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wna iny
NORTH CELEBES
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LONDON
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WYSLNAYISOM SNWIVHLHAOldSad
A
NATURALIST IN NORTH CELEBES
A NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS IN MINAHASSA, THE SANGIR AND
TALAUT SLANDS, WITH NOTICES OF THE FAUNA, FLORA
AND ETHNOLOGY OF THE DISTRICTS VISITED
By SYDNEY J. HICKSON
M.A. (cantas.), D.Sc. (nonp.), M.A. (oxoN.) HON. caus.
FELLOW OF DOWNING COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE: FELLOW OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
“To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene,
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o’er steeps and falling foams to lean ;
This is not Solitude; ‘tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled’
Childe Harold
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1889
All rights reserved
PREFACE
—+
Tue journey I took to the Malay Archipelago in
the year 1885 with the object of investigating the
anatomy and, if possible, the development of certain
corals, afforded me opportunities of studying the
general fauna of some of the small islands in the
tropical seas, and of learning something of the races
of human beings I came in contact with.
I have brought together in this volume some ex-
tracts from the journal of my wanderings in North
Celebes, the Sangir and Talaut Islands, a more de-
tailed account of the fauna of the small island called
Talisse, situated in the Straits of Banka, and a sum-
mary of our knowledge of the ethnology of the
district of Minahassa.
So much of the ground I travelled over during
my visit to the Malay Archipelago has been made
familiar to English readers by the works of Wallace,
Forbes, and Guillemard, that I have but a small area
left to describe from the pages of my own journal.
But, though the area is small, it is from its geo-
graphical position one of striking interest alike to the
biologist, the geologist, and the ethnologist.
In describing the fauna of the forests and coral
vi A NATURALIST IN CHELEBES
reefs at Talisse I have avoided as far as possible
technical details of form and structure. The animals
I call attention to are those I came across in my daily
excursions in the forests and on the reefs. I have
not attempted to give a complete list of species known
to occur in Celebes of any order of the animal king-
dom. Such lists may be found in the works of some
of the eminent naturalists mentioned in the biblio-
graphy at the end of the book.
During the few months I was resident in any
particular district, it was impossible for me to acquire
more than a few words of the local dialects, and I
could consequently learn but little of the various
prevalent myths, songs, and customs directly from the
natives. I am indebted to the kindness of many of
the missionaries, officials, and Malay-speaking natives
for the few scraps of information I am able to record
asnew. ‘The greater part of the ethnological portion
of the book is borrowed from the valuable writings
to be found in many of the reports of missionary and
other societies, and in Dutch periodicals.
Although many of the stories and poems have
undoubtedly suffered considerably in the double
translation from the local dialect into Dutch and
from Dutch into English, I hope they remain suffi-
ciently true to the originals to indicate to the reader
their general characteristics.
For the convenience of students I have given a
classification of all the animals and plants I have re-
ferred to in these pages, and a list of the more im-
PREFACE vil
portant books and papers from which I have borrowed
materials. In the Index I have given translations of
many of the Dutch, Malay, and local words and ex-
pressions to be found in the text.
The kindness and assistance I received from
the Dutch officials and merchants, wherever I
travelled, contributed greatly to my comfort and
opportunities for research. It would be impossible
for me to mention here the names of all those who
directly or indirectly assisted me in my work, but I
am more particularly indebted to the Jkhr. van der
Wyck, formerly Resident of Manado; the Dominie
Wielandt, the Controleur van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal,
Mr. de Vries of Manado, and Mr. Rijkschroeff of
Kelelonde.
In preparing this volume for the press I have been
greatly aided by the valuable advice and assistance
of many of my friends. Of these I am specially
indebted to Dr. E. B. Tylor of Oxford, Professors
Wilken and Riedel, Captain Maclear, R.N., the late
Rev. Tenison-Woods, Dr. Guillemard, and Dr. G. H.
Fowler.
I have also to thank many kind friends in the
museums and libraries of Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Leiden, and Utrecht; the officials of the British
Museum and the library of the India Office; and the
Directors of the Moluksche Handels Vennootschap,
for much valuable help and many useful suggestions.
Downine COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE :
October 1889.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES
Arrival at Makassar—Objects of my visit to Celebes—Area and physical
features of the island—Makassar—Private theatricals—‘ Running
amuck ’—Sail for Manado—Beauty of the coast scenery—Manado
Bay—lInterview with the Resident of Manado—Etiquette —News of
H.M.S. ‘Flying Fish ’—The Government of the district—The
inhabitants—Start for Talisse—Unpunctuality of the Malay races
—Whistling for the wind—Talisse coral reefs—Koa—H.M.S. ‘ Fly-
ing Fish’ . : , : F ¢ x . ‘ - 3
CHAPTER II
ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’
The characteristics of Talisse Sea—Babirusa hunt—Characters of the
forest—The flora— The fauna—Luncheon on the sea-shore—Sand-
pipers— Race with a native prau— Visit to Bohoi Promontory—The
shore platform—The character of the coral reefs—Conditions
favourable to coral growth—Practical importance of the knowledge
of the conditions favourable to coral growth —Bohoi Bay—Flight of
the natives—Jumping crabs and fishes—Periophthalmus—Limbé
Island—Batu Kapal—Rooper Point—Wallace Bay—Manado .
CHAPTER III
ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH '—continued
Sail for Ruang—Visit to the Rajah and the missionary of Tagulandang
—Return to Tindela—Back again to the Ruang—‘ Loods ’—Attempt
- to walk round the Ruang Island—Maleos—Ascent of the voleano—
Fauna of the woods—The lip of the crater—Magnificent view of
the neighbouring islands—Refusal of our guides to proceed to the
rs
PAGE
17
x A NATURALIST IN CELEBES
highest point—Recent history of the Ruang—The lava roads —The
descent— Difficulties of the collector—Biarro—Tanjong Aros—Caves
—Edible birds’ nests—The foam of the sea—Pollicipes—Disticho-
pora—Farewell to the ‘ Flying Fish’ : p * ,
CHAPTER IV
TALISSE ISLAND
Reasons for settling in this island—Inhabitants and topography of the
island—Every-day life in the island—Surface dredging—The ‘ Pan-
churan ’—Work on the reefs—Food—Temperature and barometric
pressure—Insect pests—Evening amusements—The coolies—
Diseases of the natives—My house—Attap—The gardens—Deer-
kraal—Hill climbing—Mangrove swamps—Collecting orchids—The
plantations—Planting coco-nuts—Ebony—Kinabohutan—Pirates—
Banka, Tindela, and Ganga—Absence of coral reefs on shores ex-
posed to the N.N.E.—Our visitors—The ae iat songs—
The ‘ Minahassa ’’—An Arab é : ‘
CHAPTER V
FAUNA OF TALISSE
Mammals-—Babirusa and sapiutan both absent—The baboon—The cus-
cus — Bats—Parrots —Eagles—Kingfishers—Eurystomus—Swifts—
Crows — Shrikes — Starlings — Nectar-birds — Pigeons — Maleos —
Sandpipers — Egrets — Reptiles — ao ee —- Spiders —
Centipedes—Phosphorescent millipede :
CHAPTER VI
MARINE FAUNA OF TALISSE SHORES
Depth of Talisse Sea—Shore gradients—Fauna of the sea-bottom—
Structure of corals—Principal types of corals—A ramble on the coral
reefs—Fauna of the lagoon—Fauna of the mangrove swamp—The
food of corals— The colour of corals .
CHAPTER VII
TO SANGIR AND TALAUT
Arrival of the ‘ Ternate ’ at Talisse—Lirung—Saha Islands—The rajah
of Pulutan—Nanusa Archipelago—Kampong Karaton—Raised coral
reefs—Legend of Mengampit—Alaoruru—Mangarang—Abundance
o butterflies—Béo—Terrible sickness—Glorious sunset—Sangir—
PAGE
37
81
. 106
CONTENTS
Coco-nut palms—Taruna—Manganitu—Mr, Steller’s house and
gardens—Koffo—Curious mode of keeping time—Visit to the coral
reefs—Trip to the interior—Reception of the Resident at Manganitu
—Siauw—Tagulandang again—Talisse
CHAPTER VIII
CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS
Holy islands—The islands between Celebes and the Philippines—
Facilities for the distribution of animals—The avi-fauna—Legend of
a former land communication with Sangir—History of Sangir—
The Sangirese race—Slavery —Food—Diseases—Religions—Marriage
customs—Funeral customs—Fishing implements—Weapons—Dress
—Physiognomy—Language . .
