The History of Sumatra Part 1

The History of Sumatra.

by William Marsden.

PREFACE.

The island of Sumatra, which, in point of situation and extent, holds a conspicuous rank on the terraqueous globe, and is surpa.s.sed by few in the bountiful indulgences of nature, has in all ages been unaccountably neglected by writers insomuch that it is at this day less known, as to the interior parts more especially, than the remotest island of modern discovery; although it has been constantly resorted to by Europeans for some centuries, and the English have had a regular establishment there for the last hundred years. It is true that the commercial importance of Sumatra has much declined. It is no longer the Emporium of Eastern riches whither the traders of the West resorted with their cargoes to exchange them for the precious merchandise of the Indian Archipelago: nor does it boast now the political consequence it acquired when the rapid progress of the Portuguese successes there first received a check. That enterprising people, who caused so many kingdoms to shrink from the terror of their arms, met with nothing but disgrace in their attempts against Achin, whose monarchs made them tremble in their turn. Yet still the importance of this island in the eye of the natural historian has continued undiminished, and has equally at all periods laid claim to an attention that does not appear, at any, to have been paid to it.

The Portuguese being better warriors than philosophers, and more eager to conquer nations than to explore their manners or antiquities, it is not surprising that they should have been unable to furnish the world with any particular and just description of a country which they must have regarded with an evil eye. The Dutch were the next people from whom we had a right to expect information. They had an early intercourse with the island, and have at different times formed settlements in almost every part of it; yet they are almost silent with respect to its history.* But to what cause are we to ascribe the remissness of our own countrymen, whose opportunities have been equal to those of their predecessors or contemporaries? It seems difficult to account for it; but the fact is that, excepting a short sketch of the manners prevailing in a particular district of the island, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the year 1778, not one page of information respecting the inhabitants of Sumatra has been communicated to the public by any Englishman who has resided there.

(*Footnote. At the period when this remark was written, I was not aware that an account of the Dutch settlements and commerce in Sumatra by M.

Adolph Eschels-kroon had in the preceding year been published at Hamburgh, in the German language; nor had the transactions of a literary society established at Batavia, whose first volume appeared there in 1779, yet reached this country. The work, indeed, of Valentyn, containing a general history of the European possessions in the East Indies, should have exempted a nation to which oriental learning is largely indebted from what I now consider as an unmerited reflection.)

To form a general and tolerably accurate account of this country and its inhabitants is a work attended with great and peculiar difficulties. The necessary information is not to be procured from the people themselves, whose knowledge and inquiries are to the last degree confined, scarcely extending beyond the bounds of the district where they first drew breath; and but very rarely have the almost impervious woods of Sumatra been penetrated to any considerable distance from the sea coast by Europeans, whose observations have been then imperfect, trusted perhaps to memory only, or, if committed to paper, lost to the world by their deaths. Other difficulties arise from the extraordinary diversity of national distinctions, which, under a great variety of independent governments, divide this island in many directions; and yet not from their number merely, nor from the dissimilarity in their languages or manners, does the embarra.s.sment entirely proceed: the local divisions are perplexed and uncertain; the extent of jurisdiction of the various princes is inaccurately defined; settlers from different countries and at different periods have introduced an irregular though powerful influence that supersedes in some places the authority of the established governments, and imposes a real dominion on the natives where a nominal one is not a.s.sumed. This, in a course of years, is productive of innovations that destroy the originality and genuineness of their customs and manners, obliterate ancient distinctions, and render confused the path of an investigator.

These objections, which seem to have hitherto proved unsurmountable with such as might have been inclined to attempt the history of Sumatra, would also have deterred me from an undertaking apparently so arduous, had I not reflected that those circ.u.mstances in which consisted the princ.i.p.al difficulty were in fact the least interesting to the public, and of the least utility in themselves. It is of but small importance to determine with precision whether a few villages on this or that particular river belong to one petty chief or to another; whether such a nation is divided into a greater or lesser number of tribes; or which of two neighbouring powers originally did homage to the other for its t.i.tle. History is only to be prized as it tends to improve our knowledge of mankind, to which such investigations contribute in a very small degree. I have therefore attempted rather to give a comprehensive than a circ.u.mstantial description of the divisions of the country into its various governments; aiming at a more particular detail in what respects the customs, opinions, arts, and industry of the original inhabitants in their most genuine state. The interests of the European powers who have established themselves on the island; the history of their settlements, and of the revolutions of their commerce I have not considered as forming a part of my plan; but these subjects, as connected with the accounts of the native inhabitants and the history of their governments, are occasionally introduced.

