]
According to Nieuwenhuis' statistics, as given by Kohlbrugge, there is in the brachycephalic group (Kayans and Punans) a greater range (75 to 93.3, and 1 Kayan woman reaches 97) than in the Ulu Ayars; most fall between 78 and 85, the medians of both being just over 81. There are 8 dolichocephals[228] out of his 43 Kayan men and 4 out of his 25 women, but only I Punan out of 14. In his curve of the Kayan indices there is a drop at 82 [a curve of my data shows a similar drop]. ”I leave it an open question,” he says (p. 13), ”whether this break indicates mixture of a dolichocephalic and brachycephalic group; this can only be decided by the study of more abundant material, and requires confirmation from the geographical and ethnographical standpoint. At all events it may be a.s.sumed A priori that if long-headed and broadheaded peoples occur in the interior of Borneo, then mixed peoples will also be met with, and the Kayans might be such.” [An examination of my data will show that there is practically no difference between the Kayans and Kenyahs in this respect.]
A comparison is also possible between the bi-zygomatic breadths made by Nieuwenhuis and ourselves. The figures are those of the minimum, median, and maximum. KAYANS (43 [male], N) 126, 139, 153 ; (25 [female], N) 125, 132, 141; (21 [male], H) 132, 141, 150. PUNANS (14 [ERROR: unhandled ♂], N) 132, 138, 145; (19 [male], H) 130, 142, 154. ULU AYARS (26 [male], N) 12 5, 136, 145. LAND DAYAKS (42 [male], S) 122, 136, 145.
Kohlbrugge points out that there seems to be no ground for dividing the ”Indonesians” into a taller and shorter group since the differences are slight. If this distinction were drawn, the Ulu Ayars (av. 1.571 m., med. 1.551 m.) would belong to the shorter group as would the Enganese (av. 1.570 m.). His 34 Kayan men (av. 1.584 m., med. 1.582 m.) and 14 Punan men (av. 1.583 m., med. 1.569 m.) and the Gorontalese (1.584 m.) are intermediate between these and the Tenggerese (1.604 m.) and Battak (1.605). I also find this distinction untenable, as our Kayans (av. 1.559 m., med. 1.550 m.) and Punans (av. 1.555 m., med. 1.550 m.) are of the same stature or even possibly shorter than his Ulu Ayars, whereas our 16 Kenyah men (av. 1.597 m., med. 1.608) are taller than his Kayans. He adds that the shorter ”Indonesians”
live in the plains, the taller in the mountains, but he cannot say for certain whether a mountain climate affects stature as many believe. It is to be regretted that Kohlbrugge extends in this instance the term Indonesian to the Kayans and Punans. Taking our measurements I find that the Kenyahs and the Muruts (av. 1.601 m., med. 1.590 m.) are the tallest groups, then come the Iban (av. 1.590 m., med. 1.585 m.), the Kayan and Punan medians come about half-way between the tallest Klemantans (Long Pokun, med. 1.590 m.) and the shortest (Lerong, med. 1.520 m). The above figures refer to men only, the women are markedly shorter.
Kohlbrugge gives the following information with regard to body measurements: the Kayan women are 14 cm. shorter than the men, usually the difference is 10 -- 12 cm. The span is greater than the stature, the proportion is 105.2 : 100 in Kayans, 1034: 100 in Ulu Ayars and 106.5 : 100 in Punans and Tenggerese. In youths it is rather higher than in men. The difference between Tenggerese and Ulu Ayars is due to the latter having shorter arms, especially the upper arms, and the chest of the Bornean peoples is 2 cm. narrower. Other Indonesian peoples have a longer upper arm than the Ulu Ayars, who also have the tibia shorter in proportion to the femur. Kayan and Ulu Ayar men have a comparatively shorter femur than the Punan. The latter thus resemble the Tenggerese, the others have the same relative length as many other peoples of the Archipelago; there is no difference between the Malays and Indonesians in this respect. The Kayan women have relatively a much longer femur than the men. The shorter tibia makes the whole leg of the Bornean peoples shorter than in others -- except that the Punans make it up with a longer femur. Women and young people have longer legs than men. The Punans have the fattest calves approximating to the Tenggerese, the other Bornean tribes are more like the Gorontalese. The chest girth of Ulu Ayars and Tenggerese is almost the same, despite the difference in the breadth of the chest, in which the Ulu Ayars resemble the inhabitants of Atchin measured by Lubbers. The proportion of the length of the foot to the stature is 16 : 100 in Kayans of both s.e.xes, 154 : 100 in Ulu Ayars, and 15.2 in Punans. But the Kayan feet are shorter than those of the Gorontalese, who have the longest feet in the Archipelago. The other Bornean peoples are the same as Indonesians who resemble the Malays in this respect. The pelvic breadth of the Kayan men and women is equal (26 cm.), though men have the wider chest; the Punan pelvis is narrower than in the other two tribes; but in all three the pelvis is broader than in the Tenggerese.