CHAPTER IX
JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA
Minahassa—The capital Manado—Heerendienst—Manado as a port—
Exports—Start for the interior—Tondano—Condition of affairs a
century ago—Ballottos—The Great Lake—Atya Wyckii—Kakas and
Langowan—Arrival at Kelelonde—The coffee garden—Mapalus—
The Tompusu pass—The forests of Minahassa
CHAPTER X
MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS
Stone implements—Cosmologies—Legend of the origin of sun, moon,
and stars—Story of Wailan-wangko—Religion—Story of Warereh—
List of the principal Gods—Spirits—Native Prayers—Demons—
Priests—Holy Birds—Fossos—Shamans— Giants—Story of sii,
—Story of Utahagi : “i ‘ 2 4
CHAPTER XI
CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS
Marriage customs—Infant betrothal—Courtship—Use of the betel-nut
in courtship—The harta or dowry—Laws of inheritance—Shunning
the parents-in-law—Teknonymy—Divorce—Adoption of children—
Comparison of the marriage laws of Minahassa with those of other
parts of the Archipelago-—Birth customs— Makehet—Sickness—
Death—Burial customs—Driving away the spirit
PAGE
» 152
. 205
. 238
268
xii A NATURALIST IN CELEBES
CHAPTER XII
SONGS AND ROMANCE IN OLD MINAHASSA
PAGE
Love songs—Stories—Story of Maengkom—Story of Matindas—Story
of Kawalusan — Stories!about apes— Hair stories — Riddles —
Proverbs . é : . . 7 . ‘ : : . 301
CHAPTER XIII
HISTORY OF AND USEFUL PLANTS IN MINAHASSA
Early history of European settlements in Minahassa—Account of the
Dutch settlement—The Sagoweer palm—Coco-nut pearls—The
Betel-nut palm—The Corypha palm—Woods—Kapok—The Musa
mindanensis—Edible fruits—Rice—Legend of the rice—Art of the
Alfirs : i : 3 : ‘i F ‘ ‘ ‘ . 823
CHAPTER XIV
MANADO
Every-day life in Manado—Chinese New Year’s Day—The King’s birth-
day—A grand ball—An oath—The story of Makalew—Last visit to
Talisse—Farewell to Celebes . i 5 é : ; . 339
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
(Engraved by J. D. Cooper)
FIG.
PERIOPHTHALMUS KoELREUTERI. (Drawn from specimens by
Miss A. W. Hickson) . : : . . . Frontispiece
. Nattve DovsLe OvtT-RIGGED CaNnoE or ‘Lonpr.’ (From a
model: A. W. Hickson) . : : 5 : - page 22
. ScHEmATIC SECTION OF SHORE PLATFORM, Swamp, AND REEF.
(The Author). . : : . 3 ‘ : . 24
. SKETCH OF BuTTeRFLY Bay and Batu Kapa, In List Is-
LAND. (From a sketch by the Author: Mr. Percival
Skelton) . ; : A : 3 3 . To face p. 38
. SketcH Map or Norra Lives. (The Author) . i . 84
. THE Ruane Votcano. (From a sketch by the Author) . 42
. Cora ReeErs of Passtac AND TAGULANDANG. (From a sketch
by the Author: Mr. Percival Skelton) . . To face p. 45
. Potuicrpes. (From a specimen: A. W. Hickson) . 4 « DA
. Galacea Esperi. (From a photograph) ‘ F : . 53
9, THE Pancnuran at TauissE. (From a photograph: Miss
Lydia King) 3 : ‘ 4 3 é . To face p. 59
xiv
FIG,
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
A NATURALIST IN CELEBES
PAGE
Tur STRAIT BETWEEN TaLisseE AND KinaBonuTAN. (From a
sketch by the Author: Mr. Percwal Skelton) . To face p. 75
CYNOPITHECUS NIGRESCENS. (From the Zoology of the
Voyage of the ‘ Astrolabe’ (78): A. W. Hickson) To face p. 83
DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE THE AVERAGE SHORE SLOPES IN
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD oF TaLIsse Pier, Manapbo, AND
MANANINTA, COMPARED WITH THE INCLINATION OF TALISSE
Hitt. (The Author) . js : . 5 : : . 107
DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE THE ANATOMY OF Galacea Espert.
(Dr. G. H. Fowler). i : : ‘ . . . 120
DiscraM oF TRANSVERSE SECTIONS THROUGH A PoLYPE oF
Galacea Esperi. (Dr. G. H. Fowler) - . : . 122
ScHEmMaTic DRAWING OF A PoLYPE oF A COLONIAL PERFORATE
Corat. (Dr. G. H. Fowler) F : ‘ ; , . 123
Clavularia viridis. (A. W. Hickson) . ; H . - 125
. Cora RuEr anp Lacoon near Koa. (From photographs and
sketches by the Author : Mr. Percival Skelton) To face p. 187
Larcze House 1n Karaton. (From a sketch by the Author:
A. W. Hickson) . é 5 F F ‘ é . 161
Tampat Gor. (From a specimen: A. Robinson) . : . 162
Saxir Canon. (From a specumen: A. W. Hickson) . . 164
Wooven Spears From Bio. (From a photograph) . . 171
Woopen SHIELD FRom Bio. (From a@ specimen: A. W.
Hickson) . : . : . F . E . - 171
Ur6, a Coco-nut Fericu. (From the specimen: A. W.
Hickson) F ‘ ; : ‘ ‘ ; . 176
CrREMONIAL SHIELD or SenTRY aT TaRuna. (From the
specimen : A. W. Hickson) p é F . . 177
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xV
FIG.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
82.
83.
34.
35.
I.
PAGE
Hart or Sentry at Taruna. (From the specimen: A. W.
Hickson) . F ‘ : A : i . ‘ 177
Notcuep Sricxs For Krrepinc Time 1n Maneanitu. (From
the specimen: A. W. Hickson) . : é ‘ : . 180
A Saco CHoprer. (From the specimen: A. W. Hickson) . 195
Fisoing Froats From SanGiR AND Santa Cruz. (From
photographs of specimens in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at
Oxfer 5 ke ee ek eR es . 201
Tur Heap or a Matay Fisuinc Spear. (From a photo-
graph) . .
Ciup From Taruna. (From the specimen: A. W. Hickson) . 208
Boro. (From the specimen: A.W. Hickson) . . . 216
Atya Wyck. (Copied from the ‘ Annals and Magazine of
Natural History’ (38): drawn by A. W. Hickson) . 222
A Spear FRom Bwoou. (From a photograph) . ‘ 326
PatTERN on A LancowaNn Mar. (From the specimen:
A. W. Hickson) . é 3 : 5 . : ‘ . 334
Tommy Kwacx. (From a photograph) . é . ‘ 857
MAPS
. Mrnanassa : : : : j . F To face p. 138
Tur ISLANDS BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND CELEBES ,, 157
A NATURALIST IN CELEBES
CHAPTER I
FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES
Arrival at Makassar—Objects of my visit to Celebes—Area and physical
features of the island—Makassar—Private theatricals—‘ Running amuck ’
—Sail for Manado—Beauty of the coast seenery—Manado Bay—Interview
with the Resident of Manado—Etiquette—News of H.M.S. ‘Flying Fish ’
—The Government of the district—The inhabitants—Start for Talisse—
Unpunctuality of the Malayraces—Whistling for the wind—Talisse coral
reefs—Koa—H.M.S. ‘ Flying Fish.’
Karty in the morning of Friday, July 24, 1885, the
passengers on board the Nederland India s.s. ‘ Generaal
Pell’ could see amid the purple mist of the horizon the
conical summit of Mount Bonthain rising as it were out of the
sea. It was a lovely morning; not a breath of wind disturbed
the pond-like surface of the brilliantly blue sea ; not a cloud
broke the monotony of the equally clear blue sky above our
heads; and as we gradually approached the coast of Celebes
and the forest-clad hills and fertile plains exposed themselves
to view, a feeling came over me that a veritable earthly
Paradise lay before me in that beautiful island.
Before introducing the reader, however, to Celebes and
the Celebeans, I must pause a while to explain the objects I
had in view in visiting this island in the tropics. My main
object was the investigation of certain problems connected
with marine zoology.
2 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES cH. I
Of all the branches of Natural History, not one has made
so much progress within the last ten years as that of
marine zoology. The vast improvements in the microscope,
the new means for anatomical and embryological research,
and the beautiful methods of killing and preserving the de-
licate inhabitants of the sea, have given a great stimulus to
this branch of study; and it is needless to say that the results
obtained by investigators have been of the greatest interest
and importance. Having directed my attention for some
years to questions connected with marine zoology, I deter-
mined to undertake, when time and opportunity served, a
voyage to that most generous of hunting grounds—the
coral reef—to devote some time to the study of such ques-
tions under the most favourable conditions.
It is perhaps unnecessary for me to relate the series
of reasons which induced me to choose Manado, in North
Celebes, for my head-quarters. The three conditions ne-
cessary for the continued and uninterrupted pursuit of my
work—a calm sea free from serious typhoons and storms,
a friendly and tolerably intelligent race of natives, anda re-
putation for general salubrity—were coexistent, I knew, in
that region ; and the writings of naturalists who had pre-
viously visited the spot are so full of glowing accounts of
the beauty and luxuriance of land and sea that I longed to
observe for myself the wonders they describe so well.
