12 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



name for cotton among the Sea Dayaks, though it 

 is doubtful whether it is found in Sumatra at all, and 

 is not given in Marsden's great Dictionary. The 

 use of teeth as ear-ornaments may refer to Kenyahs. 

 If these identities are sufficient to show that Poli 

 was old Bruni, we have an almost unique illustration 

 here of the antiquity of savage customs. That an 

 experience of fourteen hundred years should have 

 failed to convince people of the futility of feeding salt 

 waves is a striking demonstration of the widespread 

 fallacy, that what is old must needs be good. 



Poli had already attained a certain measure of 

 civilisation, and even of luxury. The kingly 

 dignity was hereditary, and the Buddhist monarch 

 was served with much ceremony. He was clad 

 in flowered silk or cotton, adorned with pearls, 

 and sat on a golden throne attended by servants 

 with white dusters and fans of peacock feathers. 

 When he went out of his palace, his chariot, canopied 

 with feathers and embroidered curtains, was drawn 

 by elephants, whilst gongs, drums, and conches 

 made inspiriting music. As Hindu ornaments have 

 been found at Santubong together with Chinese 

 coins of great antiquity, as the names of many 

 offices of state in Bruni are derived from Sanskrit, 

 and the people of Sarawak have only lately ceased 

 to speak of "the days of the Hindus,"^ there is 

 nothing startling in the statement that the kings 

 of Poli were Buddhist. 



Whatever Poli may or may not have been, there 

 is little question that Puni, 45 days from Java, 

 40 from Palembang, 30 from Champa, in each 

 case taking the wind to be fair, was Bruni. The 

 Chinese, who have neither b nor double consonants 

 in their impoverished language, still call the Bornean 

 capital Puni. Groeneveldt says that the Chinese 



^ Rajah Charles Brooke, Ten Years in Sarawak, quoted in Ling Roth's 

 valuable work, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, vol. ii. 

 p. 279. 