I was princ.i.p.ally encouraged to this undertaking by the promises of a.s.sistance I received from some ingenious and very highly esteemed friends who resided with me in Sumatra. It has also been urged to me here in England that, as the subject is altogether new, it is a duty inc.u.mbent on me to lay the information I am in possession of, however defective, before the public, who will not object to its being circ.u.mscribed whilst its authenticity remains unimpeachable. This last quality is that which I can with the most confidence take upon me to vouch for. The greatest portion of what I have described has fallen within the scope of my own immediate observation; the remainder is either matter of common notoriety to every person residing in the island, or received upon the concurring authority of gentlemen whose situation in the East India Company's service, long acquaintance with the natives, extensive knowledge of their language, ideas, and manners, and respectability of character, render them worthy of the most implicit faith that can be given to human testimony.

I have been the more scrupulously exact in this particular because my view was not, ultimately, to write an entertaining book to which the marvellous might be thought not a little to contribute, but sincerely and conscientiously to add the small portion in my power to the general knowledge of the age; to throw some glimmering light on the path of the naturalist; and more especially to furnish those philosophers whose labours have been directed to the investigation of the history of Man with facts to serve as data in their reasonings, which are too often rendered nugatory, and not seldom ridiculous, by a.s.suming as truths the misconceptions or wilful impositions of travellers. The study of their own species is doubtless the most interesting and important that can claim the attention of mankind; and this science, like all others, it is impossible to improve by abstract speculation merely. A regular series of authenticated facts is what alone can enable us to rise towards a perfect knowledge in it. To have added one new and firm step in this arduous ascent is a merit of which I should be proud to boast.

Of this third edition it is necessary to observe that, the former two having made their appearance so early as the years 1783 and 1784, it would long since have been prepared for the public eye had not the duties of an official situation occupied for many years the whole of my attention. During that period, however, I received from my friends abroad various useful, and, to me at least, interesting communications which have enabled me to correct some inaccuracies, to supply deficiencies, and to augment the general ma.s.s of information on the subject of an island still but imperfectly explored. To incorporate these new materials requiring that many liberties should be taken with the original contexture of the work, I became the less scrupulous of making further alterations wherever I thought they could be introduced with advantage.

The branch of natural history in particular I trust will be found to have received much improvement, and I feel happy to have had it in my power to ill.u.s.trate several of the more interesting productions of the vegetable and animal kingdoms by engravings executed from time to time as the drawings were procured, and which are intended to accompany the volume in a separate atlas.

THE HISTORY OF SUMATRA.

CHAPTER 1.

SITUATION.

NAME.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY, ITS MOUNTAINS, LAKES, AND RIVERS.

AIR AND METEORS.

MONSOONS, AND LAND AND SEA-BREEZES.

MINERALS AND FOSSILS.

VOLCANOES.

EARTHQUAKES.

SURFS AND TIDES.

If antiquity holds up to us some models, in different arts and sciences, which have been found inimitable, the moderns, on the other hand, have carried their inventions and improvements, in a variety of instances, to an extent and a degree of perfection of which the former could entertain no ideas. Among those discoveries in which we have stepped so far beyond our masters there is none more striking, or more eminently useful, than the means which the ingenuity of some, and the experience of others, have taught mankind, of determining with certainty and precision the relative situation of the various countries of the earth. What was formerly the subject of mere conjecture, or at best of vague and arbitrary computation, is now the clear result of settled rule, founded upon principles demonstratively just. It only remains for the liberality of princes and states, and the persevering industry of navigators and travellers, to effect the application of these means to their proper end, by continuing to ascertain the unknown and uncertain positions of all the parts of the world, which the barriers of nature will allow the skill and industry of man to approach.