The long voyage from England, through the Mediterra-
nean Sea, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and Indian Ocean,
full of interest and excitement as it was and ever must be to
a lover and observer of nature, I must pass over without
comment. Nor can I pause to relate my impressions of
Java, with its densely populated towns, its wondrous forests,
and its awe-inspiring volcanoes.
These parts of the world have been well described by
other travellers far better acquainted with them than I am,
CH. I FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES 3
and I could add but little that would be of interest to the
general reader or valuable to scientific men.
My own travels and researches were mainly carried on
in the Minahassa district of North Celebes and the chain
of little islands connecting it with Mindanao. To those
regions, therefore, I will endeavour to confine myself in these
pages.
Anyone glancing at a map of the Malay Archipelago
must be struck with the curious spider-like shape of the
island called Celebes. It is divided into four long peninsulas
or arms and a central continent or nucleus by three deep
bays—the Bay of Tomini and the Bay of Tomori, facing east,
and the Bay of Boni, facing south. It has an area of
70,000 square miles, being in this respect rather larger than
England and Wales. Its greatest length is 800 miles,
rather longer than Great Britain, and it has the enormous
coast line of 2,000 miles.
Its population—who can estimate its peoples? The
central continent of the island has not yet seen the face
of the white man, and by far the greater part of the four
peninsulas is almost unknown and undescribed; in fact,
the only parts which are thoroughly explored and utilised
by Europeans are not much larger in area than the Isle of
Wight and the Isle of Man.
It may seem strange to those who live in crowded cities,
where the struggle for mere existence is ever keen and bitter,
that there still exists a land nearly as large as Great Britain
itself, famous for its healthy equable climate and capable of
producing in abundance all the necessities and most of the
luxuries of our life, still unknown, unclaimed, untilled.
It is true that the Dutch flag flies in name over the whole
island, but the only parts which are really governed by
the Dutch are a small region round Makassar in the south,
Minahassa in the north, and the district of Gorontalo in the
B2
4 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES cH. I
Bay of Tomini. These parts are, however, as nothing com-
pared with the wide acres of land still covered with virgin
forest and calling no one master but the untutored savage.
Makassar is the first port the steamers call at in their
passage to the Moluccas. It is a large and busy place,
with a mixed population of Makassarese, Buginese, Dutch,
Chinese, and Arabs. It is the centre of the trade with the
Moluceas and by far the most important port east of Java.
It has been aptly termed the ‘Hong Kong’ of the Dutch
in the East Indies (25*).
The country round Makassar is low and swampy, and the
distant range of mountains crowned by Bonthain (10,000
feet), famous for its coffee gardens, is frequently hidden
in the dense mist which rises from the surrounding plains.
The water as we approached Makassar was of that
milky green colour which so often betokens shallows and
sandbanks, but the presence of several large ship buoys
indicates to the mariner the course that must be taken to
bring him safely to his destination.
As the ‘ Generaal Pell ’ cautiously picked her way through
the shallows to take up her position alongside the little iron
pier, we had ample‘opportunities of observing the various
craft of steam and sail which lay at anchor in the roads.
Drawn up along the beach were several of the curious
sailing praus of about twenty to forty tons apiece belonging
to the Buginese traders, a race of wandering Malays to be
found in almost every port of the Eastern isles. When
we were safely berthed, and the crowd of Orientals and
Europeans who were awaiting our arrival had come aboard
to hear the latest news and transact their business, I took
the opportunity of going ashore to gain my first experience
of Celebes.
(* These figures throughout text refer to Bibliography at the end of
work.]
CH. I FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES 5
The principal street in Makassar, running parallel with
the coast line, is nearly a mile in length and very narrow
all the way. In the business quarter of the town it is
lined by the warehouses of the European merchants, a few
good general shops, and the smaller tokos of the China-
men and Arabs. Here may be purchased to the greatest
advantage all the products of the Moluccas, from such
things as spice and copra, coffee and cocoa to living birds
of Paradise and ethnological curios. For the traveller, too,
who is bound for little-known parts, where the stolid
Holland dollar (24 f.) is valuable only as a lump of silver,
there is no market like this; for here he may obtain the
surest information about the form of ‘ trade’ which is most
likely to be favoured by the tribes with whom he comes in
contact. Beads and looking-glasses, wooden combs, knives
and cloths may be purchased in Makassar at a price
but little higher than that which is charged for them in
Birmingham or Manchester.
Makassar is the seat of the Governor of Celebes, whose
substantial whitewashed palace forms a conspicuous object
on the wide plain behind Fort Orange. Close by the palace
is the club ‘ Harmonie,’ where, after the heat of the day,
the civil and official Dutchmen meet together to play a
game of billiards or to gossip over their cigars and
‘ pijtjes.’
One of the most striking features of Makassar is a
magnificent avenue of tamarind trees which throws a
grateful shade over the long road running from the * plein’
through the ‘ villadom’ of the town. On the evening of
our arrival I was invited to attend a social entertainment
at the Vereeniging Unitas, a large whitewashed hall in the
tamarind avenue.
Two short farces were performed by amateurs with
much spirit and no little dramatic force. They were en-
6 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES cH. I
titled ‘Lente’s eerstelingen’ and ‘Eens gekocht blijft
gekocht.’ When the curtain fell on the last of these the
chairs were cleared away and the company began to dance.
‘Na afloop bal,’ as the programme curtly put it. These
entertainments in Dutch East India usually go on until the
early hours of the morning; but, as I was a perfect stranger
in a crowd of people who were very well acquainted with
one another, I soon grew tired of the gay and festive throng
and left a little after midnight. I was accompanied by a
young officer of artillery, a fellow-passenger of the ‘ Generaal
Pell,’ who soon afterwards, I was told, fell a victim to the
feverin Amboyna. As we made our way through the quiet
and deserted thoroughfares towards the pier, we were
challenged at intervals by the villainous looking ‘ djagas’
or night watchmen, who, armed with long forked ‘thief-
catcher ’ spears, dodged in and out like bogeys from pitch-
dark corners and recesses. I must confess that at the
time I experienced a creepy feeling of insecurity in those
lonely streets, brought on perhaps by exaggerated or un-
truthful rumours of the dangers of Makassar streets at
night.
Makassar has an unenviable reputation for that strange
form of religious frenzy known as ‘running amuck.’ I
dare say this reputation is undeserved, and there are no
more ‘Amooks’ in Makassar than in other large Eastern
towns with a Mohammedan population ; but, nevertheless,
the possibility of the thing occurring is apt to come forcibly
before one on a dark moonless night, and remind one of the
insecurity of human life even when accompanied, as I was,
by a military officer with a glittering sword.
Although this form of religious fanaticism, which leads
the fanatic to murder indiscriminately every one he comes
across until he himself is captured or shot down, is un-
doubtedly of the greatest possible interest to the anthro-
CH. I FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES 7
pologist, I felt it was too dark perhaps that night to
welcome an Amook as a subject for scientific study.
We stayed two days in Makassar, and then, shortly after
sunrise on Sunday, July 26, we sailed for the northern
coasts of Celebes.
This, the last part of my long journey from Europe, was
in many ways the most interesting and enjoyable, due in no
small degree to the clearness and calmness of the atmo-
sphere, which, free from mist and cloud, enabled us to see
with perfect ease the bold and beauteous scenery of the
coast.
As we threaded our way through the thousand little
islands of the Straits of Makassar, we were able to gain
some idea of the great extent and extreme fertility of this
beautiful country. The lofty mountains standing out in
bold relief against the clear blue sky are covered with
dense forest from their summits to the level of the sea.
Scarcely a rock or field of grass can be discovered to break
the monotony of the sea of trees from Makassar to Manado.
Everywhere, on island or on strand, on mountain, plain,
and dale, are signs of a richness and fertility of soil unsur-
passed perhaps in any part of the habitable world.
The little islands of the coast through which we pass
add considerably to the beauty of the scene. The little
patch of forest with which each one is covered is bordered
in some cases by rows of coco-nuts or banana plantations,
and the huts of a few families of wandering fishermen may
be seen nestling in their shade. Around each island is a
narrow strip of sand formed of coral and shell detritus,
which glistens and sparkles in the sunshine, and then the
shallow milky green water covering the coral reefs blends
with the blue waters of the deeper sea beyond it.
The traveller cannot fail to be impressed, on such a trip
as this, with the clearness and brilliancy of colours in
8 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. I
tropical nature. The blue of sea and sky, the various
shades of green of the forest, the glistening whiteness of
the coral strand, and the glowing shades of gold and red of
a fine sunset in the tropics, are colours that we rarely see in
our sober temperate climes.
I cannot linger now to describe the passing glimpses I
obtained of the little villages of Pari-pari, Toli-toli, Dongola,
and the more important Amurang, for the steamer stayed
but long enough to leave the mails and a little cargo, and
was off before I had a chance to go ashore.
Three days after we left Makassar we steamed into
Manado Bay. There can be no question that Manado Bay
is extremely beautiful, and upon this morning of July 29,
as we cut our way through the perfectly calm and glassy
water, leaving a long streak of placid foam in our wake, we
saw it to the best advantage.
