ASTRONOMY.
The Malays as well as the Arabs and other Mahometan nations fix the length of the year at three hundred and fifty-four days, or twelve lunar months of twenty-nine days and a half; by which mode of reckoning each year is thrown back about eleven days. The original Sumatrans rudely estimate their annual periods from the revolution of the seasons, and count their years from the number of their crops of grain (taun padi); a practice which, though not pretending to accuracy, is much more useful for the general purposes of life than the lunar period, which is merely adapted to religious observances. They as well as the Malays compute time by lunations, but do not attempt to trace any relation or correspondence between these smaller measures and the solar revolution. Whilst more polished nations were multiplying mistakes and difficulties in their endeavours to ascertain the completion of the sun's course through the ecliptic, and in the meanwhile suffering their nominal seasons to become almost the reverse of nature, these people, without an idea of intercalation, preserved in a rude way the account of their years free from essential, or at least progressive, error and the confusion which attends it. The division of the month into weeks I believe to be unknown except where it has been taught with Mahometanism; the day of the moon's age being used instead of it where accuracy is required; nor do they subdivide the day into hours. To denote the time of day at which any circumstance they find it necessary to speak of happened, they point with their finger to the height in the sky at which the sun then stood. And this mode is the more general and precise as the sun, so near the equator, ascends and descends almost perpendicularly, and rises and sets at all seasons of the year within a few minutes of six o'clock. Scarcely any of the stars or constellations are distinguished by them. They notice however the planet Venus, but do not imagine her to be the same at the different periods of her revolution when she precedes the rising, and follows the setting sun. They are aware of the night on which the new moon should make its appearance, and the Malays salute it with the discharge of guns. They also know when to expect the returns of the tides, which are at their height, on the south-western coast of the island, when that luminary is in the horizon, and ebb as it rises. When they observe a bright star near the moon (or rubbing against her, as they express it), they are apprehensive of a storm, as European sailors foretell a gale from the sharpness of her horns. These are both, in part, the consequence of an unusual clearness in the air, which, proceeding from an extraordinary alteration of the state of the atmosphere, may naturally be followed by a violent rushing of the circumjacent parts to restore the equilibrium, and thus prove the prognostic of high wind. During an eclipse they make a loud noise with sounding-instruments to prevent one luminary from devouring the other, as the Chinese, to frighten away the dragon, a superstition that has its source in the ancient systems of astronomy (particularly the Hindu) where the nodes of the moon are identified with the dragon's head and tail. They tell of a man in the moon who is continually employed in spinning cotton, but that every night a rat gnaws his thread and obliges him to begin his work afresh. This they apply as an emblem of endless and ineffectual labour, like the stone of Sisyphus, and the sieves of the Danaides.
With history and chronology the country people are but little acquainted, the memory of past events being preserved by tradition only.
MUSIC.
They are fond of music and have many instruments in use among them, but few, upon inquiry, appear to be original, being mostly borrowed from the Chinese and other more eastern people; particularly the kalintang, gong, and sulin. The violin has found its way to them from the westward. The kalintang resembles the sticcado and the harmonica; the more common ones having the cross-pieces, which are struck with two little hammers, of split bamboo, and the more perfect of a certain composition of metal which is very sonorous. The gongs, a kind of bell, but differing much in shape and struck on the outside, are cast in sets regularly tuned to thirds, fourth, fifth, and octave, and often serve as a bass, or under part, to the kalintang. They are also sounded for the purpose of calling together the inhabitants of the village upon any particular occasion; but the more ancient and still common instrument for this use is a hollowed log of wood named katut. The sulin is the Malayan flute. The country flute is called serdum. It is made of bamboo, is very imperfect, having but few stops, and resembles much an instrument described as found among the people of Otaheite. A single hole underneath is covered with the thumb of the left hand, and the hole nearest the end at which it is blown, on the upper side, with a finger of the same hand. The other two holes are stopped with the right-hand fingers. In blowing they hold it inclined to the right side. They have various instruments of the drum kind, particularly those called tingkah, which are in pairs and beaten with the hands at each end. They are made of a certain kind of wood hollowed out, covered with dried goat-skins, and laced with split rattans. It is difficult to obtain a proper knowledge of their division of the scale, as they know nothing of it in theory. The interval we call an octave seems to be divided with them into six tones, without any intermediate semitones, which must confine their music to one key. It consists in general of but few notes, and the third is the interval that most frequently occurs. Those who perform on the violin use the same notes as in our division, and they tune the instrument by fifths to a great nicety. They are fond of playing the octave, but scarcely use any other chord. The Sumatran tunes very much resemble, to my ear, those of the native Irish, and have usually, like them, a flat third: the same has been observed of the music of Bengal, and probably it will be found that the minor key obtains a preference amongst all people at a certain stage of civilization.
CHAPTER 10.
LANGUAGES.
MALAYAN.
ARABIC CHARACTER USED.
LANGUAGES OF THE INTERIOR PEOPLE.
PECULIAR CHARACTERS.
SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES AND OF ALPHABETS.
LANGUAGES.
Before I proceed to an account of the laws, customs, and manners of the people of the island it is necessary that I should say something of the different languages spoken on it, the diversity of which has been the subject of much contemplation and conjecture.