693 
SUMATRA. 
be overworked. These hold the natives of the island in great 
contempt, have an antipathy to them, and enjoy any occasion 
of doing them mischief: the Sumatrans, on the other hand, 
consider the negroes merely as devils half humanized. 
The inhabitants of Sumatra are rather below the middle 
size; their limbs are, for the most part, slight, but well shaped, 
and particularly small at the wrists and ancles. The women 
follow the preposterous custom of flattening the noses and 
compressing the skulls of children newly born, and also 
pull out the ears of the infants to make them stand at an 
angle with the head. The males destroy their beards, and 
keep their chins remarkably smooth. Their complexion is 
properly yellow, wanting the red tinge that constitutes a 
tawny or copper colour. The females of the upper classes 
not exposed to the rays of the sun, approach to a degree of 
fairness. Persons of superior rank encourage the growth of 
their hand nails to an extraordinary length; the hands of 
the natives generally, and even those of the half breed, are 
always cold. The inland natives are superior in size and 
strength to the Malays on the coast, and possess also fairer 
complexions. Among the hills, the inhabitants are subject 
to monstrous wens or goitres on the throat. Both sexes have 
the extraordinary custom of filing and disfiguring their teeth, 
which are naturally very white and beautiful, from the 
simplicity of their food. Many, particularly the women of the 
Lam pong country, have their teeth rubbed down even with 
their gums; others have them formed into points, while 
some file off no more than the outer extremities, and then 
blacken them with the empyreumatic oil of the cocoa-nut 
shell. The great men set their teeth in gold, by casing with 
a piate of that metal the under row; which ornament, con¬ 
trasted with the black dye, has by candle light a very splen¬ 
did effect. It is sometimes indented to the shape of their 
teeth, but more usually is quite plain, and it is not removed 
either to sleep or eat. The original clothing of the Su¬ 
matrans is the same with that found by navigators among the 
South Sea islands, and in Europe generally, called Otaheitan 
cloth. It is still used among the Rejangs as their working 
dress, but the country people now, in a great measure, con¬ 
form to the costume of the Malays. 
The dusuns, or villages of the Sumatrans, for the inhabit¬ 
ants are so few that they are not entitled to the name of towns, 
are always situated on the banks of a river or lake, for the 
convenience of bathing, and of transporting goods. Their 
buildings are of wood and bamboos, covered with palm 
leaves. The frames of the houses rest on stout wooden 
pillars, about six or eight feet in height, and are ascended 
to by a piece of stout bamboo cut into notches. Detached 
buildings in the country are raised 10 or 12 feet from the 
ground, as security against tigers. The furniture is extremely 
simple, and neither knives nor forks are required, as in eat¬ 
ing they take up the rice and other victuals between the 
thumb and fingers, and throw it into the mouth by the action 
of the thumb. 
The manners of the Sumatran women are in general pure 
and unexceptionable. They are brought up in the strictest 
reserve and chastity. Polygamy is permitted among them; 
but it is rarely practised, except among the great, the lower 
classes being debarred by their poverty from all indulgence 
of their irregular inclinations. Their contracts of marriage 
are intricate in the extreme; and it is chiefly owing to this 
circumstance that legal disputes are so common among them. 
A wife is obtained by various modes of purchase; and w-hen 
the full sum is paid, the female becomes to all intents and 
purposes the slave of the husband, who may at any time sell 
her, making only the first offer to her relations. The debts 
due for these sales constitute, in fact, the chief part of their 
riches; and a person is reckoned in good circumstances who 
has several due to him for his daughters, sisters, aunts, and 
great aunts. Prostitution is unknown in the interior, being 
confined to the more polite bazars on the sea coast, where 
there is usually a concourse of sailors and other strangers. 