To the north, like a sentinel at the gate, stands Manado-
tuwa, one of those perfectly conical island mountains not
unfrequently met with in volcanic regions, and in its
immediate neighbourhood lie one or two perfectly flat coral
islands covered with swamp and morass. The coast of the
bay is flat, but the land gradually rises a short distance from
the sea and slopes away to form the mountainous back-
bone of the peninsula. In the distance stands the Klabat
(6,694 feet), one of the most beautiful and imposing peaks
in the island. In the middle of the bay the Manado River
brings its muddy sulphurous waters to the sea.
But where is Manado? By carefully scanning the coast
with a field glass, a few poor native huts may be seen on
the north bank of the river mouth, and on the south of it,
with greater difficulty, a small wooden pier and a fort.
The town itself, with its residency, prison, Government
offices, church, and warehouses, lies buried amongst the
lofty trees and dense ground foliage of the strand.
CHI FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES 9
There is unfortunately no iron pier at Manado for
the steamers to come alongside as at Makassar, and the
anchorage in the roads is not of the best. When the
anchor was dropped, the ship swung round with her stern
shorewards, and two stout iron hawsers were sent off to
make her fast to the shore. This precaution is necessary
at Manado on account of the steepness of the anchorage
and the insecure character of the sandy bottom. At one
end of the ship there may be sixty fathoms of water, and
at the other only twelve, so that, unless special precau-
tions are taken, a stiff breeze from the shore may drag the
anchor into deep waters, and leave the ship to the mercy of
the winds and tides.
As soon as the ship was snug, I sent a letter to the
Resident, announcing my arrival, and requesting an inter-
view with him for the purpose of presenting my papers and
permits.
Having received a favourable reply, I was put ashore in
the steam-cutter attached to the steamer, and made my
way to the Residency, where I found the Resident van der
Wyck entertaining some of his friends in the verandah.
Having introduced myself and presented my papers, I
joined the little party of gentlemen and ladies and entered
(so far as my limited knowledge of the Dutch language
permitted me) into the conversation.
Let me pause a moment here to give a slight sketch of
the etiquette of visiting in the Dutch East Indies. When
a stranger comes to settle in a town, he must first of all
call upon the residents with whom he wishes to become
acquainted. Itis as well to send a note at once to say
that Mr. X. will give himself the pleasure of calling upon
Weledelgestreng. Heer This or Weledelen Heer van That
on such a day, and then, if he receives in reply a letter
saying that he will be received, the visitor must assume a
10 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. I
black tail-coat, a white shirt with a black tie, a white pair
of pants, and, pro forma, a hat. The visit should take
place between six and seven o’clock in the evening, when it
is presumed the ladies and the gentlemen of the household
have put aside the usual déshabille in which they spend a
considerable portion of the day, and are ‘dressed’ in the more
civilised but uncomfortable European costume. On arrival
at the house he will probably find his host sitting in the
‘ voorgallerij ’ or verandah; if not, he must shout ‘Spada,’
a contraction of ‘Siap’ada’ (Who’s there!) until some one
comes. In the verandah is a round table bearing a num-
ber of wine decanters and a box of cigars. The decanters
contain Geneva, port wine, Madeira, and bitters. To any
one accustomed to English ideas of diet, it does not seem
quite natural to partake of these strong drinks and smoke
cigars immediately before dinner, but the Dutchman looks
upon his ‘ pijtje’ before dinner as one of the necessities of
life in the East, and seems none the worse for it.
I never became quite naturalised to ‘gin and bitters,’
nor could I believe that it is a prophylactic against fever
and other tropical diseases, as some of its admirers wished
me to, nevertheless I think it is quite as wholesome as any
other form of spirits imported into the East. The first visit
should not last longer than an hour, and is usually brought
to a conclusion by a friendly shake of the hands and a stiff
German bow. A few days after the introductory visit, the
gentleman, if he wishes to maintain the acquaintance,
returns the call, and then the friendship is cemented by
card parties, drives, or other entertainments.
To return now to my introductory visit to the Resi-
dent of Manado. He talked English correctly, but with
some difficulty, and I was then unable to maintain a
conversation in Dutch, so that we were some little time in
understanding one another. However, I soon learnt that
CH. I FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES 11
he was willing to help me to the best of his ability, and
was himself a man of some powers of observation and
fully interested in many of the scientific problems afforded
by the district over which he ruled. Subsequent experience
fully confirmed my anticipations, and his kindness, help, and
hospitality to me was far in excess of anything I had aright
to expect. He was a type of the Dutch official in Malayia—
kind and courtly, intelligent and hospitable.
When my visit should have terminated—I was inexperi-
enced then—he warmly welcomed me to dinner and after-
wards conducted me to the ‘ Pasangrahan,’ or hotel, if it
might be dignified by such a name, where I was temporarily
to reside. Upon my arrival in Manado I received a very
welcome piece of intelligence. A letter was presented to me
by the Resident from Captain Maclear, R.N., telling me
that H.M.S. ‘Flying Fish’ had just arrived in Banka
Strait for surveying purposes, and that I should be heartily
welcomed if I could find an opportunity to join her.
The chances that were thus open to me of choosing a
suitable locality for my work and investigating a large
extent of coral reef before I finally settled down were such
as any naturalist in these regions might dream of for
years without realising, and consequently I took the
earliest opportunity that offered of joining the ship at
Banka.
Among my letters of introduction was one to the chief
agent of the Molucca Trading Company (Moluksche Handel-
vennootschap), a company which owns the little island called
Talisse, in the Banka Straits. He was about to pay a visit
to the coco-nut plantations in the island, and very kindly
offered to take me and my luggage with him in his barkas
(long-boat), an offer I thankfully accepted. During the
two days that I spent in Manado previous to my depar-
ture for Talisse I was able to form but an imperfect idea
12 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. I
of the beautiful country lying round the town and of the
society of the little colony of Kuropeans in this remote
corner of the globe. I will leave, therefore, what I have to
say about Manado and the Minahassers to a later chapter,
mentioning only a few facts which are necessary for a
proper understanding of the extent and management of the
colony.
The district which comes under the jurisdiction of the
Resident of Manado includes the whole of the northern
peninsula of the island, the coasts and islands of the Tomini
Bay, a portion of the south-east peninsula, and_ the
islands which lie between Celebes and Mindanao. Of this
enormous territory the only parts which have yet been
brought under the ‘direkt bestuur’ of the Dutch Govern-
ment are the province of Minahassa and a small district
round the port of Gorontalo in the Tomini Bay. The rest
of the country is governed by native rajahs and chiefs, some
of whom are appointed by the Resident of Manado and pay
a small annual tribute to the Government.
Minahassa itself is in many respects a perfect specimen
of the well-governed, peaceful, and contented Dutch colony.
In addition to the Resident, who is supreme in the
district, there ‘are four Controleurs stationed at Manado,
Tondano, Kema, and Amurang, who act as magistrates,
collectors of the taxes, and overseers of the Government
plantations.
Several European missionaries, schoolmasters and mis-
tresses are resident in different parts of Minahassa, and the
religious training and secular education are sound and
simple. The natives are as a general rule well-dressed,
clean, respectful, honest, sober, and contented ; they live in
tidy little wooden houses in well-regulated villages, and are
diligent in their attendance at both church and school.
When young, both men and women are often very handsome,
40' 125°
MAP
OF 156 _,T_Aros
Acer,
IUNAHAS SA. ae
SS Taliss
Seale ,1: 700,000. tE 269
He at uae - cui Talisse ANKA
Note. 7 plorgh Cape or theges bs » Sago
? = AFDEELING = DIVISION. Sap alempiog an. 18, gag
ae,
ies StPaits
-, ,C. Coffin
uo
BatuHaxpal
PLAN OF MANADO)
Seale 1: 77,500
ENGLISH MILE
'G-MONGONDU
/
or
GORONTALO
fi BAY oF TOMIN
4.0’
125° Tongitude East of Greenwich.
40'
20°
London ; John Murray, Abemarle Street.
CH. I FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES 13
but they soon begin to look crabbed and wizen as they
advance in age. Of a pale yellowish brown complexion,
perhaps paler than the majority of the Malay races,
with high cheek bones and oval eyes, long straight jet
black hair, and, when she does not indulge in the practice of
betel chewing, perfect pearl-like teeth, the young Minahassa
girl is sometimes very pretty, and even among the older
people there are types occasionally seen which may be
called quite handsome. There is nothing repulsive or offen-
sive to European taste about the ordinary inhabitants of
Minahassa. In matters of adornment they are simple-
minded: no hideous grotesque rings, bracelets, clothes,
or coiffures mar their personal appearance; no revolting
malformations or mutilations of lips, ears or nostrils shock
the European’s sense of what is right and proper.
J am never likely to forget the first few days I spent in
this fascinating region—the first glimpses of the warm
luxuriant scenery, the neat and well-regulated villages and
streets, or the quiet and respectful inhabitants. My im-
pressions of the place were extremely pleasant, and though
in later days I came across some customs, habits, laws,
and regulations open to serious criticism, I still believe
that this little Dutch colony is fully worthy of the praise
and admiration it has excited in every traveller who has
visited it and written down his experiences there.
