The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

HISTORY OF BORNEO ii
wrap a piece of cotton round their loins ; cotton
is a plant of which they collect the flowers to make
cloth of them ; the coarser kind is called kupa^
and the finer cloth Heh. They hold their markets
at night, and cover their faces. ... At the east
of this country is situated the land of the Rakshas,
which has the same customs as Poli." ^
This is an interesting account in many ways,
and tallies very closely with what other evidence
would lead one to suspect. For there is reason
to think that Bruni, before it became Mohammedan,
was a Bisaya kingdom under Buddhist sovereigns
and Hindu influence ; and nearly all the particulars
given with regard to the people of Borneo are
true of one or other of the races allied to Bisayas
and living near Bruni to-day. The discus- knife,
a wooden weapon, is not now in use, but is known
to have been used formerly. The wild Kadayans
sacrifice after every new moon, and are forbidden to
eat a number of things until they have done so. The
Malanaus set laden rafts afloat on the rivers to
propitiate the spirits of the sea. The very names
of the two kinds of cotton, then evidently a novelty
to the Chinese, are found in Borneo : kapok is
a well-known Malay word ; but taya is the common
^ This account is taken from Groeneveldt {loc. cit.) who, however, supposes
Poli to be on the north coast of Sumatra. In this he follows "all Chinese
geographers," adding "that its neighbourhood to the Nicobar Islands is a
sufficient proof that they are right." But Rakshas, which may have been " for
a long time the name of the Nicobar Islands, probably on account of the
wildness and bad reputation of their inhabitants," is merely Rakshasa, a term
applied by the Hindu colonists in Java and the Malay Peninsula to any wild
people, so that the statement that to the east of Poli is situated the land of the
Rakshas is hardly sufficient support for even "all Chinese geographers."
Trusting to " modern Chinese geographers," Groeneveldt makes Kaling,
where an eight-foot gnomon casts a shadow of 2.4 feet at noon on the summer
solstice, to be Java, that is to say, to be nearly 5° south of the equator. Having
unwittingly demonstrated how untrustworthy are the modern geographers,
he must excuse others if they prefer the original authority, who states that Poli
is south-^aj^ of Camboja, the land of the Rakshas east of Poli, to "all"
geographers who state on the contrary that Poli is south-7w^/ of Camboja,
the Rakshas' country west of Poli. The name Poli appears to be a more
accurate form of Polo, the name by which Bruni is said to have been known
to the Chinese in early times.