Books: The Pagan Tribes of Borneo

C >> Charles Hose and William McDougall >> The Pagan Tribes of Borneo

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The raising of the taxes from the people to defray the expenses of
government has raised no difficulties. The door-tax of two dollars[217]
per door (I.E. per family or household) is the only direct tax laid
on the tribes. When once the initial reluctance has been overcome,
this has been collected and regularly paid in by chiefs and PENGHULUS,
including the headmen of the nomad groups. In times of misfortune,
whether individual or collective, such as the loss of crops or of a
house by fire, the tax is remitted; and no tax is expected from men
over sixty years of age, from cripples or invalids, or from widows.

The Sea Dayaks alone pay a door-tax of one dollar only, it having been
understood from the early days, when they were the only fighting tribe
with which the Rajah was intimately acquainted, that they are liable
at any time to be called upon by the government to render assistance
in punitive expeditions or in other public works, such as procuring
timber for government buildings. But this holds good only for those
who remain in the districts in which they have long been settled.

The sum raised by direct taxation forms now but a small part of the
total revenue of the State of Sarawak; for the development of trade
and agriculture, especially the cultivation of pepper and sago and
rubber, and the growing capacity and facilities for the purchase of
imported goods by the people even of the remotest parts, enable the
government to raise a considerable revenue by indirect taxation in
the form of customs duties.

The minerals, worked in the main by the Borneo Company,[218]
principally gold, antimony, and mercury, have also been an important
source of revenue. The recent discovery of supplies of petroleum
promises to result in an important addition to the wealth of the
country.[219] But these various commercial and industrial developments
affect hardly at all the lives of the pagan tribes, So far as they
are concerned, the work of the government may be summed up by saying
that it has suppressed the chronic warfare which kept them all in a
state of armed hostility and uneasy distrust of one another; that it
has suppressed head-hunting and crimes of violence, has rendered life
and property secure, and has administered justice with a firm hand
and a strict regard to the customs and traditional sentiments of the
people; that it has wellnigh extinguished slavery; that it has opened
the whole country to trade, and, by thus improving the facilities for
sale of the jungle produce, has increased the purchasing power of the
people, while bringing within the reach of all of them the products of
civilised industry that they most value; and that while it has strictly
regulated the sale of those products, such as fire-arms and strong
liquor, which have proved detrimental to so many other peoples of the
lower culture, it has encouraged the people to cultivate a greater
variety of vegetable products, especially sago, coconuts, pepper, and
rubber, and to improve the methods of cultivation of PADI. Lastly,
the government has rendered possible the establishment of a number
of excellent mission schools in older stations, where considerable
numbers of children of the pagan tribes have been made Christians and
trained to fill subordinate posts in the administrative service, or
to return to leaven the native villages with a wider knowledge and a
better understanding of the principles which underlie the white man's
conduct and culture. The missionaries have exerted also among the Sea
Dayaks a strong influence making for peace and order; but they have
hardly yet come into contact with Kayans or Kenyahs. Mention must also
be made of the Malay schools which the government has instituted and
supported in the principal stations, and in which many young Malays
receive the elements of a useful education.

In all its undertakings the success of the government has only been
rendered possible by the high prestige that the white man everywhere
enjoys; and this in turn has been acquired and maintained, not so much
by his command of the mechanical resources of western civilisation,
as by the fact that, with very few exceptions, the white men with
whom the natives have had intercourse have been English gentlemen,
animated by the spirit and example of the two white Rajahs, and
keenly conscious of their individual and collective responsibility
as representatives of their race and country in a foreign land.[220]

