A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908

by S. Baring-Gould; C. A. Bampfylde

On one occasion, as Matusin was returning home from the river mouth, he passed the abode of Ersat, when this latter, with his followers and relatives, mocked him from the platform in front of the long house, brandishing their spears and daring him to attack them. Matusin was filled with rage. Of all things that a Malay can least endure is insult. Seizing his arms, he rushed into the house, and, running amuck, cut down Ersat himself, and, in the promiscuous onslaught that followed, killed one of the Pangiran's daughters and wounded another. He then made his way forth, no one daring to oppose him, as he was a man of prodigious strength. On reaching his house, he strengthened the fortifications and prepared for an attack. In the course of a month, a large force had assembled in Muka to avenge the death of Pangiran Ersat, led by the Sherip Masahor, who had called out the Saribas Dayaks, under the jurisdiction of the Rajah of Sarawak, as well as the Kanowit Dayaks on the Rejang. They numbered more than a thousand, exclusive of Malays.

This host surrounded the fortified house of Matusin, and Masahor, in the name of the Rajah, called upon the former to surrender. He undertook, if Matusin and his followers would come forth, with all the women and children, and give themselves up, that their lives would not only be spared, but that thenceforth they should all dwell together in amity. It was agreed that this was to take place on the following morning. But during the night a member of Masahor's party managed to get into the house of Matusin to warn him that treachery was intended, and to urge him to escape. This Matusin did in the dark, attended by six men only; he fled up country, and made his way to Kuching, where he threw himself on the protection of the Rajah. Next day Sherip Masahor, with his ruffians, took most who remained in Matusin's house, and many of the relations of the Muka chiefs who had supported him, to the number of forty-five, chiefly women, massacred every one, and gave their heads to his Saribas and Kanowit followers. As soon as the news reached Kuching, the Tuan Muda was sent to Muka to inquire into matters. He says: "The scene where the murders took place was then fresh with the marks of the slaughtered wretches. Their torn clothes, the traces of blood and tracks of feet, were plainly visible on the ground. In pulling up through the Muka village, most of the houses were burnt down, and the graveyards pillaged by Dayaks." Melanaus adorn their dead with costly gold ornaments, which are buried with the bodies; this the Dayaks knew; to attain these and the heads of the dead were their object in desecrating the graves.

The people had lost their favourite leader and relative, Pangiran Matusin; besides relations they had lost their homes and property, burnt and pillaged by Masahor's followers on the ground that the owners had favoured the slayer of Pangiran Ersat, and they were well aware that they themselves were doomed, and all would most surely have been put to death but for the arrival of the Tuan Muda. And now the poor creatures surrounded him, and implored that an Englishman might be sent to govern the place, and deliver them from the tyranny of the Bruni officials. Having seen to the safety of Matusin's wife and children, who, with other surviving relations and followers, were sent to Kuching, the Tuan Muda returned to Sekrang. A fine was imposed on Sherip Masahor, and he was forced to release 100 captives, and was deposed from his governorship for having called out the Saribas under Sarawak rule for warlike purposes. He was in league with the piratical party in the Saribas, and not only supplied them with salt, which is an absolute necessity to a Dayak, and which it was now difficult to obtain on the Sarawak side, where the markets were closed to them, but also with ammunition, and in other ways encouraged them in their opposition to the Government. He left Serikei immediately, fearing further consequences.

A party of malcontent Saribas Dayaks had been induced by the Sherip to settle in the Serikei river, to be handy agents for the execution of his oppressive exactions, and the intrepid Penglima Seman was sent by the Rajah to drive them out. This he did very effectually, and destroyed their houses and stores. Shortly afterwards the Datu Temanggong and the Datu Imaum dispersed a flotilla of some forty Saribas bangkongs which they had met in the main river below Serikei.

The unsatisfactory condition of affairs in the Muka and adjacent districts led the Rajah to pay another visit to Bruni, and thither he sailed in June, 1855, after having despatched the Tuan Muda to Muka. He went up in his little gunboat, the Jolly Bachelor, alone, and with no retinue, no longer holding high offices under the Crown, "the castaway of his own country." But he was most cordially received, and entertained with due honours by the Sultan, by the Rajahs of both the hostile factions, and by the people. All saw in the Rajah the possible instrument to relieve them of the dissensions with which Bruni was troubled, and which now verged upon civil war. Of the opposing factions, which had existed ever since the days of Pangiran Usop, one party, and by far the most powerful, was led by the Pangiran Anak Hasim, the late Sultan's reputed son (who became Sultan in 1885), and this party was in opposition to the Sultan, who had lost the support of nearly all his people by becoming the tool of his cunning and grasping minister, Pangiran Makota. "Trade had become a monopoly and thus been extinguished; the exactions on the coast to the northward had produced dissatisfaction and rebellion; the unfortunate people of Limbang, which country is the granary of Bruni, was reduced to extremity, cruelly plundered by Makota and his sons, and attacked by the Kayans, sometimes at the instigation of Makota, sometimes on their own account; in short, what Sarawak was formerly, Bruni was now fast becoming; and when I pulled into the city in my little gunboat of thirty-five tons, four of the Kampongs had their guns loaded and pointed against each other." Such was the unhappy condition of the country as described by the Rajah.

The day after his coming the rival parties disarmed their fortifications. The Sultan and the Rajahs placed the government in his hands, with a request that he would endeavour to establish it on a proper and firm basis, and promised obedience to all his directions.

Makota was absent, having been ordered by the Sultan to Muka to look into matters there, which meant that he had been sent to plunder the people of that and the neighbouring districts, but, though it angered the Rajah, it rendered his task the easier.

Makota was now the sole minister, and the Rajah arranged that the old executive system should be restored so as to counterbalance his influence. The offices of the four ministers of State, or wazirs, established by the ninth Sultan Hasan, early in the seventeenth century, were revived; these were the Temanggong, the Bandahara, the di Gedong, and the Pemancha. Though of ancient origin, by the will of autocratic Sultans they had been in abeyance for many years, and their revival gave confidence to nobles and people alike. They were never allowed again to lapse.

Besides the above-mentioned functionaries, there are eight ministers of the second class, all nobles; and lastly, a council of twelve officers of state, chosen from among the leading people, the chiefs of the different divisions or parishes of the city. These chiefs being elected by the people renders this council representative.

Pangiran Anak Hasim became the Pangiran Temanggong. Though stern, he was popular, governed well and fairly, and encouraged trade. His only brother, the other doubtful son of Sultan Omar Ali, was made the Pamancha. Now that the Rajah had succeeded in reconciling the hostile factions, he trusted that the Pangiran Temanggong, with the assistance of the other wazirs, supported by his own pledge to uphold them, with force if necessary, against all disturbers of peace, would be able to preserve the Sultan from the evil influence of Makota; indeed the Sultan had a desire to act rightly, and his disposition was not altogether bad, but avariciousness was his failing, and the means by which his evil counsellors gained his ear.