TUB ITmrQLOOr OF TIIR INDIAN" archipelago. 



ami that the moral seclusion of the most retired tm<f unaltered 

 tribes, has been owing more lo fear ur antipathy than to positive 

 and uninterrupted isolation. In every such tribe of which I 

 have been able to examine the language and customs I have 

 found evidence of considerable acquisitions having been obtained 

 from other tribes. The only places where anything like ;>r>ri 

 seclusion is now to be sought, are towards the heads of g'eat river 

 basins in jungle covered and thinly peopled districts. The com- 

 mercial, predacious and migratory spirit of the more civilised 

 Indonesian races leaves none of the smaller islands ami river 

 basins unexplored. Tm?y indeed tell us of wild race* in the 

 interior of the Malay Peninsula and of Sumatra whom they 

 rarely see and who My from their sight. But the consistency with 

 which different narrators, in different countries, furnish them with 

 iron hands and other supernatural characteristics, shews that these 

 exist only in traditionary feith. Them are howevei some races so 

 very timid and wild, tliot even the Binua have but a limited 

 intercourse with them. It is more probable that soma of the 

 tribes near the great watersheds in the interior of Borneo will be 

 found to be in a considerable degree isolated, although even this t* 

 doubtful. The aborigines of the interior of the great Kahayan 

 basin do not, I believe, know any tribes more inland save those of 

 die Dayu' Pari who, they say, have tails, bnt who are certainly not 

 isolated, for a predacious intercourse constantly subsists between 

 them and their southern neighbours, and though heads are the 

 chief booty, living women may be occasionally made captive. 

 In Sumatra all the best lands of the interior have long been 

 occupied by civilised tribes, and the less favorable tracts are no- 

 wlierc so extensive and secluded as to place barriers between the 

 scattered families of Lubu, Kubtt, and Abung and the cupidity of 

 she M:.';iy and other races- The Philipinei pratf fire mora niter- 

 eating examples of an approach to the normal condition of tho 

 region. In many parts of the mountainous interior the obstacles 

 to a mutual intercourse of the spiral-haired tribes are considerable. 

 Every valley contains an independent tribe, and so much is tho 

 surface broken into small ethnic seats in the more rug'jfd >li>tricts, 

 that each family with a separate location has a peeuliar diuleet, 

 while a few families scattered over a limited space form a nation. 

 Many of the smaller islands not only in S. E. Indonesia but 

 along tin; west coast of Sumatra, are each inhabited by several 

 iiuh'pendi:-tJi iriu>, hui the riviii-mion is too great in most of them 

 to admit of the existence of isolated families; and the islets which, 

 from their posh ion, have not attracted colonies of the improve*? 

 races, and remain in the possession of rude tribes like the Telan- 

 jangs, are either occasionally visited or habitually -frequented for 

 trade by Bugis or Malayan praus. The interior of S. ivist^m Asia 

 presents wider blanks than the Archipelago, but there is no reason 

 to believe that anv completely isolated tribes will be found in it. 



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