You see there is on the Island a kind of monkey which is very
small, and has a face just like a man's. They take these, and pluck out
all the hair except the hair of the beard and on the breast, and then they
dry them and stuff them and daub them with saffron and other things until
they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere in India
nor anywhere else in the world were there ever men seen so small as these
pretended pygmies.
Now I will say no more of the kingdom of Basma, but tell you of the others
in succession.
NOTE 1. - Java the Less is the Island of SUMATRA. Here there is no
exaggeration in the dimension assigned to its circuit, which is about 2300
miles. The old Arabs of the 9th century give it a circuit of 800
parasangs, or say 2800 miles, and Barbosa reports the estimate of the
Mahomedan seamen as 2100 miles. Compare the more reasonable accuracy of
these estimates of Sumatra, which the navigators knew in its entire
compass, with the wild estimates of Java Proper, of which they knew but
the northern coast.
Polo by no means stands alone in giving the name of Java to the island now
called Sumatra. The terms Jawa, Jawi, were applied by the Arabs to the
islands and productions of the Archipelago generally (e.g., Luban
jawi, "Java frankincense," whence by corruption Benzoin), but also
specifically to Sumatra. Thus Sumatra is the Jawah both of Abulfeda and
of Ibn Batuta, the latter of whom spent some time on the island, both in
going to China and on his return. The Java also of the Catalan Map appears
to be Sumatra. Javaku again is the name applied in the Singalese
chronicles to the Malays in general. Jau and Dawa are the names still
applied by the Battaks and the people of Nias respectively to the Malays,
showing probably that these were looked on as Javanese by those tribes who
did not partake of the civilisation diffused from Java. In Siamese also
the Malay language is called Chawa; and even on the Malay peninsula, the
traditional slang for a half-breed born from a Kling (or Coromandel)
father and a Malay mother is Jawi Pakan, "a Jawi (i.e. Malay) of the
market." De Barros says that all the people of Sumatra called themselves
by the common name of Jauijs. (Dec. III. liv. v. cap. 1.)
There is some reason to believe that the application of the name Java to
Sumatra is of very old date. For the oldest inscription of ascertained
date in the Archipelago which has yet been read, a Sanskrit one from
Pagaroyang, the capital of the ancient Malay state of Menang-kabau in the
heart of Sumatra, bearing a date equivalent to A.D. 656, entitles the
monarch whom it commemorates, Adityadharma by name, the king of "the First
Java" (or rather Yava). This Mr. Friedrich interprets to mean Sumatra.