Adultery is punishable by fine, but the crime is rare, and 
law suits on the subject still less frequent. The husband, it 
is probable, either conceals his shame, or revenges it with 
Vol. XXIII. No. 1601. 
his own hand. In the Lampong country, which is in the 
western extreme of the island, the manners are more licen¬ 
tious than those of any other native Sumatrans. An extra¬ 
ordinary liberty of intercourse is allowed between the young 
people of different sexes, and the loss of female chastity is 
not a very uncommon consequence. The offence is there, 
however, more lightly thought of, and instead of punishing 
the parties, as in Passummah and elsewhere, they prudently 
endeavour to conclude a legal match between them. The 
country is best inhabited in the central and mountainous 
parts, where the people live independent, and in some mea¬ 
sure secure from the inroads of their eastern neighbours, the 
Javans, who, from about Palembang and the straits, fre¬ 
quently attempt to molest them. It is probably within but 
a very few centuries that the south-west coast of this country 
has been the habitation of any considerable number of peo¬ 
ple ; and it has been still less visited by strangers, owing to 
the unsheltered nature of the sea thereabouts, and want of 
soundings, in general, which renders the navigation dan¬ 
gerous for country vessels; and to the rivers being small and 
rapid, with shallow bars, and almost ever a high surf. If 
you ask the people of these parts from whence they ori¬ 
ginally came, they answer, from the hills, and point out an 
inland place near the great lake, from whence, they say, 
their forefathers emigrated; and further than this, it is im¬ 
possible to trace. 'They, of all the Sumatrans, have the 
strongest resemblance to the Chinese, particularly in the 
roundness of face, and constructure of the eyes. They are 
also the fairest people of the island, and the women are 
the tallest, and esteemed the most handsome. 
All ranks are most passionately addicted to gaming. Be¬ 
sides the common method of gambling with dice, they have 
a practice of playing with small shells, which are taken up 
by handfuls, and being counted out by a given number at a 
time (generally that of the party engaged), the success is de¬ 
termined by the fractional number remaining, the amount of 
which is previously guessed at by each of the party. They 
have also various games on chequered boards or other deli¬ 
neations; and persons of superior rank are in general versed 
in the game of chess. They are even to a greater degree 
addicted to cock-fighting; and when they are in affluent 
circumstances, their propensity to it is so great, that it re¬ 
sembles rather a serious occupation than a sport. A coun¬ 
tryman coming down, on any occasion, to the bazar, or 
settlement at the mouth of the river, if he boast the least 
degree of spirit, must not be unprovided with this token of 
it. They often game high at their meetings; particularly 
when a superstitious faith in the invincibility of their bird 
has been strengthened by past success. An hundred Spanish 
dollars is no very uncommon risk; and instances have oc¬ 
curred of a father staking his children or wife, and a son his 
mother or sisters, on the issue of a battle, when a run of ill 
luck has stripped him of property, and rendered him des¬ 
perate. Quarrels, attended with dreadful consequences, 
have often arisen on these occasions. The Malay breed of 
cocks is much esteemed by connoisseurs who have had an 
opportunity of trying them. Great pains is taken in rearing 
and feeding them. The artificial spur used in Sumatra re¬ 
sembles in shape the blade of a scimitar, and proves a more 
destructive weapon than the European spur. It has no 
socket, but is tied to the leg, and in the position of it the 
nicety of the match is regulated. As in hoise-racing, weight 
is proportioned to inches, so in cocking, a bird of superior 
weight and size is brought to an equality with his adversary, 
by fixing the steel spur so many scales of the leg above the 
natural spur, and thus obliging’ him to fight with a degree 
of disadvantage. It rarely happens that both cocks survive 
the combat. In the northern parts of the island, where gold- 
dust is the common medium of gambling, as well as of trade, 
so much is accidentally dropt in weighing and delivering, 
that at some cock-pits, where the resort of people is great, 
the sweepings are said, probably with exaggeration, to be 
worth upwards of a thousand dollars per annum to the 
owner of the ground, beside his profit of five-pence for each 
battle. In some places they match quails, in the manner of 
8 O cocks. 
