Jewata is the Land-Dayak name of a god from the Sanskrit word dewata, divinity, deity, gods. The Sea-Dyaks also have Jewata in their mythology, likewise Batara, from the Sanskrit bhatar, holy; neither means God, as some writers appear to think. The Dayaks have no idea of theism.
48. The late Rajah has recorded a tradition of several of the Land-Dayak tribes that in the old times they were under the government of Java, and their tribute was regularly sent there.
49. The title assumed by the rulers of Majapahit, from "Bhatara," noted above.
50. According to Crawfurd. Sir Stamford Raffles gives 1475.
51. Formerly a monarchy whose jurisdiction comprehended all Sumatra, and whose sovereign was talked of with respect in the farthest parts of the East.—Marsden's History of Sumatra.
52. Lima is a small town on the north coast of Portugal.
53. Sir Hugh Low, Book of the Descent, op. cit.
55. A Collection of Voyages, 1729, Dampier.
56. Idem.
57. Forrest's Voyage to New Guinea, 1779.
58. Sarawak, Hugh Low, 1848.
59. Hunt, op. cit.
60. Dias, in 1487.
61. "Antiquity of Chinese Trade," J. R. Logan in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago, 1848.
62. Forrest, op. cit.
63. Logan, op. cit.
64. Mercator's map gives Melano, which confirms this supposition. Other places on the Sarawak coast mentioned in this map are Tamaio-baio, Barulo (Bintulu), Puchavarao (Muka), Tamenacrim, and Tamaratos. The first and two last cannot be identified. Tama is of course for tanah, land, and the last name simply means in Malay, the land of hundreds—of many people, which the first name may also imply. Varao being man in Spanish and Portuguese, Puchavarao means the place of the Pucha (Muka) people—Pucha also being a transcriber's error for Puka. It was near this place that the Portuguese captain, who afterwards became a Bruni pangiran (p. 42) was wrecked, and also near this place on Cape Sirik, a point which is continually advancing seaward, that some forty to fifty years ago the remains of a wreck were discovered a considerable distance from the sea, and so must have belonged to a ship wrecked many years before. When Rentap's stronghold in the Saribas was captured by the present Rajah in 1861, an old iron cannon dated 1515 was found there. Traditions exist pointing to wrecks and to the existence of hidden treasure at two or three places along the coast.
65. Meaning queen-consort.
66. Probably the Kalaka; the Malays in the Rejang came from that river.
67. A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, 1718.
68. The Dutch confiscated all foreign ships they could seize found trading in the Archipelago without permission from them to do so.
69. Borneo and Sumatra were then the great pepper producing countries.
70. Forrest, op. cit., confirms this, and adds "the Dutch forbid the natives to manufacture cloth."
71. Sir Hugh Low, op. cit.
72. Son of the late Sir Hugh Low, G.C.M.G. He served in the Sarawak Civil Service from 1869 to 1887, in which year he died. His knowledge of the natives, their languages, and customs, was unsurpassed. The notes he left formed the basis of Ling Roth's work, The Natives of Borneo, 1896.
73. This was the serah, or forced trade formerly in force in all Malayan countries; and it appears to be still so, in a modified form, in Sumatra.
74. The Sarawak Malays were also so forced to mine by Pangiran Makota, and this forced labour was one of the principal causes of the rebellion of 1836–40 against the Sultan's Government.
75. This happened after this man had been banished by the late Rajah from Sarawak. See Chap. III. p. 87, for the fate he met and so richly merited.
76. Famous in Malay legends throughout the East as Nakoda Ragam, a renowned sea rover and conqueror.
77. W. P. Groeneveldt, Essays relating to Indo-China, 1887.
KUCHING IN 1840.
(The picture at the end of this chapter is taken from exactly the same point of view.)
CHAPTER III
THE MAKING OF SARAWAK
James
