PROPOSE to conclude this account of my Eastern travels, with a
short statement of my views as to the races of man which inhabit
the various parts of the Archipelago, their chief physical and
mental characteristics, their affinities with each other and with
surrounding tribes, their migrations, and their probable origin.
Two very strongly contrasted races inhabit the Archipelago - the
Malays, occupying almost exclusively the larger western half of
it, and the Papuans, whose headquarters are New Guinea and
several of the adjacent islands. Between these in locality, are
found tribes who are also intermediate in their chief
characteristics, and it is sometimes a nice point to determine
whether they belong to one or the other race, or have been formed
by a mixture of the two.
The Malay is undoubtedly the most important of these two races,
as it is the one which is the most civilized, which has come most
into contact with Europeans, and which alone has any place in
history. What may be called the true Malay races, as
distinguished from others who have merely a Malay element in
their language, present a considerable uniformity of physical and
mental characteristics, while there are very great differences of
civilization and of language. They consist of four great, and a
few minor semi-civilized tribes, and a number of others who may
be termed savages. The Malays proper inhabit the Malay peninsula,
and almost all the coast regions of Borneo and Sumatra. They all
speak the Malay language, or dialects of it; they write in the
Arabic character, and are Mahometans in religion. The Javanese
inhabit Java, part of Sumatra, Madura, Bali, and Bart of Lombock.
They speak the Javanese and Kawi languages, which they write in a
native character. They are now Mahometans in Java, but Brahmins
in Bali and Lombock. The Bugis are the inhabitants of the greater
parts of Celebes, and there seems to be an allied people in
Sumbawa. They speak the Bugis and Macassar languages, with
dialects, and have two different native characters in which they
write these. They are all Mahometans. The fourth great race is
that of the Tagalas in the Philippine Islands, about whom, as I
did not visit those Islands, I shall say little. Many of them are
now Christians, and speak Spanish as well as their native tongue,
the Tagala. The Moluccan-Malays, who inhabit chiefly Ternate,
Tidore, Batchian, and Amboyna, may be held to form a fifth
division of semi-civilized Malays. They are all Mahometans, but
they speak a variety of curious languages, which seem compounded
of Bugis and Javanese, with the languages of the savage tribes of
the Moluccas.
The savage Malays are the Dyaks of Borneo; the Battaks and other
wild tribes of Sumatra; the Jakuns of the Malay Peninsula; the
aborigines of Northern Celebes, of the Sula island, and of part
of Bouru.
The colour of all these varied tribes is a light reddish brown,
with more or less of an olive tinge, not varying in any important
degree over an extent of country as large as all Southern Europe.
The hair is equally constant, being invariably black and
straight, and of a rather coarse texture, so that any lighter
tint, or any wave or curl in it, is an almost certain proof of
the admixture of some foreign blood.
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