British Borneo / Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo

by Sir W. H. Treacher

Javanese element, and Hindu work in gold has been discovered buried in the island of Pappan, situated between Labuan and Brunai. Mr. Inche Mahomet, H. B. M.'s Consular Agent in Brunai, was good enough to procure for me a native history of Brunai, called the Telselah Besar, or principal history. This history states that the first Mahomedan Sovereign of Brunai was Sultan Mahomet and that, before his conversion and investiture by the Sultan of Johor, his kingdom had been tributary to the State of Majapahit, on the fall of which kingdom the Brunai Government transferred its allegiance to Johor. Majapahit[8] was the last Javanese kingdom professing Hinduism, and from its overthrow dates the triumph of Mahomedanism in Java. This occurred in A.D. 1478, which, if the chronicle can be trusted, must have been about the period of the commencement of the Mahomedan period in Brunai. Inclusive of this Sultan Mahomet and of the late Sultan Mumim, who died in May, 1885, twenty-three Mahomedan Sultans have reigned in Brunai and, allowing eighteen years for an average reign, this brings us within a few years of the date assigned to the overthrow of the kingdom of Majapahit, and bears testimony to the reliability of the chronicle. I will quote the first few paragraphs of the Telselah, as they will give the reader an idea of a Brunai history and also because they allude to the connection of the Chinese with Borneo and afford a fanciful explanation of the origin of the name of the mountain of Kinabalu, in British North Borneo, which is 13,700 feet in height:—

"This is the genealogy of all the Rájas who have occupied the royal throne of the Government of Brunai, the abode of peace, from generation to generation, who inherited the royal drum and the bell, the tokens from the country of Johore, kamal almakam, and who also possessed the royal drum from Menangkabau, namely, from the country of Saguntang.

"This was the commencement of the kingdom of Brunai and of the introduction of the Mahomedan religion and of the Code of Laws of the prophet, the beloved of God, in the country of Brunai—that is to say (in the reign of) His Highness Sultan Mahomet. But before His Majesty's time the country of Brunai was still infidel, and a dependency of Majapahit. On the death of the Batara of Majapahit and of the Patih Gaja Medah the kingdom of Majapahit fell, and Brunai ceased to pay tribute, which used to consist of one jar of the juice of the young betel-nut every year.

"In the time of the Sultan Bahtri of the kingdom of Johor, Tuan Alak Betatar and Patih Berbahi were summoned to Johor, and the former was appointed Sultan Mahomet by the Sultan of Johor, who conferred on him the royal drum and assigned him five provinces, namely, Kaluka, Seribas, Sadong, Samarahan and Sarawak. Patih Berbai was given the title of Bandhara Sri Maharaja. After a stay of some little time in Johor, His Highness the Sultan Mahomet returned to Brunai; but His Highness had no male issue and only one daughter. At that time also the Emperor of China ordered two of his ministers to obtain possession of the precious stone of the dragon of the mountain Kinabalu. Numbers of Chinese were devoured by the dragon and still possession was not obtained of the stone. For this reason they gave the mountain the name of Kinabalu (Kina = Chinese; balu = widow).

"The name of one of the Chinese Ministers was Ong Kang and of another Ong Sum Ping, and the latter had recourse to a stratagem. He made a box with glass sides and placed a large lighted candle therein, and [55]when the dragon went forth to feed, Ong Sum Ping seized the precious stone and put the lamp in its place and u the dragon mistook it for the precious stone. Having now obtained possession of the precious stone all the junks set sail for China, and when they had got a long way off from Kinabalu, Ong Kang asked Ong Sum Ping for the stone, and thereupon a quarrel ensued between them. Ong Kang continued to press his demand for the precious stone, and Ong Sum Ping became out of humour and sullen and refused to return to China and made his way back to Brunai. On arriving there, he espoused the Princess, the daughter of Sultan Mahomet, and he obtained the title of Sultan Ahamat.

"The Sultan Ahamat had one daughter, who was remarkably beautiful. It came to pass that a Sheriff named Alli, a descendant of Amir Hassan (one of the grandchildren of the prophet) came from the country of Taif to Brunai. Hearing of the fame of the beauty of the Sultan's daughter, he became enamoured of her and the Sultan accepted him as his son-in-law and the Government of Brunai was handed over to him by His Highness and he was styled Sultan Berkat. He enforced the Code of Laws of the beloved of God and erected a mosque in Brunai, and, moreover, ordered the Chinese population to make a stone fort."

The connection of the Chinese with Brunai was an important event in Borneo history and it was certainly to them that the flourishing condition of the capital when visited by Pigafetta in 1521 was due. They were the sole planters of the pepper gardens, the monopoly of the trade in the produce of which the East India Company negotiated for in 1774, when the crop was reported to the Company to have been 4,000 pikuls, equal to about 240 tons, valued on the spot at 17¹⁄₄ Spanish dollars per pikul. The Company's Agent expressly reported that the Chinese were the only pepper planters, that the aborigines did not plant it, and that the produce was disposed of to Chinese junks, which visited the port and which he trusted would, when the exclusive trade in this article was in the hands of the Company, be diverted from Brunai to Balambangan.

The station at this latter island, as already mentioned, was abandoned in 1775, and the English trade with Brunai appears soon afterwards to have come to an end.

From extracts from the Journal of the Batavia Society of Arts and Sciences published in The British North Borneo Herald of the 1st October, 1886, the first mention of Brunai in Chinese history appears to be in the year 669, when the King of Polo, which is stated to be another name for Bunlai (corruption of "Brunai"), sent an envoy to Pekin, who came to Court with the envoy of Siam. Again, in the year 1406, another Brunai envoy was appointed, who took with him a tribute of the products of the country, and the chronicle goes on to say that it is reported "that the present King is a man from Fukien, who followed Cheng Ho when he went to this country and who settled there."

This account was written in 1618 and alludes to the Chinese shipping then frequenting Brunai. It is by some supposed that the northern portion of Borneo was the destination of the unsuccessful expedition which Kublai Khan sent out in the year 1292.