THE HEAD-HUNTERS OF CELEBES. 99 



Cauto says : " Tliey liave no temples, but pray look- 

 ing up to the skies with their heads raised," which he 

 regards as conclusive evidence that " they had a 

 knowledge of the true God." According to the rec- 

 ords of the Macassar people,* the Mohammedan re- 

 ligion was first taught them by a native of Menang- 

 kabau, a province on the plateau in the interior of 

 Sumatra, north of the present city of Padang. This 

 occurred just before the arrival of the Portuguese in 

 1525, and the native annals say that the doctrine of 

 the false Prophet and of Christianity were pre- 

 sented to the prince of Macassar at the same time, 

 and that his advisers pressed him to accept Moham- 

 medanism, because " God would not allow error to 

 amve before truth." 



In the interior live a people called by the coast 

 tribes Turaju, who are represented as head-hunters, 



* The early kings of Macassar boasted that they descended from the 

 Tormanurong, who, according to their legends, had this miraculous his- 

 tory as given in Pinkerton's " Voyages," vol. ii., p. 216. In the earliest 

 times, it hajipened that a beautiful woman, adorned with a chain of 

 gold, descended from heaven, and was acknowledged by the Macassars 

 as their queen. Upon hearing of the appearance on earth of this celes- 

 tial beauty, the King of Bantam made a long voyage to that land, and 

 sought her hand in marriage, though he had before wedded a princess 

 of Bontain. His suit was granted, and a son was begotten in this mar- 

 riage, who was two or three years old before he was born, so that he 

 could both walk and talk immediately after his birth, but he was very 

 much distorted in shape. When he was grown up, he broke the chain 

 of gold which his mother had brought from heaven into two pieces, 

 after which she, together with her husband, vanished in a moment, 

 taking with her one half the chain, and leaving the other half and the 

 empire to her son. This chain, which the Macassars say is sometimes 

 heavy and sometimes light, at one time dark colored and at another 

 liright, was ever afterward one of the regalia of the kings until it was 

 lost in a great revolution. 



