The History of Sumatra Part 44

PULO BATU.

Next to this is Pulo Batu, situated immediately to the southward of the equinoctial line, and, in consequence of an original mistake in Valentyn's erroneous chart, published in 1726, usually called by navigators Mintaon, being a corruption of the word Mantawei, which, as already explained, is appropriated to a race inhabiting the islands of Si Biru, Si Porah, and Pagi. Batu, on the contrary, is chiefly peopled by a colony from Nias. These pay a yearly tax to the raja of Buluaro, a small kampong in the interior part of the island, belonging to a race different from both, and whose number it is said amounts only to one hundred, which it is not allowed to exceed, so many children being reared as may replace the deaths. They are reported to bear a resemblance to the people of Makasar or Bugis, and may have been adventurers from that quarter. The influence of their raja over the Nias inhabitants, who exceed his immediate subjects in the proportion of twenty to one, is founded on the superst.i.tious belief that the water of the island will become salt when they neglect to pay the tax. He in his turn, being in danger from the power of the Malay traders who resort thither from Padang and are not affected by the same superst.i.tion, is constrained to pay them to the amount of sixteen ounces of gold as an annual tribute.

The food of the people, as in the other islands, is chiefly sago, and their exports coconuts, oil in considerable quant.i.ties, and swala or seaslugs. No rice is planted there, nor, if we may trust to the Malayan accounts, suffered to be imported. Upon the same authority also we are told that the island derives its name of Batu from a large rock resembling the hull of a vessel, which tradition states to be a petrifaction of that in which the Buluaro people arrived. The same fanciful story of a petrified boat is prevalent in the Serampei country of Sumatra. From Natal Hill Pulo Batu is visible. Like the islands already described it is entirely covered with wood.

PULO KAPINI.

Between Pulo Batu and the coast of Sumatra, but much nearer to the latter, is a small uninhabited island, called Pulo Kapini (iron-wood island), but to which our charts (copying from Valentyn) commonly give the name of Batu, whilst to Batu itself, as above described, is a.s.signed the name of Mintaon. In confirmation of the distinctions here laid down it will be thought sufficient to observe that, when the Company's packet, the Greyhound, lay at what was called Lant's Bay in Mintaon, an officer came to our settlement of Natal (of which Mr. John Marsden at that time was chief) in a Batu oil-boat; and that a large trade for oil is carried on from Padang and other places with the island of Batu, whilst that of Kapini is known to be without inhabitants, and could not supply the article.

PULO NIAS.

The most productive and important, if not the largest of this chain of islands, is Pulo Nias. Its inhabitants are very numerous, and of a race distinct not only from those on the main (for such we must relatively consider Sumatra), but also from the people of all the islands to the southward, with the exception of the last-mentioned. Their complexions, especially the women, are lighter than those of the Malays; they are smaller in their persons and shorter in stature; their mouths are broad, noses very flat, and their ears are pierced and distended in so extraordinary a manner as nearly, in many instances, to touch the shoulders, particularly when the flap has, by excessive distension or by accident, been rent asunder; but these pendulous excrescences are commonly trimmed and reduced to the ordinary size when they are brought away from their own country. Preposterous however as this custom may appear, it is not confined to the Nias people. Some of the women of the inland parts of Sumatra, in the vicinity of the equinoctial line (especially those of the Rau tribes) increase the perforation of their ears until they admit ornaments of two or three inches diameter. There is no circ.u.mstance by which the natives of this island are more obviously distinguished than the prevalence of a leprous scurf with which the skins of a great proportion of both s.e.xes are affected; in some cases covering the whole of the body and limbs, and in others resembling rather the effect of the tetter or ringworm, running like that partial complaint in waving lines and concentric curves. It is seldom if ever radically cured, although by external applications (especially in the slighter cases) its symptoms are moderated, and a temporary smoothness given to the skin; but it does not seem in any stage of the disease to have a tendency to shorten life, or to be inconsistent with perfect health in other respects, nor is there reason to suppose it infectious; and it is remarkable that the inhabitants of Pulo Batu, who are evidently of the same race, are exempt from this cutaneous malady. The princ.i.p.al food of the common people is the sweet-potato, but much pork is also eaten by those who can afford it, and the chiefs make a practice of ornamenting their houses with the jaws of the hogs, as well as the skulls of the enemies whom they slay. The cultivation of rice has become extensive in modern times, but rather as an article of traffic than of home consumption.