I had arranged to start with the agent for Talisse at
six o’clock in the morning of August 4, but for some reason
or another the boat was not ready for us until nine o’clock
in the evening.
Coming straight from European cities, where trains and
boats, engagements and appointments, are timed to the
minute, the traveller is often much annoyed by the un-
reasonable unpunctuality of the Eastern races; but a few
months’ experience teaches him that no man’s word can be
14 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. I
relied upon in the tropics as far as appointments are con-
cerned, and he becomes accustomed to it. There is no
word for ‘punctual’ in the Malay language. That we did
succeed in leaving Manado only fifteen hours late was
something to be thankful for.
When we left the river mouth that night it was pitch
dark in Manado Bay, and I wondered how it was possible
for our captain, a Manilla man who could talk a little
broken English, to direct our course.
For the first few hours we were favoured by the so-
called land-wind, a rush of cold air from the highlands to
the sea which blows with great constancy from sunset to mid-
night at this time of the year, and we made rapid progress
towards Tanjong Piso, or Knife Cape, at the northern
extremity of Manado Bay. No sooner had we rounded
the cape than the wind dropped and we nearly came to a
standstill. Our ‘kamudi’—i.e. captain and steersman—did
the best he could for us, but in vain; we were doomed to
drift about for some hours without much progress. He
would whistle softly and enticingly, or would change his
tone and with pouted lips whistle angrily and viciously for
the wind that would not come to help us on. I have often
wondered what can have been the origin of this almost
universal custom of whistling for the wind. That the
custom is of undoubted practical utility is the firm belief of
many races of seafarers, from the English sea-captain to
the humble Malay kamudi. I was on one occasion very
roughly spoken to by a captain in the Irish Channel for
casually whistling in a gale of wind. He thought it a
piece of gross carelessness on my part which might lead to
serious consequences. Here in Celebes, too, I was warned
to be careful not to laugh when the kamudi screwed his
face up into an intensely ludicrous expression of feigned
passion and whistled angrily for the wind to come, for the
CH. I FIRST GLIMPSES OF CELEBES 15
Malay seaman’s belief in the efficacy of this mode of
raising the wind is a serious one and will not brook being
made an object of derision.
Soon after midnight a favourable breeze sprang up, and
by sunrise we were passing the little islands of Ganga
and Tindela. A little later we struck the strong current
running through the straits which separate Tindela from
Talisse, at the time in our favour, and soon after we
were bumping on the coral reefs which fringe the shores
of the latter island. This was my first introduction to a
coral reef, and, notwithstanding the fatigue of a sleep-
less night journey and an intense desire to reach my desti-
nation, I could not help gazing with wonder and admiration
on the marvellous sight that was to be seen at the bottom
of the transparent shallow waters of the reef. I had ex-
pected to see a wonderful variety of graceful shapes in the
branching madrepores and the fan-like, feather-like aleyona-
rians, for these may be seen in any large museum which pos-
sesses a collection of such things, but I was not prepared
to find such brilliancy and variety of colour on the reefs.
The madrepores, which in the dried collections are
uniformly white, in the living state are of a bright olive
brown colour, with growing points and polypes of bright
emerald green or violet, and the pale-yellow or white
starfishes of our museums seem to be studded here with
rare jewels which shine and sparkle with all the colours of
the rainbow. Soon after we struck the reef of Talisse, the
tide turned with a current of some five or six knots against
us; our kamudi wished to drop an anchor until the
following tide, but as we could already see the steam-
cutters of the ‘ Flying Fish’ taking off the surveying parties
to different points upon the straits, we urged our men to
further exertions with the paddles and succeeded in reach-
ing the little wooden pier at Koa before midday. The
16 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES cH. I
place, which is called Koa in the map, is not, as might be
supposed, worthy of the name of village. It consists simply
of the house of the Opzichter or overseer, the mandurs
or foremen, a gudang or store for rice and other things,
and some half-dozen houses of the labourers in the plan-
tations. It is, however, if I might so call it, the port of
Talisse, for here the passing praus and sailing vessels stop
for water and for shelter on their way from Sangir to
Manado. Unimportant as it is to the world at large, it
was of considerable interest and importance to me, for here
T lived for some months when I commenced my studies of
the fauna of the forests and the reefs.
There was, at the time of my arrival—it has tumbled
down long since—a rickety wooden pier which stretched
from the shore to a distance of some fifteen or sixteen
yards beyond the edge of the coral reef.
H.M.S. ‘Flying Fish,’ a composite sloop of 950 tons,
carrying two guns instead of her complement of four as she
was on surveying service, was lying at anchor two or three
cables from the pier at Koa; and as soon as I had enjoyed
a refreshing bath in the beautiful little stream that issues
from the mountain-side and breakfasted at the Opzichter’s
house, I went on board.
I was most heartily and kindly welcomed by all on
board, and soon became involved in a running conversation
on English politics in general and my own adventures in
the past and plans for the future in particular. My
subsequent connection with this vessel was in every way
a very happy and particularly fortunate one for me, and I
cannot more appropriately close this my introductory
chapter than by recording my heartfelt thanks to Captain
Maclear and the other officers of the ‘ Flying Fish’ for their
great hospitality and kindness and for the hearty assist-
ance they gave me in my work.
CH. II ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 17
CHAPTER II
ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’
The characteristics of Talisse sea—Babirusa hunt—Characters of the
forest—The flora—The fauna—Luncheon on the sea-shore— Sandpipers
—Race with a native prau—Visit to Bohoi Promontory—The shore
platform—The character of the coral reefs—Conditions favourable to
coral growth—Practical importance of the knowledge of the conditions
favourable to coral growth—Bohoi Bay—Flight of the natives—Jumping
crabs and fishes—Periophthalmus—Limbé Island—Batu Kapal—Rooper
Point—Wallace Bay—Manado.
Tue little sea which I shall call Talisse sea is enclosed by the
islands of Banka on the north-east, Kinabohutan, Talisse,
Tindela, and Ganga on the north and north-west, and the
coast of the northern peninsula of Celebes on the south. In
many respects it is a particularly favourable locality for the
marine naturalist, for its waters are only on the rarest
occasions too rough for an open boat, and frequently as
smooth as a mill-pond and as clear as glass. The shores
being of three kinds—namely, coral reefs, steep rocks, and
river-sand—present every variation of the tropical shallow-
water fauna; and, as the bottom is fairly smooth and even,
and the water nowhere more than twenty fathoms deep,
trawls and dredges may be used with impunity. Outside,
the sea is very deep, 200 fathoms being found quite close
to the reefs on the west side of Talisse, and 560 fathoms
close to the rocks on the east side of Banka, so that the
naturalist, if he be fortunate enough to possess the necessary
appliances, can investigate the mysteries of the deep seas
within an easy distance from his home.
W
18 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. II
During the first few days I was busily engaged unpack-
ing my trunks and arranging all my bottles and reagents
as conveniently as I could for future use, but I also had
several opportunities of cursorily examining the reefs and
shores in the immediate neighbourhood of the place I after-
wards chose to be my head-quarters.
On August 9 the ‘Flying Fish’ lay at anchor off
Likupang, and the chief agent of the company engaged a
party of hunters from the village to serve as guides on a
babirusa hunt in the neighbouring forests.
We left the vessel early in the morning and rowed
towards a little bay which lies about half way between
Likupang and Cape Coffin, and then, dividing into three
parties, we searched the forests for our game; but babirusas
were not to be seen that day, and we returned to the coast
with an empty bag. I must confess to a certain feeling
of disappointment at our bad fortune, for I was curious to
see a specimen of this interesting pig, whose enormous
tusks curl back over its head, in a wild state, and I
was anxious to solve the difficult problem of the use they
may be to the animal in his native jungle. Nevertheless
I was glad to have had an opportunity of visiting this
particular part of the Celebean forest, for the accounts of
its grandeur and magnificence given by Wallace and
Guillemard, both of whom had visited it for the purpose of
hunting the babirusa, had made a great impression on my
mind.
Had we only shot a babirusa, I might say that in no
respect was I disappointed. The enormous size of many
of the ordinary timber trees, the handsome Livistonia palms,
the graceful loops of the unending rattans as, stretching
from tree to tree, they carried with them endless varieties
of other climbers, or supported in their folds large ferns
and orchids, formed a framework for the scene which was as
CH. IL ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 19
interesting for its richness and variety as it was impressive
in its size and grandeur. .
One might suppose that, having once seen a small
portion of the forest, one has, as it were, sampled the
forests of the low-lying districts of the country; but this
is by no means the case. The more of the forest I visited,
the more I became impressed with the fact that it varies
in detail in different places almost as much as the coral
reefs, and that to sample it is an impossibility.
