The Gardens of the Sun / A naturalist's journal on the mountains and in the forests and swamps of Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago

by F. W. Burbidge

The hoe, another implement used, may be taken as the type of that adopted by the Chinese emigrants in the Straits Settlements and Eastern Archipelago generally; indeed, wherever a Chinaman sets his foot in a new locality for cultural purposes, a chopper and a blade or two of his national “chunkal” or spade-hoe are sure to form a part of his extremely small belonging. He sets to work cutting the brushwood and small timber on his future clearing, and piling this at the base of the large trees, he fires the whole until only a few great black stumps, and here and there a gaunt leafless durian or dryobalanops remains of the old forest. Now, the “chunkal” is used to stir the virgin soil by chopping it up, a much quicker process than digging; indeed, a spade would have no chance in a competition where, as in this case, the soil is full of roots. If desirable, the soil can be thus chopped up to a depth of 12 in. or 14 in., the only drawback being that the operator stands on the freshly cultivated land. Armed with a chopper and one of these spade-hoes, a solitary Chinaman will not unfrequently build a miserable little palm-leaf hut on a well-watered bit of forest near a river, and in a month or two he will have cleared several acres, to which, when planted with gambier or pepper, he looks for a fair return. Here, alone in the forest, or at the best with a companion or two equally poor as himself, he subsists on a little boiled rice, until his crops of sweet potatoes, bananas, sugar-cane, egg fruit, maize, and yams, are fit for use; for one of his first cares has been to clear the bit of land around his hut, on which to plant the few roots and seeds which he has brought with him, most probably the gift of one of his richer countrymen, perchance of the trader of whom he bought the bag of rice, which with a little freshly caught fish from the river, are the only “stores” which stand between him and starvation, until his garden produce is available. I have often come across these clearings right in the heart of the forest, miles away from any other human habitation, and have been as much astonished at the amount of labour performed with such a simple tool, as the thrifty labourer himself was to see me.

The Dusun villagers keep bees and export wax in quantity, and most of the tribes collect the varied natural products of the sea or of the forests in their respective districts. The Sulus were until quite recently a warlike race inhabiting the large island of Sulu, between Borneo and the Philippines. They were independent and ruled by a Sultan, who held Sulu, Tawi Tawi, and the north of Borneo, including the fine harbour of Sandakan. The Sulus, however, are now practically under the Manilla Government. Slavery, although not yet abolished in Borneo, is not nearly so common as was formerly the case. The native government at Brunei is practically under the eye of the British governor of Labuan, and thus many former abuses have become mitigated merely by the moral influence of a British colony being located thus near to the capital.

It must not be imagined that either the Malays or the native Borneans are the bloodthirsty savages they are sometimes made out to be. The Malays generally are courteous, dignified, and hospitable. Many of them have made long journeys for purposes of trade, and have a tolerably good idea of the manners and customs of Europeans. Others have taken to the use of European commodities after observing them used by the Chinese traders and settlers, and one can rarely visit a native of any consideration without finding him the hospitable possessor of a chair or two, plates, dishes, water bottles and glasses, and very often of excellent brandy and cigars. They are most sensitive, innately polite and gentle in manners, and very quick to understand and appreciate any little courtesies or civilities one may offer them. All but the poorest carry their national weapon, “the murderous crease,” a sort of long sinuous-edged dagger, generally as sharp as a razor, and most deadly when wielded by a skilful hand. In many cases where the owners are rich or of high rank these weapons are beautifully finished—rarely damascened—and the handles of ivory or gold set with pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones. The running “amok,” so often cited as an instance of their savage bloodthirsty nature is really a very rare occurrence, and is generally attributed to the excessive use of opium, or to some great disappointment or dishonour having befallen the frantic creature who, drawing his kriss, rushes at friend and foe alike until either shot down like a mad dog or run through the body with a spear. Jealousy is the main cause of all the bloodshed of which the Malays are guilty. The co-respondent in Borneo must either have a tacit understanding with the husband or rather proprietor of the frail one, or his adventures may end very suddenly. I saw one man in the hospital at Labuan who paid the penalty of his indiscretion. One night a kriss or spear had been driven into his thigh through the interstices of the floor of the house in which he was sleeping with his Helen, and with such force that the bone was completely severed. It is possible the weapon was poisoned, at any rate he died some little time afterwards, notwithstanding all that surgical skill could suggest. In the case of the Malays their women are, as a rule, secluded from the gaze of strangers in private apartments, but in the interior the women of the aboriginal tribes enjoy equal freedom with the men, and often join in discussions and trading difficulties with great tact. Monogamy is the rule with the Borneans and polygamy with the Malays. In Borneo, as in Europe, the female exceeds the male population, and here, too, the women do a large proportion of the field labour in addition to their domestic duties.

