The Human Race

171. – JAVANESE.

In the Javanese Kampong our traveller saw copper articles; such as betel-roll boxes, bowls, and water vases; which were ornamented in charming and fantastic taste with engraved arabesques representing the flowers, fruits, and animals of the country; and he was struck with surprise at the goldsmiths being able to form such marvellous trinkets with tools of the most primitive description. He went to see one of the large manufactories where are made the curious sahrongs worn by the inhabitants, the shades of colour in which rival those of the most valuable cashmeres in brilliancy, harmony, and richness. The process of making these fabrics is a slow and difficult one. A fine sahrong is worth more than £4 and does not exceed two and a half yards in length by one yard in width.

172. – JAVANESE DANCING GIRLS.

In one of his excursions M. de Molins met a wedding procession. The happy couple, who belonged to two equally rich families, were in a very pretty palanquin surmounted by a canopy ornamented with palm leaves and a trellis-work of bamboos and reeds. The garments of the newly married pair were of red silk brocaded with gold embroidery, and their heads, necks, arms and hands were covered with jewellery. Children ran alongside and in front shouting and making the air resound with the noise of gongs, tom-toms, and cymbals (fig. 173). Four men in yellow breeches, with blue and white girdles, their hips adorned by long pointed strips of blue and yellow silk, and their heads bound with a tightly-fitting turban of the same colours, carried at the end of long poles, bright, waving bouquets made of tiny rosettes of blue, yellow, and white paper attached to thin canes. Relatives, friends, and all those who expected to partake of the repast which was generously provided, followed the palanquin.

Ceremonies of different kinds precede this solemn procession; and for several days before it takes place the betrothed couple are obliged to submit to a public exhibition and general hubbub, and are condemned to remain nearly completely motionless and in almost total abstinence, lest they should in any way damage their clothes.

This marriage festival is the grand occasion for displaying all the resources of Javanese culinary art. The fruits are served at the beginning of the banquet, and steamed rice only slightly cooked forms the principal dish.

The feast would be a sorry one, if the bill of fare did not include pickles, salt fish dried in the sun while alive, half-hatched eggs also salted, a hash of meats perfumed with roses and jessamine, the seeds of various plants, and slices of cocoa-nut rolled in pimento. The first time a European tastes these dishes he feels a dreadful sensation of burning, which passes from the mouth to the stomach and seems to be ever increasing. But people soon appear to grow accustomed to these spicy ragouts; and M. de Molins says that in a short time this kind of cookery, which greatly tends to stimulate the appetite, becomes indispensable.

173. – JAVANESE WEDDING.

During this gentleman’s stay at Soerabaya, the Dutch Governor-General of Java was there on his tour of inspection of the island, which takes place every five years. High festivities had been ordered for the reception of this exalted personage, and M. de Molins gives us a sketch of the princes who were present at a grand revel. The skin of many was blue; their perfectly delicate and regular features bore the melancholy, stamp peculiar to Orientals, and their movements were full of ease and grace. Their sahrong, woven in silk of the most beautiful shades, was fastened at the waist by a flowing girdle that fell over extremely tight pantaloons, and sparkled with gold embroidery; their chest, shoulders, and arms were left naked, and had been thickly coated with saffron-coloured powder for the occasion. Their head-gear consisted of a truncated cone, either blue, red, or black, braided with gold or silver lace; and their ears were adorned with a kind of wing, in goldwork of the most exquisite finish and lightness. The princes were accompanied by the officers of their suite, among whom the Umbrella-Bearer was conspicuous. The enormous sunshades carried by those functionaries bear a double resemblance to a shield and a lance, and are at once warlike-looking and foppish. They are gilt or silvered, green, blue, or black, and produce the most uncommon effect.

Battas.– The Battas, who inhabit the island of Sumatra, exhibit a very singular mixture in their habits, as they unite with ideas of order and civilization practices quite as ferocious as those of the most savage people.

Bougis and Macassars.– The Bougis and Mankasses (Mangkassars, which Europeans have turned into Macassars) occupy the Celebes Islands, and are renowned for their courage.