This particular part, for example, differs in some
important respects from any other part of the forests of
the continent or the islands I visited. The trees are finer
and taller, and the undergrowth of shrubs and herbs is,
comparatively speaking, more poorly developed here than
in Talisse. That most beautiful palm, the Livistonia
rotundifolia, whose leaves are so useful to the Malay for
making umbrellas, fans, baskets, and a hundred other
things, is abundant here, but in other parts of the forest
I have wandered for hours without finding a single speci-
men.
One of the commonest of the climbing plants here is
the well-known ‘ tali ayer’ of the Malays, and probably the
Unearia lanosa of botanists, which invariably contains in
its internodes a delicious draught of clear pure water. I
cannot remember finding it anywhere else.
On the other hand, the ebony tree and the Sagoweer
palm (Arenga sacchariferum), so abundant in some of the
forests, are here but rarely seen.
Of the animal kingdom in this spot I do not feel
competent to speak. A naturalist who visits a place in the
tropics only for a few hours in the middle of the day may
come away with the impression that it is singularly poor
in animal life, whereas another visiting it in the early
hours of the morning, or an hour before and after sunset,
c2
20 A NATURALIST IN CHLEBES CH. II
may find the whole forest alive with birds and insects and
the air filled with their songs and cries.
The only birds I remember to have seen were the Horn-
bills (Buceros exaratus). These heavy awkward creatures,
aroused by our visit from their midday slumbers, shrieked
at us through their long yellow beaks and flapped about
from bough to bough in short clumsy flights. There were
a few pigeons also far away and almost out of sight in
the highest branches of the trees.
Several of the large handsome baboons (the Cynopt-
thecus nigrescens) were to be seen. These baboons are
peculiar to the northern part of Celebes and some of the
neighbouring islands, where they are very common and
abundant. This region may be considered to be an out-
post of monkeyland, for no monkeys are found either east
or south of this district.
After wandering through the forest for some hours, our
guides brought us together at the sea-shore, where we spent
a welcome hour of rest after our toilsome march up-hill and
down-dale in the stifling heat of the forest. The spot we
chose for our lunch was one of those beautifully clean white
tracts of sand so frequently met with on the shores of
coral islands and coasts with fringing reefs. The fine
white sand was composed of coral detritus, foraminiferous
shells and larger lumps of water-worn madrepores and
tubiporas, with a litter of mangrove fruits, catapang nut-
shells, husks of coco-nuts and other forest débris left by the
last spring tides.
Whilst we were at lunch the tide was slowly ebbing,
and when the waters of the lagoon became sufficiently
shallow, numerous little sandpipers appeared to seek their
prey.
These little birds afterwards proved good friends to me,
for whenever my supply of chickens ran short in Talisse I
CH. II ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 21
could always rely upon a brace of them to help me through
with my meal of rice and curry. They should have had
a more sentimental claim upon my attention than this, for
they are also inhabitants of the British Isles.
Two Celebean birds—and I believe I am right in saying
only two—can hardly be distinguished by ornithologists
from British species. One is the common sandpiper
(Tringoides hypoleucus), and the other the cuckoo (Cuculus
canorus).
Of the cuckoo, Guillemard says (24): ‘Its skin cannot
be distinguished from European skins in plumage.’ No-
thing is at present known of the nesting habits of the
bird in Celebes, so that we cannot yet assert that it lays
its eggs in the nests of other birds. Although it was
abundant in Talisse, I never heard the familiar cry of
‘cuckoo,’ which is so welcome to us in spring in England.
It is possible that it utters this cry in the breeding season
and is silent for the rest of the year.
On our way back to the ship we were participators in
an exciting and interesting race. The lunch, provided for
us by the agent of the company, had arrived from Talisse
in one of the Malay double-outrigged canoes called by the
natives ‘londi.’ This canoe and the two whalers of the
‘Flying Fish’ crossed the reefs and hoisted sails almost
simultaneously. The Malay sail is oblong in shape,
stretched by two yards and hoisted by means of a halyard
attached towards the foremost end of the upper yard.
Two ropes attached to the port and starboard ends of the
upper yard are made fast to branched wooden belaying
pins fixed to the outriggers. In sailing, the rope on the
windward side is used as a main sheet and hauled fast, so
that the sail comes to stand nearly upright almost parallel
with the mast, while the other rope is used as a tack to
keep the sail steady.
22 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. II
The starboard and port sides are called ‘lakki-lakki,’ or
man, and ‘ perampuan,’ or woman, respectively.
The canoe itself is simply a ‘dug-out.’ It is sometimes
twenty-five or thirty feet long, with a beam of only thirty
inches.
Fic. 1.—Model of a native double-outrigged canoe or ‘ londi.’
The outriggers are generally made of two or three
pieces of thick bamboo firmly lashed together and attached
to cross pieces of some light strong wood which run right
across the canoe.
With a fair wind, these canoes carry a great deal of sail
and can go very fast; but they are awkward to tack and
cannot sail very close to the wind.
CH. IT ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 23
On this occasion the race ended somewhat in favour of
the canoe, but had the wind been a little more abeam the
result would have been very different. ,
The following day I accompanied one of the surveying
officers to a promontory on the north coast to the west of
Likupang. This promontory is flat and bordered by a belt
of mangrove swamp. I cannot give an accurate estimate
of the breadth of this swamp, for it stretched away inland
far beyond our sight, and none of the maps nor charts give
any plan of the true coast line.
The occurrence of a broad shore plain bordered by a
broad belt of mangrove swamp is by no means a rare one
in these climates. It is, in fact, such a common feature
that it deserves a few words of explanation.
In the first place it cannot for a moment be supposed
that these broad level plains on the sea-coast represent the
true bearing of the hill rocks. It is inconceivable that
broad plains of the primitive volcanic rocks should be found
at precisely the same (sea) level in so many places. We
are bound, therefore, to believe that they were built up of
some secondary formation at a much later period. What,
then, is the probable nature of this formation ?
In nearly every case where we find a dense mangrove
swamp on the sea-coast we find a vigorous coral ree
beyond it. Taking for granted at present—for I shall re-
turn to argue this point in a later chapter—that coral reefs
under certain favourable circumstances have a tendency
slowly to grow out seawards, we must believe that the soil
between the reef and the rising slopes of the hills is com-
posed of coral sand and débris resting on a substratum of
coral rock. This area is covered with water at all times
except at low water of the spring tides, but on the shore side
banks of sand are formed by the continual ebb and flow of
the tides. The mangrove trees flourish best in such a soil
24 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IT
of coral detritus, where they are washed by a perpetual
flow of shallow water.
On the shore side, the heavy rains bringing down from
the mountain slopes an abundance of vegetable mould and
soil by degrees raise the shore banks above the level of
high-water mark, and then the mangroves are replaced by
ordinary forest trees and jungle. Jn this manner a shore
plain never submerged and covered with ordinary forest is
gradually formed.
Upon examining the reefs at this promontory, I found a
very marked difference between the vigour of coral life upon
B C DE F
! yf
1
ban
Fic. 2.—Schematic section of shore platform, swamp, and coral reef.
A, primitive rock; B, shore platform covered with ordinary forest trees; C, mangrove
swamp ; D, lagoon; E, edge of coral reef; F, talus of reef.
the extreme seaward point and the sides of the promontory.
Where the reefs projected furthest into the sea the
corals were few in number, small in size, and separated
by considerable intervals of sand. On the northern and
southern sides, however, I found the reefs in a very vigor-
ous condition. Madrepores, tubiporas, sarcophytums, and
sponges were growing in such abundance and profusion
that it was impossible to put one’s foot down on anything
save living zoophytes.
This condition of affairs at the time astonished me, for
I had supposed that those corals which grow upon the most
projecting reefs would be likely to receive the greatest
CH. It ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 25
quantity of food, and in consequence would thrive the best,
and I thought that some exceptional and unexpected flow
of the tides and currents must cause the languishing con-
dition of the projecting reefs of the Bohoi Promontory and
the prosperity of the reefs of its sides.
Before I had been long at work, however, at Talisse, I
came to the conclusion that what I had observed at Bohoi
was rather a rule than an exception, for I never found in
any single instance that the most vigorous coral growth
was to be found upon those pcints of the coast line which
project furthest into the sea.
The vigorous growth of reef-corals seems to be de-
pendent upon a great many conditions, the absence of any
one of which causes very obvious modifications in the
number of specimens, the number of species, and the size
and vigour of corals found upon the reef.
First, as is well known, reef-building corals will only
grow in the warm waters of the tropical seas; secondly,
they will only grow in water which is less than twenty or
twenty-five fathoms deep; and, thirdly, in flowing water
which is neither too swift nor too stagnant, and bears the
kind of food which is necessary for their proper nourish-
ment.
Unfortunately we have at present but little information
upon the rapidity of the flow of water which is most favour-
able for the growth of corals and but few observations on
the character of the food which the coral polypes like
best.
At Tanjong Aros, at the north of Talisse Island, I found
that, although a few Astras could be seen growing at a
depth of two or three fathoms, no true reef was formed.
