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

344 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [cHAf.The houses and furniture are on a par with the food. A rudeshed supported on rough and slender sticks ratlier than posts,no walls, but tlie floor raised to within a foot of the eaves, is thestyle of architecture they usually adopt. Inside there arepartitioned walls of thatch, forming little boxes or sleepingplaces, to accommodate the two or three separate families thatusually live together. A few mats, baskets, and cooking vessels,with plates and basins purchased from the Macassar traders,constitute their wliole furniture ; spears and bows are theirweapons ; a sarong or mat forms the clothing of the women, awaist-cloth of the men. For hours or even for days they sitidle in their houses, the women bringing in the vegetables orsago which form their food. Sometimes they hunt or fish alittle, or work at their liouses or canoes, but they seem to enjoypure idleness, and work as little as they can. They have littleto vary the monotony of life, little that can be called pleasure,excejDt idleness and conversation. And they certainly do talk !Every evening there is a little Babel around me : but as Iunderstand not a word of it, I go on with my book or workundisturbed. Xow and then they scream and shout, or laughfrantically for variety ; and this goes on alternately withvociferous talking of men, women, and children, till long after Iam in my mosquito curtain and sound asleejj.At this place I obtained some light on the complicatedmixture of races in Aru, which would utterly confound anetlmologist. Many of the natives, though equally dark withthe others, have little of the Papuan pliysiognomy, but havemore delicate features of the European type, with more glossy,curling hair. These at first quite puzzled me, for they have nomore resemblance to Malaj^ than to Papuan, and tlie darknessof skin and liair would forbid the idea of Dutch intermixtui'e.Listening to their conversation, however, I detected some wordsthat were familiar to me. " Accabo " was one ; and to be surethat it was not an accidental resemblance, I asked the speakerin Malay what "accabo'' meant, and Avas told it meant " done orfinished," a true Portuguese word, with its meaning retained.Again, I heard the woi'd " jafui'"' often repeated, and could see,without inquiry, that its meaning was "he's gone," as inPortuguese. "Porco," too, seems a common name, though thepeople have no idea of its Eui'opean meaning. This cleared upthe dilficulty. I at once understood that some early Portuguesetraders had penetrated to these islands, and mixed witli thenatives, influencing their language, and leaving in tlieir descendantsfor many generations the visible characteristics of theirrace. If to this we add the occasional mixture of Malay, Dutch,and Chinese with the indigenous Papuans, we have no reason towonder at the curious varieties of form and feature occasionallyto be met with in Aru. In this very house there was a ]\Iacassarman, with an Aru wife and a family of mixed children. InDobbo I saw a Javanese and an Amboyna man, each with an