We must now turn to the evidence of the crania, of which only a very brief account need be presented here. Owing to the fact that the people are head-hunters the skulls obtained by a traveller in any house are necessarily those of another community, group, or tribe than that to which the occupants of the house belong. Consequently it is necessary for a traveller to learn from the inhabitants the provenience of each cranium, and every one in the house knows it. It is useless for a.n.a.lytical purposes to deal with skulls of which the tribe is not accurately known; the information that a skull was obtained in a certain village or on a particular river is, as a rule, of very little value.
In Table C I give particulars of three head indices of 83 crania, of which the history is known in each case. Fifty-eight of these have been presented by Dr. Hose to the University of Cambridge. I have added to these 5 Murut, 1 Lepu Potong, 1 Kalabit, 1 Tring, 1 Bisaya, and 1 Orang Bukit, which Dr. Hose presented to the Royal College of Surgeons, London, 1 Ukit skull in the same museum, 3 Dusun in the British Museum, and 5 Murut, 3 Maloh, and 3 Kayan, which I measured in Sarawak. I have chosen the cranial length-breadth, length-height, and breadth-height indices, as these are more directly comparable with the corresponding cephalic indices of Table A. A detailed account of these crania must await a more suitable occasion.
The dolichocephalic crania are, as a rule, distinctly akrocephalic, that is, the length-height index is superior to the length-breadth index, but this is not the case with the brachycephals. I find the average length-height index in the living subject of a dozen inland tribes is 72.5 for 131 males and 78.2 for 40 females. That is, so far as our measurements go, the women are more akrocephalic than the men, which is unusual.
The conclusions to be drawn from a somatological investigation are necessarily limited. In my introductory remarks I stated that one could distinguish two main races among the princ.i.p.al groups of the peoples of Sarawak, a dolichocephalic and a brachycephalic, and that the former might be termed Indonesian and the latter Proto-Malay; further, no one group is probably of pure race, though it appears that some may be predominantly Indonesian and others Proto-Malay. I do not for a moment suggest that there was one migration of pure Indonesians and another of pure Proto-Malays which flooded Borneo and by various minglings produced the numerous tribes of that island, though I do suggest that there have been throughout the whole Archipelago various movements of peoples, some of which may have been relatively pure communities of these two races. There can be little doubt that we must look to the neighbouring regions of the mainland of Asia for their immediate point of departure southwards, for we now know that two similar races have inhabited this area from a remote antiquity. The light- (or light-brown) skinned dolichocephals of south-east Asia, a.s.suming for the present that they are all of one race, have frequently been termed Caucasians -- for the present I prefer to speak of them as Indonesians -- and of these there are doubtless several strains. The light- (or light-brown) skinned brachycephals are usually grouped as Southern Mongols. In the south-east corner of Asia there are probably several strains of these brachycephals which hitherto have been insufficiently studied. Even when an Indonesian element has been recognised in the population of the Archipelago there has been too persistent a practice of terming the brachycephalic element ”Malay.” The true Malay, Orang Malayu, is merely a specialised branch of a stock for which I prefer the non-committal name of Proto-Malay, even ”Southern-Mongol”
is preferable to ”Malay.” The Proto-Malay race has its roots on the mainland. It has yet to be shown how far the brachycephals of this region belong to what is here termed the Proto-Malay race or to what extent other, and doubtless allied, stocks are implicated. If, as is very probable, there have been migrations of differentiated peoples from the mainland into the islands, the Bornean peoples may be of more complex origin than the earlier generalisations might suggest. The dissecting out and the tracing of the migrations of these peoples is the work of ethnography, somatology can be of little a.s.sistance; all that I have done is to provide a certain amount of material for the use of students in the future. It must also be remembered that the immigrants from the mainland may have had at one time infusions of Negrito or Pre-Dravidian (Sakai) blood, not to speak of Tibetan, Chinese, or other mixtures. Similarly when the first migrations from the mainland took place the fairer-skinned immigrants probably found an indigenous population of Negritos, Pre-Dravidians, and possibly to some extent of Papuans in various parts of the Archipelago. We know that many of the islands, including Borneo, have been subject to direct migrations from India and China, and there has doubtless been a certain amount of movement of peoples from island to island. The racial history of this region is therefore extremely complex.
Dr. Hose has suggested the following cla.s.sification[229] of the peoples of Sarawak (exclusive of the Malays), which I have followed in arranging the descriptions given below. For the sake of comparison I have recast the data published by Kohlbrugge concerning the three types studied by Nieuwenhuis; it is unfortunate that our several results cannot be more closely correlated.
A Cla.s.sification of the Peoples of Sarawak
1. Murut Group:
Murut, Pandaruan, Tagal, Dusun; Kalabit, Lepu Potong; Adang, Tring.
II. Klemantan Group:
1. South-western Group:
Land Dayaks; [Certain tribes of Netherlands Borneo]; Maloh.
2. Central Group:
A. Baram sub-group: Bisaya, Tabun, Orang Bukit, Kadayan, Pliet, Long Pata, Long Akar.
B. Barawan sub-group: Murik, Long Julan, Long Ulai, Batu Blah, Long Kiput, Lelak, Barawan,Sakapan, Kajaman.