British Borneo: Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North BorneoTreacher, W. H. (William Hood), Sir
History
British Borneo: Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo
Treacher, W. H. (William Hood), Sir
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Asia; Labuan; Sabah; Sarawak (Malaysia)
Before finishing with this part of the subject, I may mention that the
United States Government had entered into a treaty with the Sultan of
Brunai, in almost exactly the same words as the English one, including
the clause prohibiting cessions of territory without the consent of the
other party to the treaty, and, in 1878, Commodore SCHUFELDT was ordered
by his Government to visit Borneo and report on the cessions obtained by
Mr. DENT. I was Acting British Consul-General at the time, and before
leaving the Commodore informed me emphatically that he could discover no
American interests in Borneo, "neither white nor black."
The native population of Borneo is given in books of reference as
between 1,750,000 and 2,500,000. The aborigines are of the Malay race,
which itself is a variety of the Mongolian and indeed, when inspecting
prisoners, I have often been puzzled to distinguish the Chinese from the
Malay, they being dressed alike and the distinctive _pig-tail_ having
been shaved off the former as part of the prison discipline.
These Mongolian Malays from High Asia, who presumably migrated to the
Archipelago _viâ_ the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, must, however, have
found Borneo and other of the islands partially occupied by a Caucasic
race, as amongst the aborigines are still found individuals of
distinctive Caucasic type, as has been pointed out to be the case with
the Buludupih tribe of British North Borneo, by Dr. MONTANO, whom I had
the pleasure of meeting in Borneo in 1878-9. To these the name of
pre-Malays has been given, but Professor KEANE, to whom I beg to
acknowledge my indebtedness on these points, prefers the title of
Indonesians. The scientific descriptions of a typical Malay is as
follows:--"Stature little over five feet, complexion olive yellow, head
brachy-cephalous or round, cheek-bones prominent, eyes black and
slightly oblique, nose small but not flat, nostrils dilated, hands small
and delicate, legs thin and weak, hair black, coarse and lank, beard
absent or scant;" but these Indonesians to whom belong most of the
indigenous inhabitants of Celebes, are taller and have fairer or light
brown complexions and regular features, connecting them with the brown
Polynesians of the Eastern Pacific "who may be regarded as their
descendants," and Professor KEANE accounts for their presence by
assuming "a remote migration of the Caucasic race to South-Eastern Asia,
of which evidences are not lacking in Camboja and elsewhere, and a
further onward movement, first to the Archipelago and then East to the
Pacific." It is needless to say that the aborigines themselves have the
haziest and most unscientific notion of their own origin, as the
following account, gravely related to me by a party of Buludupihs, will
exemplify:--
"_The Origin of the Buludupih Race._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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