Some of the little villages of the native tribes inland present a pleasant and prosperous exterior. Little palm-leaf houses stand here and there beneath groves of cocoa-nut trees, betel-palms, tree-ferns, or graceful willow-like bamboo. Breadths of fresh greensward occur among the clumps of low brush or scrubby vegetations, the remains of the old jungle, and here buffaloes or goats, and occasionally other cattle, browse around the houses. Pigs, bees, and poultry are domesticated, and are often very abundant. The houses are built on piles, and a sloping hill-side or knoll is generally selected as a site, so that all superfluous surface water may readily escape. The fowls are caught every evening and placed in open-work baskets of either rattan or bamboo, suspended beneath the eaves of the houses. This care is essential in order to guard them from the attacks of large snakes and iguanas, or other poultry-stealing saurians.

The main food product is rice, of which two distinct races are grown. One kind only prospers in the rich alluvial deposits of the valleys near the streams, where it can be irrigated at particular stages of its growth. The other kind, or “hill-rice,” will grow on the hills up to 3000 feet elevation, and prospers in dry red earth, and when growing it closely resembles a barley-field at home. One of the most important of the women’s duties is to clean and prepare daily the “padi” or rice in the husk, which, with fish and fruit, forms the main food supply of these islanders. The “padi” is placed in large wooden mortars and beaten with wooden pestles a yard or more in length. This beating or pounding separates the husk from the white grain within. It is a very pretty sight to see the girls of the villages inland thus engaged. As many as three may sometimes be seen beating the rice in one of these large wooden mortars. With one hand they grasp the pestle about the centre, while the other hand is rested on the hip. One woman commences to beat the rice with a steady, regular stroke, then another one joins her, and then a third. Of course, the most exact time has to be observed, and the graceful motions of their slightly-draped figures, the dancing pestles, and the regular thudding sounds produced, are very interesting to a stranger. After the rice has been sufficiently beaten, one of the girls scoops it out of the mortar with her little hands into a shallow tray of closely-woven rattan work of circular form and about two feet in diameter. Standing on the verandah or platform between the houses so as to catch the breeze, the rice is sifted, and now and then dexterously thrown up into the air so that the chaff and refuse is blown away, but the rice falls back into the tray. When finished the rice is as clean and as white as that dressed by the finest machinery in England. Two or three girls will soon clean the day’s supply, and by the laughing and gossip indulged in one may infer that the task is not a very unpleasant one to them.

The farther one proceeds inland the more extensive are the clearings devoted to rice culture. This is accounted for by the fact that near the coast rice is often imported in exchange for jungle produce, but far inland the natives are obliged to grow all the food they require, and in some cases as in the district to the south of Kina Balu most of the hills up to 3000 feet are either under rice culture, or are lying fallow, covered with low brushwood or jungle. Virgin land or old forests are rare here, unless on the slopes of the great mountain itself. The clothing of the aboriginals is in most cases very scanty, now and then “sarongs” and white calico are obtained from the coast in return for wax, gutta, tobacco, or other produce of the hills, but, as a rule, the clothing of the native tribes of the north of Borneo inland is a short “sarong” made of a strong indigo-dyed cloth, which is woven by the women from the strong fibres of the “Lamba” (Curculigo latifolia), a yellow-flowered broad-leaved weed, often seen in great abundance on old cultivated plots near the houses. Many of the men, especially those of the Murut tribes, who are perhaps the most primitive of all the northern Borneans, wear nothing but a strip of bark-cloth or “chawat” around the loins, and I have no doubt but that this was the first clothing ever worn by the natives of the island. This bark-cloth is the produce of Artocarpus elastica, a tall tree with a trunk two feet in diameter, and leaves closely resembling those of the bread-fruit, but rough instead of glossy. The inner bark is stripped off and soaked in water, being afterwards beaten to render it soft and pliable. Of this “chawats” or loin-cloths and jackets are commonly made by the Muruts on the Lawas and the Limbang rivers, and it is also still used by the Dusan villagers on the Tampassuk, notwithstanding their skill in preparing, weaving, and dyeing the “Lamba” fibre.

