HISTORY OF BORNEO ii 



wrap a piece of cotton round their loins ; cotton 

 is a plant of which they collect the flowers to make 

 cloth of them ; the coarser kind is called kupa^ 

 and the finer cloth Heh. They hold their markets 

 at night, and cover their faces. ... At the east 

 of this country is situated the land of the Rakshas, 

 which has the same customs as Poli." ^ 



This is an interesting account in many ways, 

 and tallies very closely with what other evidence 

 would lead one to suspect. For there is reason 

 to think that Bruni, before it became Mohammedan, 

 was a Bisaya kingdom under Buddhist sovereigns 

 and Hindu influence ; and nearly all the particulars 

 given with regard to the people of Borneo are 

 true of one or other of the races allied to Bisayas 

 and living near Bruni to-day. The discus- knife, 

 a wooden weapon, is not now in use, but is known 

 to have been used formerly. The wild Kadayans 

 sacrifice after every new moon, and are forbidden to 

 eat a number of things until they have done so. The 

 Malanaus set laden rafts afloat on the rivers to 

 propitiate the spirits of the sea. The very names 

 of the two kinds of cotton, then evidently a novelty 

 to the Chinese, are found in Borneo : kapok is 

 a well-known Malay word ; but taya is the common 



^ This account is taken from Groeneveldt {loc. cit.) who, however, supposes 

 Poli to be on the north coast of Sumatra. In this he follows "all Chinese 

 geographers," adding "that its neighbourhood to the Nicobar Islands is a 

 sufficient proof that they are right." But Rakshas, which may have been " for 

 a long time the name of the Nicobar Islands, probably on account of the 

 wildness and bad reputation of their inhabitants," is merely Rakshasa, a term 

 applied by the Hindu colonists in Java and the Malay Peninsula to any wild 

 people, so that the statement that to the east of Poli is situated the land of the 

 Rakshas is hardly sufficient support for even "all Chinese geographers." 

 Trusting to " modern Chinese geographers," Groeneveldt makes Kaling, 

 where an eight-foot gnomon casts a shadow of 2.4 feet at noon on the summer 

 solstice, to be Java, that is to say, to be nearly 5° south of the equator. Having 

 unwittingly demonstrated how untrustworthy are the modern geographers, 

 he must excuse others if they prefer the original authority, who states that Poli 

 is south-^aj^ of Camboja, the land of the Rakshas east of Poli, to "all" 

 geographers who state on the contrary that Poli is south-7w^/ of Camboja, 

 the Rakshas' country west of Poli. The name Poli appears to be a more 

 accurate form of Polo, the name by which Bruni is said to have been known 

 to the Chinese in early times. 