These people are remarkable for their docility and expertness in handicraft work, and become excellent house-carpenters and joiners, and as an instance of their skill in the arts they practise that of letting blood by cupping, in a mode nearly similar to ours. Among the Sumatrans blood is never drawn with so salutary an intent. They are industrious and frugal, temperate and regular in their habits, but at the same time avaricious, sullen, obstinate, vindictive, and sanguinary. Although much employed as domestic slaves (particularly by the Dutch) they are always esteemed dangerous in that capacity, a defect in their character which philosophers will not hesitate to excuse in an independent people torn by violence from their country and connexions. They frequently kill themselves when disgusted with their situation or unhappy in their families, and often their wives at the same time, who appeared, from the circ.u.mstances under which they were found, to have been consenting to the desperate act. They were both dressed in their best apparel (the remainder being previously destroyed), and the female, in more than one instance that came under notice, had struggled so little as not to discompose her hair or remove her head from the pillow. It is said that in their own country they expose their children by suspending them in a bag from a tree, when they despair of being able to bring them up. The mode seems to be adopted with the view of preserving them from animals of prey, and giving them a chance of being saved by persons in more easy circ.u.mstances.

The island is divided into about fifty small districts, under chiefs or rajas who are independent of, and at perpetual variance with, each other; the ultimate object of their wars being to make prisoners, whom they sell for slaves, as well as all others not immediately connected with them, whom they can seize by stratagem. These violences are doubtless encouraged by the resort of native traders from Padang, Natal, and Achin to purchase cargoes of slaves, who are also accused of augmenting the profits of their voyage by occasionally surprising and carrying off whole families. The number annually exported is reckoned at four hundred and fifty to Natal, and one hundred and fifty to the northern ports (where they are said to be employed by the Achinese in the gold-mines), exclusive of those which go to Padang for the supply of Batavia, where the females are highly valued and taught music and various accomplishments. In catching these unfortunate victims of avarice it is supposed that not fewer than two hundred are killed; and if the aggregate be computed at one thousand it is a prodigious number to be supplied from the population of so small an island.

Beside the article of slaves there is a considerable export of padi and rice, the cultivation of which is chiefly carried on at a distance from the sea-coasts, whither the natives retire to be secure from piratical depredations, bringing down the produce to the harbours (of which there are several good ones), to barter with the traders for iron, steel, beads, tobacco, and the coa.r.s.er kinds of Madras and Surat piece-goods.

Numbers of hogs are reared, and some parts of the main, especially Barus, are supplied from hence with yams, beans, and poultry. Some of the rajas are supposed to have ama.s.sed a sum equal to ten or twenty thousand dollars, which is kept in ingots of gold and silver, much of the latter consisting of small Dutch money (not the purest coin) melted down; and of these they make an ostentatious display at weddings and other festivals.

The language scarcely differs more from the Batta and the Lampong than these do from each other, and all evidently belong to the same stock. The p.r.o.nunciation is very guttural, and either from habit or peculiar conformation of organs these people cannot articulate the letter p, but in Malayan words, where the sound occurs, p.r.o.nounce it as f (saying for example Fulo Finang instead of Pulo Pinang), whilst on the contrary the Malays never make use of the f, and p.r.o.nounce as pikir the Arabic word fikir. Indeed the Arabians themselves appear to have the same organic defect as the people of Nias, and it may likewise be observed in the languages of some of the South-sea islands.

PULO NAKO-NAKO.

On the western side of Nias and very near to it is a cl.u.s.ter of small islands called Pulo Nako-nako, whose inhabitants (as well as others who shall presently be noticed) are of a race termed Maros or orang maruwi, distinct from those of the former, but equally fair-complexioned. Large quant.i.ties of coconut-oil are prepared here and exported chiefly to Padang, the natives having had a quarrel with the Natal traders. The islands are governed by a single raja, who monopolizes the produce, his subjects dealing only with him, and he with the praws or country vessels who are regularly furnished with cargoes in the order of their arrival, and never dispatched out of turn.

PULO BABI.

Pulo Babi or Hog island, called by the natives Si Malu, lies northwestward from Nias, and, like Nako-Nako, is inhabited by the Maruwi race. Buffaloes (and hogs, we may presume) are met with here in great plenty and sold cheap.

PULO BANIAK.

The name of Pulo Baniak belongs to a cl.u.s.ter of islands (as the terms imply) situated to the eastward, or in-sh.o.r.e of Pulo Babi, and not far from the entrance of Singkel River. It is however most commonly applied to one of them which is considerably larger than the others. It does not appear to furnish any vegetable produce as an article of trade, and the returns from thence are chiefly sea-slug and the edible birds-nest. The inhabitants of these islands also are Maruwis, and, as well as the others of the same race, are now Mahometans. Their language, although considered by the natives of these parts as distinct and peculiar (which will naturally be the case where people do not understand each other's conversation), has much radical affinity to the Batta and Nias, and less to the Pagi; but all belong to the same cla.s.s, and may be regarded as dialects of a general language prevailing amongst the original inhabitants of this eastern archipelago, as far at least as the Moluccas and Philippines.

THE END.