SITUATION OF THE ISLAND.

Sumatra, the subject of the present work, is an extensive island in the East Indies, the most western of those which may be termed the Malayan Archipelago, and const.i.tuting its boundary on that side.

LAt.i.tUDE.

The equator divides it obliquely, its general direction being north-west and south-east, into almost equal parts; the one extremity lying in five degrees thirty-three minutes north, and the other in five degrees fifty-six minutes south lat.i.tude. In respect to relative position its northern point stretches into the Bay of Bengal; its south-west coast is exposed to the great Indian Ocean; towards the south it is separated by the Straits of Sunda from the island of Java; on the east by the commencement of the Eastern and China Seas from Borneo and other islands; and on the north-east by the Straits of Malacca from the peninsula of Malayo, to which, according to a tradition noticed by the Portuguese historians, it is supposed to have been anciently united.

LONGITUDE.

The only point of the island whose longitude has been settled by actual observation is Fort Marlborough, near Bencoolen, the princ.i.p.al English settlement, standing in three degrees forty-six minutes of south lat.i.tude. From eclipses of Jupiter's satellites observed in June 1769, preparatory to an observation of the transit of the planet Venus over the sun's disc, Mr. Robert Nairne calculated its longitude to be 101 degrees 42 minutes 45 seconds; which was afterwards corrected by the Astronomer Royal to 102 degrees east of Greenwich. The situation of Achin Head is pretty accurately fixed by computation at 95 degrees 34 minutes; and longitudes of places in the Straits of Sunda are well ascertained by the short runs from Batavia, which city has the advantage of an observatory.

MAP.

By the general use of chronometers in latter times the means have been afforded of determining the positions of many prominent points both on the eastern and western coasts, by which the map of the island has been considerably improved: but particular surveys, such as those of the bays and islets from Batang-kapas to Padang, made with great ability by Captain (now Lieutenant-Colonel) John Macdonald; of the coast from Priaman to the islands off Achin by Captain George Robertson; and of Siak River by Mr. Francis Lynch, are much wanted; and the interior of the country is still very imperfectly known. From sketches of the routes of Mr. Charles Campbell and of Lieutenant Hastings Dare I have been enabled to delineate the princ.i.p.al features of the Sarampei, Sungei Tenang and Korinchi countries, inland of Ipu, Moco-moco, and Indrapura; and advantage has been taken of all other information that could be procured.

For the general materials from which the map is constructed I am chiefly indebted to the kindness of my friend, the late Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, whose indefatigable labours during a long life have contributed more than those of any other person to the improvement of Indian Hydrography. It may be proper to observe that the map of Sumatra to be found in the fifth volume of Valentyn's great work is so extremely incorrect, even in regard to those parts immediately subject to the Dutch government, as to be quite useless.

UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. TAPROBANE.

Notwithstanding the obvious situation of this island in the direct track from the ports of India to the Spice Islands and to China, it seems to have been unknown to the Greek and Roman geographers, whose information or conjectures carried them no farther than Selan-dib or Ceylon, which has claims to be considered as their Taprobane; although during the middle ages that celebrated name was almost uniformly applied to Sumatra.

The single circ.u.mstance indeed of the latter being intersected by the equator (as Taprobane was said to be) is sufficient to justify the doubts of those who were disinclined to apply it to the former; and whether in fact the obscure and contradictory descriptions given by Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and Ptolemy, belonged to any actual place, however imperfectly known; or whether, observing that a number of rare and valuable commodities were brought from an island or islands in the supposed extremity of the East, they might have been led to give place in their charts to one of vast extent, which should stand as the representative of the whole, is a question not to be hastily decided.

OPHIR.

The idea of Sumatra being the country of Ophir, whither Solomon sent his fleets for cargoes of gold and ivory, rather than to the coast of Sofala, or other part of Africa, is too vague, and the subject wrapped in a veil of too remote antiquity, to allow of satisfactory discussion; and I shall only observe that no inference can be drawn from the name of Ophir found in maps as belonging to a mountain in this island and to another in the peninsula; these having been applied to them by European navigators, and the word being unknown to the natives.

