XXI ETHNOLOGY OF BORNEO 225 



the race, whether in the form of fossil remains or of 

 physical characters of the present population, unless 

 the curly hair and coarse features of a few individuals 

 to be met with in almost all the tribes may be re- 

 garded as such traces. These negroid features of a 

 small number of the present inhabitants are perhaps 

 sufficiently accounted for by the fact that slaves 

 have been imported into Borneo from time to time 

 throughout many centuries by Arabs and Malays 

 and by the Illanum pirates ; and some of these 

 slaves were no doubt Negritos, and some, possibly, 

 Africans or Papuans/ 



We leave open the question of an ancient Negrito 

 population, and goon to the statement that the present 

 population is derived from four principal sources. 

 From a very early period the island has been in- 

 habited in all parts by a people of a common origin 

 whose surviving descendants are the tribes we have 

 classed as Klemantans, Kenyahs, and Punans. This 

 people probably inhabited Borneo at a time when 

 it was still connected with the mainland. Their 

 cultural status was probably very similar to that of 

 the existing Punans. It seems not improbable that 

 at this early period, perhaps one preceding the 

 separation of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java from the 

 mainland, this people was scattered over a large 

 part of this area. For in several of the wilder 

 parts, where the great forest areas remain untouched, 

 bands of nomads closely resembling the Punans 

 of Borneo are still to be found, notably the Orang 

 Kubu of Sumatra, and perhaps the Bantiks of 

 northern Celebes. The principal characteristics of 

 this primitive culture are the absence of houses or 

 any fixed abode ; the ignorance of agriculture, of 

 metal-working, and of boat-making ; and the nomadic 



^ Although it is impossible to form any estimate of the numbers of such im- 

 ported slaves of negroid type, it is, we assert, a fact that some have been 

 imported. We have trustworthy information of the possession of two Abyssinian 

 slaves in recent times by a Malay noble. 



