IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



houses. I believe that these, although they must be considered 

 as the remnants of an ancient Bornean people, are not descended 

 from autochthonous savages, but are rather the present-day 

 representatives of a race which has become savage. 



It is difficult to deny that Borneo has had older and perhaps 

 more primitive human inhabitants. In most of the great islands 

 in proximity to the Asiatic continent, and in some of the smaller 

 ones also, from Ceylon to the Philippines, as well as on the Malay 

 Peninsula, there are found people with crisp or woolly hair who may 

 be regarded as having more or less affinity with the Negrito race, 

 which has pure representatives in the Andaman islanders, the 

 Sakais and Samangs of Perak, and the Aetas of the Philippines. 

 In Borneo I have no recollection of having seen anything of the 

 kind, but I must confess that during my earlier journeys in the 

 island I did not make special anthropological investigations, nor 

 had I that experience and knowledge of crisp or woolly-haired 

 peoples which I was to acquire in my later travels amongst the 

 Papuan islands. However, in none of the narratives of journeys 

 and explorations in Borneo subsequent to my own have I found 

 any mention of traces, much less of -the existence, of Negritos in 

 that island. I am, nevertheless, much inclined to admit the 

 hypothesis that Southern Asia and its islands were once inhabited 

 by Negroid races. These would have been substituted in process 

 of time by immigrants from the more central parts of Asia. The 

 dark skin and crisp hair would in all cases reveal a trace of the 

 primitive Negroids. But it appears that in Borneo no such traces 

 are to be found. 



A recent author has asserted that cannibalism exists in Borneo, 

 and accuses the Punans of the Upper Koti and Rejang of that prac- 

 tice. I never heard anything of the kind when I was in that part 

 of the country, nor have I seen anything to confirm such an assertion 

 in narratives or reports of recent explorations. It appears, however, 

 that amongst the Kayans and Mellanaos human sacrifices were 

 - practised up to quite a recent period. 1 And it is not improbable, 

 as I have already remarked, that in some of the more remote 

 tribes of the interior such a practice still exists. It certainly exists 

 in Sumatra, 2 and about forty years ago was extensively practised 

 by the Khonds of Central India, being only put an end to by the 

 energy of Major Campbell. 



The motive of human sacrifices has always been one and the 

 same in all times and in all countries — the offer to the Divinity 



1 W. Crocker (Proc. R. Geogr. Soc, April, 1881, p. 200) tells us that, on 

 the death of a Mellanao chief, a slave was chained to the hollow wooden 

 post containing his corpse, and left there to die of hunger, so that he should 

 be ready to follow his master, and to serve him in the other world. 



2 E. Modigliani, Fra i Batacchi indipendenti, p. 184. Rome. 1892. 



364 