Until the discovery of the pa.s.sage to India by the Cape of Good Hope the ident.i.ty of this island as described or alluded to by writers is often equivocal, or to be inferred only from corresponding circ.u.mstances.

ARABIAN TRAVELLERS.

The first of the two Arabian travellers of the ninth century, the account of whose voyages to India and China was translated by Renaudot from a ma.n.u.script written about the year 1173, speaks of a large island called Ramni, in the track between Sarandib and Sin (or China), that from the similarity of productions has been generally supposed to mean Sumatra; and this probability is strengthened by a circ.u.mstance I believe not hitherto noticed by commentators. It is said to divide the Sea of Herkend, or Indian Ocean, from the Sea of Shelahet) Salahet in Edrisi), and Salat being the Malayan term both for a strait in general, and for the well-known pa.s.sage within the island of Singapura in particular, this may be fairly presumed to refer to the Straits of Malacca.

EDRISI.

Edrisi, improperly called the Nubian geographer, who dedicated his work to Roger, King of Sicily, in the middle of the twelfth century, describes the same island, in the first climate, by the name of Al-Rami; but the particulars so nearly correspond with those given by the Arabian traveller as to show that the one account was borrowed from the other. He very erroneously however makes the distance between Sarandib and that island to be no more than three days' sail instead of fifteen. The island of Soborma, which he places in the same climate, is evidently Borneo, and the two pa.s.sages leading to it are the Straits of Malacca and of Sunda.

What is mentioned of Sumandar, in the second climate, has no relation whatever to Sumatra, although from the name we are led to expect it.

MARCO POLO.

Marco Polo, the celebrated Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century, is the first European who speaks of this island, but under the appellation of Java minor, which he gave to it by a sort of a.n.a.logy, having forgotten, or not having learned from the natives, its appropriate name. His relation, though for a long time undervalued, and by many considered as a romantic tale, and liable as it is to the charge of errors and omissions, with some improbabilities, possesses, notwithstanding, strong internal evidence of genuineness and good faith.

Containing few dates, the exact period of his visit to Sumatra cannot be ascertained, but as he returned to Venice in 1295, and possibly five years might have elapsed in his subsequent tedious voyages and journeys by Ceylon, the Karnatick, Malabar, Guzerat, Persia, the sh.o.r.es of the Caspian and Euxine, to Genoa (in a prison at which place he is said to have dictated his narrative), we may venture to refer it to the year 1290.

Taking his departure, with a considerable equipment, from a southern port of China, which he (or his transcriber) named Zaitum, they proceeded to Ziamba (Tsiampa or Champa, adjoining to the southern part of Cochin-China) which he had previously visited in 1280, being then in the service of the emperor Kublai Khan. From thence, he says, to the island of Java major is a course of fifteen hundred miles, but it is evident that he speaks of it only from the information of others, and not as an eyewitness; nor is it probable that the expedition should have deviated so far from its proper route. He states truly that it is a mart for spices and much frequented by traders from the southern provinces of China. He then mentions in succession the small uninhabited islands of Sondur and Condur (perhaps Pulo Condore); the province of Boeach otherwise Lochac (apparently Camboja, near to which Condore is situated); the island of Petan (either Patani or Pahang in the peninsula) the pa.s.sage to which, from Boeach, is across a gulf (that of Siam); and the kingdom called Malaiur in the Italian, and Maletur in the Latin version, which we can scarcely doubt to be the Malayan kingdom of Singa-Pura, at the extremity of the peninsula, or Malacca, then beginning to flourish.

