VII.] THE OCEANIC MONGOLS. 237 



cerebration, and Mr Swettenham mentions two latah-struck Malays, 

 who would make admirable " subjects " at a se'ance of theosophic 

 psychists. Any simple device served to attract their attention, 

 when by merely looking them hard in the face they fell helplessly 

 in the hands of the operator, instantly lost all self-control, and 

 went passively through any performance either verbally imposed 

 or even merely suggested by a sign. 



Herein may perhaps be recognised a manifestation of that 

 peculiar feminine strain, which has so often been imputed to the 

 Malay temperament. Yet, as if to confound the speculations 

 of the rising school of German psychological anthropologists, 

 this same Oceanic people displays in many respects a curiously 

 kindred spirit with the nerveless Englishman, as, for instance, 

 in his love of gambling, boxing, cock-fighting, field sports', and 

 adventure. No more fearless explorers of the high seas, for- 

 merly rovers and corsairs, at all times enterprising traders, are 

 anywhere to be found than the Menangkabau Ma- 



The Malayan 



lays and their near kinsmen, the renowned Bugis seafarers and 

 " Merchant Adventurers " of south Celebes. Their 

 clumsy but seaworthy praus are met in every seaport from Sumatra 

 to the Arti Islands, and they have established permanent trading 

 stations and even settlements in Borneo, the Philippines, Timor, 

 and as far east as New Guinea. On one occasion Wallace sailed 

 from Dobbo in company with fifteen large Makassar praus, each 

 with a cargo worth about ^1000, and as many of the Bugis 

 settle amongst the rude aborigines of the eastern isles, they thus 

 cooperate with the Sumatran Malays in extending the area of 

 civilising influences throughout Papuasia. 



Formerly they combined piracy with legitimate trade, and 

 long after the suppression of the North Bornean corsairs by 

 Sir James Brooke, the inland waters continued to be infested 

 especially by the Bajau rovers of Celebes, and by the Balagnini 

 of the Sulu Archipelago, most dreaded of all the orang-laut, 

 "Men of the Sea," the "Sea Gypsies," of the English. These 

 were the "Cellates" (Omng-Selat, "Men of the Straits") of the 



1 On these national pastimes see Mr Hugh Clifford, In Court and Kampong, 

 1897, p. 46 sq. 