At this point the tide race sometimes runs at six or seven
knots an hour. Ata point upon the reefs of Talisse oppo-
site the island of Kinabohutan, where the tides flow at
26 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. 11
times with considerable rapidity, the corals are not growing
vigorously and well, and in many other places I could refer
to I found that luxuriant coral growth is not consistent
with very lively water.
Again, in deep bays or inlets, where tidal and ocean
currents are scarcely felt, there is but little vigour in the reef,
and the presence of fresh-water streams entirely destroys
all the coral life upon it. The best places for the collector
and observer of these forms are always to be found at the
sides of reefs or promontories which project some distance
into the sea.
It is not difficult to find an explanation of the fact that
corals will not grow in very rapid water. In the first place,
their food, whatever it may be, cannot be easily captured
when it is rushed past them as ina millstream ; and in the
second place, the embryos which they discharge are carried
away by the currents into less lively waters, where they can
fix themselves upon the reef and grow.
It would not, I think, be a very difficult thing to determine
with some considerable accuracy the rapidity of the current
most favourable for coral growth, but, to be trustworthy,
the observations must be undertaken by a naturalist who
is familiar with the fauna of the coral reefs, assisted
by practical seamen who are competent to determine
the rate of tidal currents, and have the command of
steam.
The result of such an investigation would not only be
of considerable interest to scientific men, but would in all
probability lead to several important cautions to the navi-
gators of coral seas.
Vessels are constantly being lost upon coral reefs in
different parts of the world,! and many accidents are due to
1 Two sailing-ships were lost on the coral reefs near Manado during the
eleven months I was in Celebes.
CH. IT ON BOARD 4.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 27
the inaccuracy of our charts and the want of knowledge
about the tides which sweep the reefs.
We have abundant evidence to show that charts of coral
reefs made one year are almost valueless twenty ycars
afterwards ; and nevertheless we have at present absolutely
no experimental results to indicate to the navigator or the
naturalist in what places the reefs are growing seaward, and
where they are gradually breaking down.
In such a passage as Banka Strait, the force of the tide
is strongest near the middle of the channel, and feebler
towards the shores. Let us now suppose that at some
point upon the coast the average tidal rate was the most
favourable one for coral growth. This particular point
would have a tendency, I believe, to grow out slowly into
the strait. The rate of growth would be more rapid in
shallow water than in deep water, but under all conditions
it would grow until it reached that part of the current
which was too strong to be favourable to coral growth, and
there it would stop; while the sides of the projecting reef
thus formed would grow until they reached the same strong
currents. A change in the force or direction of the tides
of the strait due to the change of reef in other places, or
volcanic disturbances, might cause this reef to progress
still further into the strait, or, on the other hand, to com-
pletely die and become diminished by solution and erosion.
My object in referring at such length to the subject of
the supposed growth of coral reefs has been to endeavour
to show that, apart from any movements of elevation and
subsidence of the earth’s crust, the coral reefs should be
looked upon not as simple stationary structures, but as
living moving things, ever changing their form and aspect.
Sometimes they obtain a mastery over the waves and en-
croach upon the domains of the sea; sometimes they are
beaten back by the tides, eroded and dissolved; whilst at
28 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IT
times the water and the reef seem to assume a position of
armed neutrality towards one another, and each one holds
his own for years together.
Whilst the surveying officer was engaged in taking
his observations, I wandered about upon the slimy muddy
shores and coral reefs, watching the active little squillas
darting about amongst the corals, admiring the gorgeous
colours with which the polypes are painted, and selecting
a number of rare or interesting creatures for future
examination. It was an immense pleasure to be at last
upon a living coral reef, to be able to see for myself
hundreds of the forms of animal life I had read about in
books at home, and to correct by personal observation some
of the many erroneous impressions I had gained by arm-
chair work. I think that the fact which most astonished
me was the extreme variety to be seen about me, the immense
number of things of all kinds and of every description
which lie about in such a spotasthis. If the accounts given
of coral reefs fail to convey a true conception of what a
coral reef is like, it is, perhaps, because they are more
accurate in certain details than comprehensive. There are
many animals quite unknown to the average reader, and I
might say the ordinary traveller, bearing no names that
convey any concrete idea to any one who is not a
specialist in the particular branch of Natural History to
which they belong. A long list of the Latin names of the
corals of a reef, for example, conveys no impression even
to many zoologists of the infinite variations of form, struc-
ture, and colour which those corals actually present in the
living state; and the same might be said of the members
of every other group of the animal kingdom. A coral reef
cannot be properly described. It must be seen to be
thoroughly appreciated.
Our work upon the promontory finished, we started in
CH. II ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 29
the steam-cutter for a little inlet hard by called Bohoi Bay.
The two sides of the bay are very different in appearance.
On the north side there is a steep, rocky shore without
any trace of coral reef. On the south a broad belt of
mangrove swamp and a typical fringing reef. At the base
of the inlet, which receives a little mountain stream, there
was an elaborate arrangement of bamboo fishing-stakes,
and, nestling amongst the trees on the northern shore, a
few small houses.
No wonder that when the natives saw our little ‘ skuchi
api,’ or fire-boat, ploughing through the water towards their
home, they thought discretion was the better part of valour
and retired into the bush. It must have seemed to them
passing strange that a party of apparently sane Europeans
should find it worth their while to pay a visit to Bohoi Bay.
We landed upon the northern shore and walked along
towards a huge basaltic boulder which marked the entrance
to the bay.? Between the volcanic rocks and boulders along
the shore is a fine white foraminiferous sand, mainly
composed of Calearina shellsand Orbitolites. The rocks which
lie below high-water mark are covered with a fine layer
of acorn shells. Upon them may be seen a number of
brilliant little green and yellow crabs and jumping fishes.
The crabs are called by naturalists Grapsus varius. They
are curiously marked with dark olive-green stripes alter-
nating with bright yellow stripes and spots, and they are
capable of making the most extraordinary leaps and bounds
T have ever seen in crab-life. They would spring from rock
to rock with the greatest skill and precision, and when a
broad expanse of bare rock allowed it they would scamper
along at such a rate that I found it impossible to catch
them.
2 The rocks of the volcanic regions of North Celebes belong to the augite-
andesite series.
30 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. II
Not being endowed with the wisdom of the crab, I
wondered why, to escape from such an enemy as they
evidently took me for, they did not immediately plunge into
the water and hide beneath the rocks. Perhaps they have
found that it is safer to trust to their powers of flight
from rock to rock, which were, it is true, good enough for
such an enemy as I was, than by plunging in the waters, to
run the risk of falling victims to larger crabs and other foes
that lurk in the rocky pools.
The little jumping fishes (vide Frontispiece) are well
known upon the shores of all the Indian seas. They, like
their crab-comrades, appear to consider that their safety
lies above the water rather than in it, for they never attempt
to save themselves when disturbed by plunging into the
sea.
Their position is usually one of clinging to the edge of
the rocks or mangrove roots by their fins, with their tails
only in the water. When alarmed they make a spring
by means of their bent, muscular, pectoral fins, and then
skim across the water by a succession of short jumps until
they reach a place of safety.
The fact that they live the greater part of their lives
with their head and gills out of water suggested to me an
investigation of their respiratory organs, as I thought it pos-
sible that they might possess some interesting modifications
of the swim-bladder to enable them to breathe the air. It
was not, however, until the Meeting of the British Association
at Manchester in 1887 that an explanation of the mystery
of their respiration occurred to me—namely, that the respi-
ration is mainly performed by the tail. Since then Professor
Haddon has been carrying on some experiments in Torres
Straits and has shown that this explanation is correct (29).
It seems at first sight a very extraordinary thing that a
fish should have become so modified by change of habit as
CH. ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 81
actually to have transferred the chief part of its respiratory
functions from its gills to its tail. It is a well-known and
generally recognised fact, however, that in all the Amphibia
the skin plays a very important part as an organ of respira-
tion, and it is quite possible that the thin skin between the
fin-rays of many fishes also acts as an accessory to the
gills and performs the same function. If this is proved
to be the case we should have to look upon the tail of Peri-
ophthalmus as an example of an organ discharging a
function which is performed in a lesser degree by the tails
of many if not of all fishes.
Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of Perioph-
thalmus is the curious pair of goggle-eyes. They stand up
out of their sockets in a very uncouth manner, and are
capable of very extensive rotatory movements. I have
examined the anatomy of these eyes in some detail, and
can say they are, in accordance with their supra-aquatic
existence, more like the eyes of frogs than of ordinary
fishes.
Periophthalmuses feed upon small crabs and other
crustacea, but I have also frequently found in their stomachs
flies and mosquitoes.
From the fact that they live almost invariably upon
uneven, broken ground, and are extremely active and shy,
they are exceedingly difficult to catch, and I may as well
acknowledge that on this the first day of my acquaintance
with them I failed to make a single capture.
Some weeks afterwards, when I was at work in Talisse,
I tried again. The butterfly-net method failed, however,
and so did my attempt to catch them fly-fishing, and at
last I was obliged to say to my boy severely, ‘Go, Manuel,
and catch me fifty ikan chicchak,’ as the natives call them.
