THJS BINVA OF JOHORIS* 
281 
plexity of ideas. If both were indebted to an Islamised tribe or to 
Mahomedan missionaries for theism, it is difficult to conjecture how 
they acquired so much without acquiring more. No Islamite could 
have taught them that there is no God but one, without adding that 
Mahomed is his Prophet. If their theism lias an Arab source, it is 
not likely that it resulted from the endeavours of Arabs to convert 
them, but that, in the early days of Islamism in the Archipelago, 
some imperfect conception of the new faith was carried to them by 
half converted natives, and that their minds, or the mind of the Po- 
y&ng or Poyffiigs who introduced the innovation, seized the simple 
and great idea of God, and rejected or failed to comprehend the 
scheme of faith with which it is surrounded in the mind of the Ma¬ 
homedan. What gives some countenance to the surmise that some 
slightly instructed convert inparted to them that idea of Islamism 
which had impressed itself on his own mind as transcending all else 
that it announced, is the name under which the Deity is known. 
They occasionally unite it to Allah and the words <£ Firman Allah 5 ’ 
which such a convert might have frequently heard in the mouths of 
Arabs might readily be changed to “Pirman Allah,” by the common 
substitution of p for f, and the latter word fall into disuse from the 
belief that the first was the essential or principal one. The substitution 
of a mere incision for circumcision may have been the result of the 
vague and imperfect comprehension of Islamism and its requisitions, 
which led them to rest satisfied with a partial compliance with it. 
At the same time it must be remembered that circumcision or ahal- 
agous practices existed in the Archipelago anteriour to Islamism. 
The kind of invention or imagination displayed in th£ traditions 
respecting the origin of man, the advent of the Rajah Binua, and 
the domestic strife in the family of the mountain Lulumut, is similar 
to that exhibited in traditions found in different parts of Sumatra, 
Borneo, Celebes, and other islands of the Archipelago. The incidents 
are different, but the character of the inventions is the same. 
The number seven which occurs in the story of the advent of the 
first human pair, is frequently used in the Dyak superstitions. It 
also appears in the Batta religion, and may have been derived from 
the Hindus. 
The Dyaks have a supernatural being named Praman, who is a 
slave of Ha t&al&, a contraction of the Malay (Arabic) Allah Tadla. 
If the Pirmffii of the Binua be not derived from the Firman 
Allah of the Malays, it may have had a more ancient Hindu ori- J 
gin, and perhaps* when we consider the numerous and unequivocal 
o *i 