The former nation is looked on as the most ancient and enlightened race in the Celebes group. Not only have they a secret and sacred language, but a second idiom which is familiar to all classes, and in addition a written tongue. They possess a system of writing, and even a literature. These men are upright, faithful to their promise, and thoroughly loyal in diplomatic and commercial dealings. Their mere word is of more value than the most solemn oaths of the inhabitants of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo.

Tagales.– The Tagales and Bissayes who dwell in the Philippines, the former in Luzon, and the latter in the centre group, speak dialects very different from those of the Malays, properly so-called. The anonymous author who has described the voyage of the Austrian frigate Novara, has supplied us with some details as to the varied and amusing aspect of the population of Manilla, the chief town of Luzon.

The padres, in long black soutanes, and spout-shaped felt hats, stroll under the shade of the palm trees; Christian Brothers jostle Confraternities of the Virgin and Fathers of the Conception and of the Nativity. Make way for grey, yellow, and brown-frocked monks, and for those who discipline themselves with hair shirts and whips! Galley-slaves, chained two and two, are quietly moving hither and thither with pails of water. Charming senoritas, mostly Spanish half-bloods, with mantillas falling like a cascade of black lace along their raven and glossy tresses, in which green leaves and scarlet blossoms intertwine, compel us to admire their listless mien and their well-arched eyebrows shading their almond-shaped eyes. After the half-breeds, come the native Tagales, of pure or of mixed blood; Chinese women; and little negresses selling fruit and bouquets, or lounging about with cigarettes in their mouths.

The Tagales whom M. de Molins saw at Manilla, were small and weak. Their faces were by no means disagreeable, their colour a little lighter than that of other Malays, and their hair black without being woolly. The combinations of this race with the Negroes and Chinese, appeared to him most interesting.

Many travellers have described the natives of the Philippines. They are well-made men, of elegant, easy figure, and medium stature. Their feet and hands are small, exhibiting extreme delicacy at the point where they join the limbs. They have oval faces, with small but regular noses, well-coloured lips, and teeth that are long and white until they become spoiled by chewing the betel-leaf. The men’s hair is silky and curled; that of the women, soft, fine, and glossy.

The brown tint of the complexion is very changeable among these islanders, varying from the dark shade which belongs to those living in the open air, such as fishermen, hunters, and tillers of the soil, to the fair skins of the upper and sedentary classes. That portion of the people which has not been subjected to foreign influence is ingenious, industrious, and active. The men are warlike, and make excellent boat-builders. Their junks made of plaited bamboo, and manned by a couple of hundred warriors and rowers, spread such powerful sails and possess such speed, that they are the envy of the Spanish ship-builders.

Dyaks.– There are some tribes living in the vicinity of the people of whom we have just spoken and especially in the interior of the countries of which the Malays occupy the coasts, who are generally distinguished by the name of Alfusus. They have been often regarded as members of a separate stock, and a connexion has even been traced between them and the black race, but the greater part of these tribes ought to be considered as forming part of the Malay family. Among them are the Dyaks, a numerous people inhabiting the interior of Borneo, and the Turajas who dwell in the Celebes Islands.

The Dyaks (fig. 174) have well-made bodies, and the women’s faces are mild and agreeable in expression, but the men’s far from attractive. The constant warfare which they carry on with the Malays of the coast may be the cause why their features become ultimately so changed under the combined influences of fear, passion, and revenge.

The Dyaks who occupy the plains, and those living on the borders of rivers or in the woods, may be separately classed. Both groups are of similar stature, possess features alike, and the same lank, black hair, with large curls, which is however never woolly or frizzled; but those occupying the dense forests rising from the river banks have fairer complexions. Mutual hatred has been sworn between the two races, and they abandon themselves to incessant conflicts, and have ever to be on their guard against terrible surprises in which many heads are cut off. No Dyak would venture to present himself to a girl, without being able to show her the head of an enemy who had been overcome and sacrificed by him. A warrior’s renown depends on the number of heads he has acquired, and skulls dried in the fire form the ornaments and trophies of his hut.