It is not however a.s.serted that he touched at all these places, nor does he seem to speak from personal knowledge until his arrival at Java minor (as he calls it) or Sumatra. This island, lying in a south-eastern direction from Petan (if he does not rather mean from Malaiur, the place last mentioned) he expressly says he visited, and describes it as being in circ.u.mference two thousand miles (not very wide of the truth in a matter so vague), extending to the southward so far as to render the Polar Star invisible, and divided into eight kingdoms, two of which he did not see, and the six others he enumerates as follows: Ferlech, which I apprehend to be Parlak, at the eastern extremity of the northern coast, where they were likely to have first made the land. Here he says the people in general were idolaters; but the Saracen merchants who frequented the place had converted to the faith of Mahomet the inhabitants of the towns, whilst those of the mountains lived like beasts, and were in the practice of eating human flesh. Basma or Basman: this nearly approaches in sound to Pasaman on the western coast, but I should be more inclined to refer it to Pase (by the Portuguese written Pacem) on the northern. The manners of the people here, as in the other kingdoms, are represented as savage; and such they might well appear to one who had long resided in China. Wild elephants are mentioned, and the rhinoceros is well described. Samara: this I suppose to be Samar-langa, likewise on the northern coast, and noted for its bay. Here, he says, the expedition, consisting of two thousand persons, was constrained to remain five months, waiting the change of the monsoon; and, being apprehensive of injury from the barbarous natives, they secured themselves, by means of a deep ditch, on the land side, with its extremities embracing the port, and strengthened by bulwarks of timber. With provisions they were supplied in abundance, particularly the finest fish. There is no wheat, and the people live on rice. They are without vines, but extract an excellent liquor from trees of the palm kind by cutting off a branch and applying to it a vessel which is filled in the course of a day and night.

A description is then given of the Indian or coconut. Dragoian, a name bearing some though not much resemblance to Indragiri on the eastern coast; but I doubt his having proceeded so far to the southward as that river. The customs of the natives are painted as still more atrocious in this district. When any of them are afflicted with disorders p.r.o.nounced by their magicians to be incurable their relations cause them to be suffocated, and then dress and eat their flesh; justifying the practice by this argument, that if it were suffered to corrupt and breed worms, these must presently perish, and by their deaths subject the soul of the deceased to great torments. They also kill and devour such strangers caught amongst them as cannot pay a ransom. Lambri might be presumed a corruption of Jambi, but the circ.u.mstances related do not justify the a.n.a.logy. It is said to produce camphor, which is not found to the southward of the equinoctial line; and also verzino, or red-wood (though I suspect benzuin to be the word intended), together with a plant which he names birci, supposed to be the bakam of the Arabs, or sappan wood of the eastern islands, the seeds of which he carried with him to Venice. In the mountainous parts were men with tails a palm long; also the rhinoceros, and other wild animals. Lastly, Fanfur or Fansur, which corresponds better to Campar than to the island of Panchur, which some have supposed it. Here the finest camphor was produced, equal in value to its weight in gold. The inhabitants live on rice and draw liquor from certain trees in the manner before described. There are likewise trees that yield a species of meal. They are of a large size, have a thin bark, under which is a hard wood about three inches in thickness, and within this the pith, from which, by means of steeping and straining it, the meal (or sago) is procured, of which he had often eaten with satisfaction. Each of these kingdoms is said to have had its peculiar language. Departing from Lambri, and steering northward from Java minor one hundred and fifty miles, they reached a small island named Necuram or Norcueran (probably Nancowry, one of the Nicobars), and afterwards an island named Angaman (Andaman), from whence, steering to the southward of west a thousand miles, they arrived at that of Zeilan or Seilam, one of the most considerable in the world. The editions consulted are chiefly the Italian of Ramusio, 1583, Latin of Muller, 1671, and French of Bergeron, 1735, varying much from each other in the orthography of proper names.

ODORICUS.

Odoricus, a friar, who commenced his travels in 1318 and died at Padua in 1331, had visited many parts of the East. From the southern part of the coast of Coromandel he proceeded by a navigation of twenty days to a country named Lamori (perhaps a corruption of the Arabian Al-rami), to the southward of which is another kingdom named Sumoltra, and not far from thence a large island named Java. His account, which was delivered orally to the person by whom it was written down, is extremely meagre and unsatisfactory.

MANDEVILLE.