The Pagan Tribes of Borneo / A Description of Their Physical Moral and Intellectual Condition, with Some Discussion of Their Ethnic Relations

by Charles Hose; William McDougall

The name Indonesian is perhaps most properly applied to this people which we suppose to have resulted from the contact and blending of the Caucasic and Mongoloid stocks in this corner of Asia. The systematic ethnographers use this term in a vague and uncertain manner. Deniker defines the Indonesians by saying that they comprise "the little intermixed inland populations of the large islands (Dyaks of Borneo, Battas of Sumatra, various "Alfurus" of Celebes, and certain Moluccas)."[192] He seems doubtful whether the name Indonesian should be applied to the eight groups of aborigines of Indo-China which he distinguishes.[193] He recognises that the Indonesians and the Malayans are of very similar physical characters, but distinguishes them as two of four races which have given rise to the population of the Malay Archipelago — namely, Malayans, Indonesians, Negritos, and Papuans. He regards the Indonesians (used in a wide sense to include Malays) as most closely akin to the Polynesians; but he expresses no opinion as to their relations to the Mongol and Caucasic stocks.

Keane describes the Indonesians as a Proto-Caucasic race which must have occupied Malaysia and the Philippines in the New Stone Age. He separates them widely from the Malays and Proto-Malays, whom he describes as belonging to the Oceanic branch of the Mongol stock;[194] and the "Dyaks" of Borneo are classed by him with strict impartiality sometimes with the Proto-Malays, sometimes with the Proto-Caucasians.

If these oldest inhabitants of Borneo may be regarded as typical Indonesians (and we think that they have a strong claim to be so regarded), then we think that the usage of the term by both Keane and Deniker errs in accentuating unduly the affinity of the Indonesians with the Polynesians, and that Keane's errs also in ignoring the Mongol affinities of the Indonesians.

The most plausible view of the relations of these stocks seems to us to be the following. Polynesians and Indonesians are the product of an ancient blend of southern Mongols with a fair Caucasic stock. In both the Caucasic element predominates, but more so in the Polynesian than in the Indonesian. We imagine this blending to have been effected at a remote period in the south-eastern corner of Asia, probably before the date at which Borneo became separated from the mainland. If, as seems probable, this blending was effected by the infusion of successive doses of Mongol blood from the north into a Caucasic population that had previously diffused itself over this corner of Asia from the west,[195] the smaller proportion of the Mongol element in the Polynesians may be due to their having passed into the islands, while the Indonesians remained on the continent receiving further infusions of Mongol blood.

The separation of Borneo from the mainland then isolated part of the Indonesian stock within it, at a period when their culture was still in a very primitive condition, presumably similar to that of the Punans. The Proto-Malays, on the other hand, represent a blending of the Mongol stock (or of a part of the Indonesian race) with darker stock allied to the Dravidians of India, which is perhaps properly called Proto-Dravidian, and of which the Sakai of the Malay peninsula (and, perhaps, the Toala of central Celebes) seem to be the surviving representatives in Malaysia. In this blend, which presumably was effected in an area south of that in which the Indonesian blend was formed, the Mongol element seems to predominate.

After the separation of Borneo from the mainland, there came a long period throughout which it remained an isolated area, the population of which received no important accessions from other areas. It is probable that during this period the Indonesian population of the mainland continued to receive further infusions of Mongol blood; for there is abundant evidence that for a long time past there has been a drifting of Mongol peoples, such as the Shans, southwards from China into the Indo-Chinese area.

We may suppose that during this period the knowledge and practice of working iron, of building long houses and boats, and of cultivating PADI, became diffused through the greater part of the population of this corner of the Asiatic continent. This advance of culture would have rendered possible the passage of these peoples to the islands in boats. But it seems probable that no considerable incursion of people from this area was effected until a comparatively recent date.

In Chapter II. we have mentioned the evidences of Hindu-Javan influence on Borneo, to which must be ascribed the existence of the Buddhist court at Bruni before the coming of the Malays, as well as traces of Hindu culture in south Borneo, including the practice of cremation by the Land Dayaks, the burning of the bones by other tribes, stone carvings,[196] and articles of gold and fragments of pottery of Hindu character. There must have been a certain infusion of Javanese and perhaps Hindu blood at this time; but both in physical type and in culture the surviving traces seem to be insignificant.

We have mentioned also in Chapter II. the early intercourse between China and the Buddhist rulers of Bruni and other parts of north and northwest Borneo, and the legend of an early settlement of Chinese in the extreme north.

But these civilised or semi-civilised visitors and settlers were separated from the indigenous Borneans by a great culture gap, and they probably had but little friendly intercourse with them and affected their culture but little, if at all; and though it is possible that they bartered salt, metal, tools, and weapons, for camphor and other jungle produce, their influence, like that of the Malays, probably extended but a little way from the coasts in most parts of the island. The higher culture of the indigenous tribes of the interior has been introduced, we believe, by invasions of peoples less widely separated from them in cultural level, who have penetrated far into the interior and have mingled intimately with them. Three such invasions may be distinguished as of principal importance: that of the Kayans in the south and perhaps in the south-east, of the Muruts in the north, and of the Ibans in the south-west. Each of these three invading populations has spread up the course of the rivers to the interior and has established its communities over large areas, until in the course of the nineteenth century they have encountered one another for the first time. Besides these three most numerous and important invasions, there have been many smaller settlements from the surrounding islands, especially from Java, Celebes, and the Philippines, whose blood and culture have still further diversified the population and culture of the tribes of Borneo and complicated the ethnographical problems of the island.