We have dwelt at some length on the government of the Rajah of Sarawak
in its relation with the pagan tribes, and, if we dismiss in a few
words the administrative labours of the Dutch and of the British North
Borneo Company in their respective territories, it is not because we
regard those labours as of less interest and importance or as less
successful, but because in the main they have run on similar lines and
have achieved similar results to those of the government of Sarawak, of
which alone we have intimate knowledge. Dutch Borneo comprises roughly
two-thirds of the whole island, a very large territory which comprises
the basins of the largest rivers and hence, the rivers being the only
highways, the most inaccessible parts of the island. The Kapuas River,
for example, is estimated to be nearly 700 miles in length; and the
necessity of ascending these hundreds of miles of river-way, much of
it difficult and dangerous, has rendered the process of establishing
control over the tribes of the interior slow and laborious. For this
reason the process is not yet completed; although the Dutch have had
stations in Borneo since the early years of the seventeenth century,
when they expelled the Portuguese from Bruni and Sambas. But it was
not until 1785 that they came into possession of any considerable
territory, namely, the Sultanate of Banjermasin, and not till after the
return to them of their East Indian rights in 1816 that they extended
their territorial possessions to their present large proportions.

The Dutch settlement and possessions in Borneo were for many years
administered by traders and a trading company whose prime object was,
of course, profitable trade. The problems of native administration no
doubt seemed to them at first of minor importance and interest, and
they made many mistakes.[221] But, as with our own great company in
India, it became increasingly necessary, if only for the sake of trade,
to study the art and policy of administering the affairs of the native
population. This has now been done to good effect, and, stimulated
possibly by the example of wise paternal government afforded by the
Rajahs of Sarawak, the Dutch have established a system of Residents or
district officers who have successfully invoked the co-operation of
the native chiefs in a manner very similar to that practised in the
neighbouring state. And the Dutch officers have of late years shown
themselves willing and able effectively to co-operate with those of
Sarawak in all matters of common interest, especially in the settlement
of troubles on the boundary between their territories. The enlightened
interest of the Dutch Government in the welfare of the tribes of the
far interior and in the promotion of ethnographical knowledge has
been strikingly manifested in the opening years of this century by
the despatch of two successive expeditions, under the leadership of
Dr. Nieuwenhuis, to study the people, their customs and conditions,
and by its generous expenditure upon the publication of the handsome
volumes in which he has embodied his valuable reports.[222] On the
second journey this intrepid traveller penetrated to the head of the
Batang Kayan, and there made the acquaintance of the same Kenyahs
who had recently visited the Resident of the Baram. In this way the
spheres of Dutch and of British influence have been made to overlap
in these central highlands.

The Physical Characters of the Races and Peoples of Borneo

A. C. Haddon

Introduction

The following sketch of the races and peoples of Borneo is based
upon the observations of the Cambridge Expedition to Sarawak in 1899
and those of Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis in his expeditions to Netherlands
Borneo in 1894, 1896 -- 1897, and 1898 -- 1900 (QUER DURCH BORNEO,
Leiden, vol. i., 1904, vol. ii., 1907).

It is generally acknowledged that in Borneo, as in other islands of
the East Indian Archipelago, the Malays inhabit the coasts and the
aborigines the interior, though in some these reach the coast while
Malayised tribes have pushed inland up the rivers, a sharp distinction
between the two being frequently obliterated where they overlap. The
condition, however, is much more complicated as we can now distinguish
at least two main races among the aborigines.

We have no evidence as to who were the primitive inhabitants of
Borneo. One would expect to find Negritos in the interior, as these
black, woolly-haired pygmies inhabit the Andamans, parts of the
Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, the Philippines, New Guinea, and possibly
Melanesia. No authoritative evidence of their occurrence in Borneo
is forthcoming, and one can confidently assert that there are no
Negritos in Sarawak. Nor are there any traces of Melanesians. It is
generally admitted that, assuming the Australians to be mainly of
that race, a Pre-Dravidian element should occur in the Archipelago,
and the cousins Sarasin have noted this strain among the Toalas of
Celebes and Moszkowski among the Batins of Sumatra; in this connection
it is of interest that Nieuwenhuis discovered ten Ulu Ayars and two
Punans with straight hair and a "black or blue-black" skin colour;
Kohlbrugge,[223] who records this observation, offers no explanation.

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 Quatrefages and Hamy further established
this stock in their CRANIA ETHNICA (1882), and de Quatrefages 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 classed
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
Tawang, 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 constitute 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 assumed 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 sexes, 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 analytical 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 principal 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, assuming 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 assistance;
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.