These cutters off of heads are very cleanly, and bathe twice a day regularly. They have extremely severe laws, by which murder, outrage, and robbery are punished in the same way. They profess great veneration for old age as well as towards the dead. Their chronological system is based upon the yongas, or ages, as among the Hindoos, and they believe the present to be the age of misfortune. Their notion is, that some day during an eclipse of the sun or moon, a dragon will devour the stars; consequently whenever such phenomena occur, they make a terrific uproar in order to scare the monster away, a proceeding which has been invariably successful!

In her travels along the rivers Lappas and Kapouas (western side of Borneo) Madame Ida Pfeiffer visited a tribe of independent Dyaks, who are called “Head-Cutters” by the English and Dutch. She saw an immense cabin about sixty yards long, in the verandah of which fabrics made of cotton or of plaited bark of trees, splendid mats and baskets of every shape and size, were displayed. Drums and gongs hung on the walls, and large piles of bamboos, bags of rice, and dried pork, showed that the Dyaks had exhibited all their wealth for the occasion.

Nor were their own persons by any means forgotten. They had loaded their necks down to the breast with glass beads, bears’ teeth, and shells; brass rings covered the lower part of their legs, reaching half-way to the knee, their arms were adorned in the same way to the shoulders, and similar decorations were in their ears. Some wore a sort of red stuff cap, embellished with pearls, shells, and little flat bits of brass; others had wound round their heads a fillet formed of a piece of bark, the deeply fringed ends of which stuck out like feathers. A man decked out in this fashion, covered with ornaments from head to foot, presents a rather comical appearance.

The women had fewer adornments; they wore no earrings, nor bears’ teeth collars; a few displayed some glass beads; but more were satisfied with an incalculable number of brass or leaden rings.

Madame Pfeiffer, while among the Dyaks, witnessed a sword-dance, which was executed in the most skilful and elegant manner.

This travelled lady also visited another tribe located higher up the river, where she observed the same things, and in addition saw two human heads lately cut off. When showing them to Madame Pfeiffer, the Dyaks spat in their faces, and the children cuffed them, and spat on the ground.

174. – DYAKS.

The shocking custom of decapitation owes its origin to superstition. If a rajah falls ill, or sets out on a journey among another tribe, he and his subjects undertake to sacrifice a human head in case of his recovery or safe return; and should he die, they chop off a skull or two. The heads which they have sworn to immolate must be obtained at any cost. The Dyaks hide themselves in the long jungle grass, behind felled branches of trees, or under the dry leaves, and lie in wait for entire days. If anybody, man, woman, or child, comes in sight, they shoot a poisoned arrow at him, and rush like tigers on their prey. At one blow the head is severed from the body, and placed in a little basket reserved for this purpose, and ornamented with human hair.

These assassinations frequently give rise to bloody wars; for the tribe, a member of which has been thus sacrificed to the law of chance, takes up arms, and never lays them down until the most terrible reprisals have been exacted. Severed heads are borne back in triumph and solemnly hung up in the place of honour, the retaliation being celebrated by festivities which last for a month.

On one occasion, when Madame Pfeiffer had been received with profuse respect by a tribe, she found a freshly cut off head suspended over her bed, along with others already dried. She could not close her eyes. She felt in a perfect fever at being thus encompassed by frenzied men, at being smothered by the odour of these human remains, and at being lulled to rest by the sinister sound of skulls jangled together by the wind.

Yet in spite of chopped-off heads and festoons of human skulls, this lady considers the Dyaks to be honest, prudent, and endowed with some good qualities. She places them higher in the scale than the other tribes with which she had an opportunity of coming in contact. Their domestic life, which is truly patriarchal in its nature, is alluded to by her with pleasure, as are also their morality, the love they bear their offspring, and the respect evinced by the children towards their parents.

