The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

;186 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.the ordinary types of the wild inhabitants of the surroundingcountries.In mental and moral characteristics they are also highlypeculiar. They are remarkably quiet and gentle in disposition,submissive to the authority of those thej' consider their superiors,and easily induced to learn and adopt the habits of ci\'ilizedpeople. They are clever mechanics, and seem capable ofacquiring a considerable amount of intellectual education.Up to a very recent period these people were thoroughsavages, and there are persons now living in Menado who remembera state of things identical Avith that described by thewriters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The inhabitantsof the several villages were distinct tribes, each underits own chief, speaking languages unintelligible to each other,and almost always at war. They built their houses elevatedupon lofty posts to defend themselves from the attacks of theirenemies. They were head hunters like the Dyaks of Borneo, andwere said to be sometimes cannibals. When a chief died, histomb was adorned with two fresh human heads ; and if those ofenemies could not be obtained, slaves were killed for the occasion.Human skulls were the great ornaments of the chiefs' houses.Strips of bai'k were their only dress. The country was a pathlesswilderness, with small cultivated patches of rice and vegetables,or clumps of fruit-trees, diversifying the otherwise unbrokenforest. Their religion was that naturally engendered in the undevelopedhuman mind by the contemplation of grand naturalphenomena and the luxuriance of tropical nature. The burningmountain, the torrent and the lake, were the abode of theirdeities ; and certain trees and birds were supposed to haveespecial influence over men's actions and destiny. They heldwild and exciting festivals to propitiate these deities or demonsand believed that men could be changed by them into animals,either during life or after death.Here we have a picture of true savage life ; of small isolatedcommunities at war ^dth all around them, subject to the wantsand miseries of such a condition, dra^\dng a precarious existencefrom the luxuriant soil, and living on from generation to generation,with no desire for physical amelioration, and no prospectof moral advancement.Such was their condition down to the year 1822, when thecofFee-plant was first introduced, and experiments were made asto its cultivation. It was found to succeed admirably at fromfifteen hundred up to four thousand feet above the sea. Thechiefs of villages were induced to undertake its cultivation.Seed and native instructors were sent from Java ; food wassupplied to the labourers engaged in clearing and planting ; afixed price was established at which all coifee brought to thegovernment collectors was to be paid for, and the village chiefswho now x-eceived the title of " Majors " were to receive five percent, of the produce. After a time, roads were made from the