The native women inland wear short “sarongs” of “Lamba” cloth reaching from the waist nearly to their knees, and a profusion of stained rattan coils, brass wire, coloured beads, and other trinkets around their waists, and heavy rings of brass on their legs, or coils of brass wire on their plump and dusky arms. The younger ones wear a strip of dark cloth across the breast. All have glossy black hair and dark eyes. Some of the Murut women are fine muscular creatures, and either in boats or afield they appear to be as strong and active as the men. Their hair is often very gracefully wreathed up with a string of red or amber-coloured beads, sometimes with a strip of the pale yellow nipa leaf in its young state, and the colour contrast is then very effective. The physique of the inland tribes, especially of the Dyaks, Kayans, and Muruts, is superior to that of the Malays. The Kayans and Muruts are especially lithe and active—bronzy, straight-limbed, and statuesque. This is the result of an active life spent hunting in the forest, climbing after gutta, rubber, jungle-fruit, or beeswax, or in cultivating the clearings around their dwellings, or in fishing in the rivers. The aboriginals are active, while, as a class, the Malays are lethargic and luxurious, and rarely exert themselves or make long foot journeys unless actually compelled to do so, and the richer ones spend much of their time in opium smoking or with their women instead of trying to ameliorate the condition of their poorer neighbours, who in one way or another have to “pay the piper.”

It is sad to see such a lovely and fertile island impoverished to a great extent by the avaricious Malays, who ought to encourage the natives to improve themselves and the country in which they live, instead of which they wring their property from them whenever possible under all manner of pretences. The harsh treatment to which the aboriginals, and even the poorer of the Malays, were formerly subjected by the petty chiefs and Pangerans, is now much moderated, as many natives have visited Labuan, and it has now become known as a sanctuary from their unjust oppressors.

The climate of Borneo although hot and wet, is fairly healthy, especially on the hills inland, where the air is much fresher and cooler than on the lowlands near the coast; the mean annual temperature is about 84°. The hot and dry monsoon lasts from December to May, and the cool and wet one from June to November; the rainfall is very heavy, especially on the hills. The economic products for which the soil and climate are suitable are coffee, cinchona, cocoa, cotton, tobacco, sugar-cane, indigo, gambier, cocoa-nuts for oil, and manilla hemp. Fine timber, gutta, caoutchouc, rattans, and camphor, are the indigenous products of the forests primæval. Among the introduced fruits which succeed well are oranges, limes, pomoloes, mangoes, pine-apples, and bananas. The animal products are edible swallows’ nests, ivory, sea-slug or beche de mer, (Holothuria), fine fish of many kinds, pearls, and pearl-shell. Among minerals, coal, antimony, cinnabar, and gold seem the most promising; diamonds, tin, copper, plumbago, and iron are reported; and if one may judge of the iron by the old weapons, such as krisses, parongs, and spears as made by the Bruneis and the Kayans, it must be of excellent quality.

I made a pen and ink sketch of a Kayan war knife which I saw in the collection of native weapons in the possession of Mr. Treacher at Government House, Labuan. Of this sketch Mr. Cooper has made me this careful fac-simile on wood. It had a finely-tempered blade, ornamented along the back for about half its length. One side of the blade was flat, the other rounded; the sheath was elaborately carved and, as is generally the case in Borneo, made of two flat pieces of wood bound tightly together by neatly worked rattan cane; the hilt was ornamented with tufts of red and black hair, and it was furnished with a girdle of rattan plaited—altogether a most handy and formidable implement in the paw of a lusty naked savage.