Life in the forests of the Far East (vol. 2 of 2)

by Sir Spenser St. John

The reigning sultan used often to converse on the subject, and told me that his own father was the nobleman appointed to superintend the Chinese; and that about fifty years ago they were very numerous to the westward of the town, and that when he was a youth, he was fond of strolling in their pepper and vegetable gardens. He did not know “how many there were, but there were many.” He accounted for their almost total disappearance by saying that for the last sixty or seventy years they had received no recruits from China, and that the Chinese gardeners near the town seldom had wives, but those up the country and in the neighbouring districts lived among the Murut and Bisaya tribes, and that their descendants had mixed with the native population and adopted their dress and habits.

An occurrence which took place whilst I was in Brunei tended to confirm this. A Chinese pedlar, married to a Murut girl, came to me one day to complain of the conduct of a Bornean nobleman who had been oppressing the aborigines. I sent him with the Malay writer attached to the Consulate to explain his case to the sultan, as I could not interfere myself.

The following week the chief of the Murut tribe arrived to support the complaint, and went with the pedlar into the shop of the principal Chinese trader in Brunei, baba Masu, who began questioning him in Malay. The man answered in a stupid manner, as if he scarcely understood him, upon which the baba turned to the pedlar and said in Hokien Chinese, “What is the use of your bringing such a fool to support your case?” The chief’s face brightened directly, and he observed, in good Chinese, “I am not such a fool, but I don’t understand Malay well.” The trader, very much surprised to be thus addressed in his own language by a Murut, made particular inquiries, and found that this was the grandson of an immigrant from Amoy, who had settled among the aborigines, and had taught his children his own language, and his eldest son marrying the daughter of an orang kaya, their son had succeeded to the chieftainship of the tribe.

Subsequently, I questioned some of the Chinese pedlars who were accustomed to trade in the districts on the coast to the north of the capital, which are known by the general name of Saba, and they found there were many of the Bisayas and Muruts of Kalias, Padas, Membakut, and Patatan, who could speak Chinese very fairly, and who acknowledged their mixed descent from the Chinese and the aborigines. Wherever the former settle, they always seek wives among the people, though few comparatively have the good fortune to procure them. However, when they do, the women soon become reconciled to them as husbands, and find a manifest improvement in their condition, as the Chinese do not like to see their wives do more than the real domestic work of the house, performing all the more laborious duties themselves, even to cooking the dinner.

My friend, the orang kaya of the village of Blimbing, on the Limbang, said he remembered the Chinese living at a place called Batang Parak, about eighty miles from the mouth of the river. He himself could only call to mind seven who were cultivating pepper-plantations in his time, but his father had told him that before the insurrection the whole country was covered with their gardens. Of this insurrection, I could obtain few particulars, though they pointed out a hill at the mouth of the Madalam where the Chinese had built a fort, but had been defeated by the Bornean forces.

A hundred and fifty miles up the Limbang, on the banks of the Madihit branch, and beyond all the worst rapids, the Muruts told us the Chinese formerly had very extensive pepper-plantations; but within the remembrance of their oldest men, they had all died away, no new recruits joining them, and their descendants were lost among the surrounding tribes.

There is but one objection to the theory that the Borneans derive their origin in great part from the former Chinese settlers: it is that they are even darker than the other Malays; otherwise, the squareness and heaviness of feature, particularly observable among the lower classes, would seem to mark them as descendants of the labouring Chinese who form the bulk of the emigrants from China, though I have often observed that many of the children of the undoubtedly mixed breed were very dark. I have noticed in my account of our first expedition to Kina Balu the fact of the young girls at the village of Ginambur having the front of their heads shaved after the manner of the Chinese. I do not remember having seen any female of the other tribes of aborigines disfigured in the same way. When we were at the village of Kiau, at the base of Kina Balu, we continually remarked faces which showed distinct indications of being descended from the celestials.

I have before noticed the superior style in which the natives to the north of Brunei carry on their agricultural operations. I find my description of the method pursued by the Bisayas of Tanah Merah in cultivating pepper exactly agrees with that of the Chinese mentioned by Forrest in his account of Borneo Proper. And the natives of Tawaran and Tampasuk cultivate their rice as carefully as the Chinese, following their example of dividing the fields by low embankments, so as to be able to regulate the supply of water; and in no other part of Borneo are to be found gardens as neat as those we saw on the plain of Tawaran. It is evident they have not yet forgotten the lessons taught to their forefathers by the Chinese, though their improved agriculture appears to be almost the only impress left on the people. Instead of their following the more civilized race, the latter appear to have completely blended with and become lost among the numerous population around.

The tradition is still well known among the natives, of the whole country being filled with those immigrants; and they say that in very ancient days there was an empire ruled by one of the strangers, and the Sulus have still the tradition current among them that in former days these islands formed a part of a great Chinese kingdom, whose seat of government was in the north of Borneo. Forrest having mentioned that the Sulus in his day had such a tradition, drew my attention to it, and it may refer to the time subsequent to the invasion of the country by Kublai Khan’s general. The following is an extract from the genealogy of the sovereigns of Borneo, which is in the possession of the pañgeran tumanggong:—“He who first reigned in Brunei, and introduced the religion of Islam, was his Highness the Sultan Mahomed, and his Highness had one female child by his wife the sister of the Chinese rajah, whom he brought from Kina Batañgan (Chinese river), and this princess was married to Sherif Ali, who came from the country of Taib, and who afterwards governed under the name of his Highness Sultan Barkat (the Blessed), and it was he who erected the mosque, and whose Chinese subjects built the Kota Batu, or stone fort.” This appears to refer to some kind of a Chinese kingdom.

In 1846 there was scarcely a Chinese left in the capital; but no sooner was our treaty made in 1847, than traders from Singapore began to open shops there. At first, it appeared as if a valuable commercial intercourse were about to commence, as it was supposed the Chinese, as of old, would soon begin to form pepper-plantations, and the expectation was partly fulfilled. A rich shopkeeper obtained permission from the sultan, and a grant of land having been made, he set to work to form a garden. He planted fruits, vegetables, and pepper, the last grew luxuriantly, though the soil appeared unpromising; but no sooner was it known to be yielding, than crowds of idlers from the capital flocked there, and soon stripped it of everything eatable. In despair, he gave up his project, and no one has had the courage to try again; in fact, it would be useless as long as the present system of government holds.