The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

12 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
name for cotton among the Sea Dayaks, though it
is doubtful whether it is found in Sumatra at all, and
is not given in Marsden's great Dictionary. The
use of teeth as ear-ornaments may refer to Kenyahs.
If these identities are sufficient to show that Poli
was old Bruni, we have an almost unique illustration
here of the antiquity of savage customs. That an
experience of fourteen hundred years should have
failed to convince people of the futility of feeding salt
waves is a striking demonstration of the widespread
fallacy, that what is old must needs be good.
Poli had already attained a certain measure of
civilisation, and even of luxury. The kingly
dignity was hereditary, and the Buddhist monarch
was served with much ceremony. He was clad
in flowered silk or cotton, adorned with pearls,
and sat on a golden throne attended by servants
with white dusters and fans of peacock feathers.
When he went out of his palace, his chariot, canopied
with feathers and embroidered curtains, was drawn
by elephants, whilst gongs, drums, and conches
made inspiriting music. As Hindu ornaments have
been found at Santubong together with Chinese
coins of great antiquity, as the names of many
offices of state in Bruni are derived from Sanskrit,
and the people of Sarawak have only lately ceased
to speak of "the days of the Hindus,"^ there is
nothing startling in the statement that the kings
of Poli were Buddhist.
Whatever Poli may or may not have been, there
is little question that Puni, 45 days from Java,
40 from Palembang, 30 from Champa, in each
case taking the wind to be fair, was Bruni. The
Chinese, who have neither b nor double consonants
in their impoverished language, still call the Bornean
capital Puni. Groeneveldt says that the Chinese
^ Rajah Charles Brooke, Ten Years in Sarawak, quoted in Ling Roth's
valuable work, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, vol. ii.
p. 279.