The independent Dyaks are richer than those living subservient to the Malay yoke. They cultivate rice, maize, tobacco, and sometimes the sugar cane; find in the woods Dammana resin which answers lighting purposes, and gather large harvests of sago, yams, and cocoa-nuts. Some of these productions are exchanged by them for pearl beads, brass, salt, and cloth. Their houses, or huts, are clean and well-kept (fig. 175).

A Dyak can take to himself as many wives as he pleases, but he usually contents himself with one, whom he treats well and does not burden with work. Their habits are purer and better than those of the Malays. They have no system of writing. Madame Pfeiffer did not see among them either temples or idols, priests or religious sacrifices.

175. – A DYAK HUT.

Polynesian Family

The tribes included by Dumont d’Urville under the name of Polynesians inhabit the entire eastern part of Oceania, namely, the Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas, the Friendly and Society groups, the Low Archipelago, New Zealand, etc.

The people of all these bear the closest affinity to each other. Their complexion is olive, verging on brown, but not copper-coloured; they are tall in stature, and have sinewy limbs, high foreheads, black, lively, and expressive eyes, and but slightly flattened noses. Their lips are generally larger than those of the whites, but they nevertheless have handsome mouths and splendid teeth. Their hair is black and frizzled. Throughout the whole vast expanse occupied by them they speak the same language.

Most of the tribes belonging to the Polynesian family are thorough savages, but their stock is diminishing day by day, and the final result of neighbouring civilization will be to replace the native element by European races. Meanwhile, the most cruel customs prevail among them, and even cannibalism is practised by some.

“Taboo” holds universally an important place among the populations of Oceania.

This word expresses a state of interdiction, during which the object struck with it is placed under the immediate control of the divinity. No man can infringe upon its power without becoming exposed to the most disastrous consequences, that is, unless he has impaired its action by certain formalities.

Thus, the piece of ground consecrated to a god, or which has become the burial place of a chief, is “tabooed,” and they place under the same spell a canoe which they desire to render safer for long voyages. To fight in a spot subjected to “taboo” is forbidden, and in order to prevent certain productions from becoming scarce, they are placed under similar protection. Anyone guilty of robbery or other crime, commits a fault against “taboo,” and the man who touches the dead body of a chief or anything he was in the habit of wearing, falls under a like ban, which time alone can remove, etc.

We shall allude chiefly to the aborigines of New Zealand, giving also some details about the natives of the Sandwich Islands, as well as about the Tongas, or Friendly Islanders.

New Zealanders.– The inhabitants of New Zealand, sometimes designated by the name of Maoris, are tall, robust, and of athletic frames. Their stature is generally from five feet seven inches to five feet eight inches, seldom lower, and their skin scarcely differs in colour from that of the people of the South of Europe. The expression of their countenance almost always indicates a gloomy ferocity. The face is oval, the forehead narrow, the eye large, black, and full of fire. The nose is sometimes aquiline, but oftener broad and flat, the mouth wide, the lips big, and beneath them rows of small, beautifully enamelled teeth.

The New Zealanders wear their hair long and falling in scattered locks over the face; chiefs alone take the trouble to comb it back on the head in a solitary tuft. It is rough and black, and seems occasionally reddish, because some individuals sprinkle it with powdered ochre.

Women who are not slaves possess strong vigorous figures, and are rarely under five feet and a few inches in height. The young girls have a broad face, masculine features, coarse lips frequently stained black by tattooing, a large mouth, flat nose, and uncombed hair hanging about them in disorder. Their bodies are disgustingly filthy, and impregnated with an odour of fish or of seal oil, which is revolting in the extreme.

They possess a few advantages as a set-off against the repulsiveness of this picture. The teeth of a New Zealand female are of excessive whiteness, and her black eyes beam with intelligence and fire, but household work and the birth of a family soon cause these attractions to disappear. The women have, moreover, the most deeply-rooted dirty habits. A thick layer of mud covers their bodies, which are nearly always smeared with seal or porpoise oil. Both sexes are capital swimmers.

There is little difference between the costume worn by males and females. The natives know how to weave very elegant textures from the fibres of the Phormium tenax (or New Zealand flax), and a broad mat of this material floats carelessly over their shoulders and body, while another is wrapped round the waist, descending to the knee. In winter they throw over the former garment a thick, heavy cloak generally made from the peelings of a kind of osier, but which, in the case of chiefs, consists of dogskins sewn together. These fabrics are also varied in design, some being smooth and without any pattern, while others are covered with very delicate ornamentation. The slave girls stick unthreshed slips of the Phormium tenax in their skirts, thus giving immoderate fulness to their bodies.

A warrior’s rank and bravery are denoted by a great number of little pins made of bones or green talc, which are worn across the breast at the edge of the matting. The original use of these articles was to scratch the head and kill the insects on it.

Like all the other races, the New Zealanders have a fancy for personal ornaments. They like to stick plumes in their hair, and a tuft of soft white feathers is thrust into the ears. Their unkempt locks are seldom covered by any kind of head-dress; but Lesson, the naturalist, from whom we derive these details, saw a few young girls in whom a coquettish taste was more developed, and who wore graceful wreaths of green moss.

The women adorn themselves with shell necklaces, from which little dried hippocamps are sometimes suspended. They are very fond of blue glass beads of European make. The most precious ornament of this people, however, consists of a green talc fetish, which hangs on the breast attached to some portion of a human bone. There are religious ideas connected with this amulet, and it is worn by men only.

One of the Zealanders’ superstitions is to fasten a shark’s sharp tooth to one of their ears, with the point of which the women lacerate their bosoms and faces when they happen to lose a chief or one of their relations. The greatest value attaches to these objects when they have been handed down from ancestors, and have become “tabooed,” or sacred; the happiness of a native’s whole existence seems bound up in their possession; yet they are rated as completely worthless when derived from a slain enemy.

Tattooing plays an important part among the New Zealanders, and they submit annually to the painful operation which it requires. This marking usually covers the face all over, and, as it is renewed very often, produces deep furrows stamped in regular rings, that impart the oddest expression to the countenance. Circles, one within the other, are also punctured on the lower part of the loins, and the women have a broad zone of lozenge-shaped figures engraved round their waist. Deep black lines are cut in the lips, and a design like a spear-head is traced at the angles of the mouth and in the middle of the chin. The young men draw large flies on their noses, staining them black, and the girls sketch similar insects in blue. None but slaves and persons of the lowest class are without tattooing of some sort, and it is considered a downright disgrace to have the skin in its natural state.

176. – NEW ZEALAND CHIEF.

In a region subject to the terrible storms of the Southern Hemisphere, the dwellings ought to be, and are in fact, small and low. Villages are never found in a plain, because there they might be surprised and pillaged, but are situated in steep localities difficult of access; the huts cannot be entered except on all fours; families sheltered by them, sleep huddled together on the straw in a narrow space; and there is no furniture inside, beyond a few carved boxes, and some red wooden vessels thickly covered with designs.

The industry for which these islanders are chiefly noted, is the manufacture of matting; we have already alluded to the beautiful materials made from the fibres of the Phormium tenax by the women and girls.

The soil of New Zealand does not, like that of Equatorial Asia, furnish a large supply of edible substances. The basis of the inhabitants’ food consists of the root of a fern tree, resembling our Pteris, which covers all the plains. The natives catch a large quantity of fish in the bays along the coast, and dry or smoke the greater portion of it, in order to guard against famine in time of war, and to be provided with sustenance whenever the fury of the elements makes it impossible for them to launch their boats. Europeans have introduced several vegetables among them, which grow readily in the easily tilled and fertile land.

Their cookery is as simple as their food; they drink nothing but pure water, and hate strong liquors. Their victuals are laid on the ground, and each one eats with his fingers; the warriors, however, sometimes use instruments, made of human bones, and Lesson bought from one of them a four-pronged fork, fashioned from the large bone of a man’s right arm, minutely carved, and adorned with many raised ornaments in mother-of-pearl.