‘Tida boleh tuan’ (‘It can’t be done, sir’), replied Manuel,
who had been an eye-witness of all my failures ; and there-
82 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. 1
upon I assumed my most serious tone and said, ‘Manuel,
I shall be very angry with you if you do not bring fifty
ikan chicchak to-morrow morning.’ Manuel left me, and
by breakfast time on the following day he brought me fifty
Periophthalmuses alive in a large glass vessel.
The secret of his success is soon told. When he left
me he consulted another boy of mine named Marcus, who,
having been born and bred in the country districts, was
well acquainted with all the snares and dodges used by boys
for catching every living thing that flies, runs, or swims.
Now Marcus always had at hand a small bamboo blow-pipe,
and in a moment he could manufacture a little dart out of
a piece of stick and a plug of cotton wool.
In the early morning the two boys sallied out armed
with this weapon, and in an hour or two they had succeeded
in capturing some fifty specimens. They were all slightly
wounded, it is true, but still they lived for some time in a
glass bowl upon my table. They are, of course, excellent
and rapid swimmers, but nevertheless they preferred to fix
themselves to the sides of the bowl with their heads above
the water and stare about them with their extraordinary
goggle eyes.
Having finished our work in Bohoi Bay, we returned to the
little village, and found that some of the native men had
ventured from their retreat. We presented the chief with a
handful of tobacco for having thus unceremoniously intruded
upon his property, and then steamed away to rejoin the
ship.
Two or three days after our visit to Bohoi Bay the
‘Flying Fish’ anchored off the northern point of Limbé
Island.
It is a wild, inhospitable spot, with a strong tide
running in and out of the Straits of Limbé. Steep
cliffs of basalt rise almost perpendicularly from the water
‘ENVISI YAMNIT NI ‘TvdVX ALVA GNV AVA AWUALLAG JO HOLAUS—'s “OLE
CH. II ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 33
on the coast of the island facing us, and a reef of sharp
steep rocks project from the promontory into the sea.
At a distance of a couple of cables from this rises a great
rock, called the Batu Kapal, or Ship Rock, white with
the guano of numerous sea-birds. As the sun slowly sank
on the horizon that night a crowd of frigate birds and
boobies flew round and round the ship, making the evening
hideous with their shrieks and screams. When darkness
set in, however, they gradually became quiet, and went
away to roost, we believed, on Batu Kapal.
The following morning, when Lieutenant Rooper? and
I scrambled up the almost precipitous sides of the rocks to
take some observations and plant the little white surveying
flag upon its summit, the birds were all gone. Not a single
one remained behind to guard their island home.
We found the rock to be covered with guano, but with
the exception of half an old egg-shell I could see no other
signs of nests or eggs.
The only plant I could find upon the island was a small
species of Ficus (£. nitida),* and it was a wonder to me how
it could possibly keep a foothold in the crevices and holes
of such a barren and inhospitable soil.
After seeing all that there was to be seen on the rock, I
put off in the whaler for a low sandy beach which lies to
the south of it, and spent the morning in wandering through
the forest and on the hill-sides. In the afternoon Rooper
joined me, and we lunched together in a grove of screw
pines near the beach. Among the screw pines there were
a few young palm trees and some large aroids. The mid-
rib of the leaf of one of these aroids was thirty-six inches
8 This gallant officer soon afterwards lost his life by the accidental dis-
charge of a pistol whilst surveying off Murray Island, in Australia. His sad
loss was keenly felt by all who knew his open-hearted amiable character and
sterling abilities.
4 Ficus witida, Bl. = Urostigma microcarpa, Miq-
34 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. II
inlength. During our meal we noticed a rustling among the
leaves near us, and, for a moment only, saw the head of an
enormous lizard. Before we could seize our guns the beast
had disappeared. This was the largest lizard I came across
during my travels. Ata rough guess it was probably five
or six feet long, the largest one I shot in Talisse being only
3ft.6in. I believe it was a Varanus bivittatus, one of the
monitor lizards, so called because they are supposed to give
warning of the approach of crocodiles.
After lunch we started together upon a little exploring
expedition along the coast. When we had crossed the little
eee
' ANN NY ip, Ra &
y Tra GN He {h Wy A iv LN A
S Ui y i si
SS Sn
SS
POOPER POINT
Fic. 4.—Sketch map of the Northern portion of the East Coast of
Limbé Island.
point which I have called Rooper Point, we came toa broad
sandy bay left almost dry by the ebb tide, and this we found
communicated with a wide marshy lagoon, which, running
in a northerly direction, was only separated from the sea of
Butterfly Bay by a narrow sandy bar.
There can be no doubt, I think, that at one time Rooper
Point was an island, that some years ago the northern end
of the connecting strait was blocked by a sand-bank, and
that, now, the rest of the channel is gradually filling up.
In time, perhaps, the lagoon and ‘Flying Fish’ Bay will
become dry land covered with dense forest.
CH. If ON BOARD H.4M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 35
In many respects the most interesting part of the
expedition was the walk across the great sandy flat of
‘Flying Fish’ Bay. It was composed of a mixture of
coral detritus and a black stinking mud. Running across
it were a number of shallow streamlets draining the water
from the lagoon. Where the sand was dry a few Calappa
crabs, a few starfishes and gelatincus hydroids, were the
only representatives of the animal kingdom; but in the
channels of running water there were some large pale
green or yellow lumps of the sponge-like Alcyonarian
Sarcophytum, a few corals, and here and there a large
Fungia, while above our heads a huge fish-eagle (Halietus
leucogaster) circled around. In one of the little channels
Rooper shot a good-sized conger, probably Bleeker’s Conger
anagoides,
On the opposite side of the bay we came across a
magnificent natural arch in the rocks, and under it lay
a little pool of beautifully clear water in which I caught
a pair of brilliantly coloured prawns (Stenopus hispidus).
The broad bands of bright red across the cephalothorax and
abdomen, the remarkably long striped antenne, and the tiny
little thorns with which the whole body is beset, give these
animals a most gaudy and grotesque appearance. Like
many of the brilliantly coloured fishes of the coral reefs,
when removed from their proper environment they seem as
if they were specially attired to be seen; but in reality
their colours are their protection, because they make them
inconspicuous. Amongst a crowd of wedding guests it is
the unfortunate man without a wedding garment who is
conspicuous ; and so amongst the gay colours and strange
forms of the coral reef, the sombre-coloured fish or prawn
would be most readily observed and fall a prey to its
enemies.
When we returned to the whaler, which lay off Butterfly
D2
86 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. II
Bay, the ship was already flying signals for our recall,
so we started immediately and went on board. We an-
chored for the night in Wallace Bay.
August 14.—I stayed on board to-day, owing to a slight
injury to my foot, and thus missed the only opportunity I
had of visiting the black sandy beach where the maleos
lay their eggs. These birds and their strange habits have
already been so well described by Wallace and Guillemard
(25 and 83) that I must refer the reader to the works of
these authors for an account of them. We anchored for
the night in Banka Strait.
August 15.-—-Harly this morning we left the Banka
Strait for Manado, sounding occasionally on the way.
CH. Lt ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 387
CHAPTER III
ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘ FLYING FISH ’—continued,
Sail for Ruang—Visit to the Rajah and the missionary at Tagulandang—
Return to Tindela—Back again to the Ruang—‘ Loods ’—Attempt to
walk round the Ruang Island—Maleos—Ascent of the voleano—Fauna
of the woods—The lip of the crater—Magnificent view of the neighbour-
ing islands—Refusal of our guides to proceed to the highest point—
Recent history of the Ruang—The lava roads—The descent—Difficultics of
the collector—Biarro—Tanjong Aros—Caves— Edible birds’ nests—The
foam of the sea—Pollicipes—Distichopora—Farewell to the ‘ Flying
Fish.’
August 17.—We left Manado this morning for Tagulandang,
a small island about fifty miles distant in an easterly
direction. Close to the island, and separated from it only
by a narrow channel, lies the Ruang volcano, whose
slopes, now partially covered with vegetation, are marked
by great roads of black lava and débris stretching from
the lip of the crater to the sea-shore. On our arrival,
some of the principal natives came off in a canoe to meet
us, and they seemed very much astonished when, instead of
coming as near as possible to their village, we anchored for
the night close to the foot of the Ruang.
August 18.—-I went ashore this morning on Tagulandang
with Mr. de Vries, a Dutch merchant who had accompanied
us from Manado. We were received upon the beach by
the Rajah of the islands and his principal officers attired
in the correct costume of a black frock coat and white
trousers, and by a crowd of natives beating little drums. The
Rajah’s house, to which we were forthwith invited, is built
88 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. III
entirely of wood and raised on wooden piles about five feet
above the level of the ground. It consists apparently of
one large room, which may be temporarily divided into
several smaller ones by great cotton sheets stretched across
it. As we sat and talked to the Rajah, the room gradually
began to fill with native men and boys, who squatted upon
the floor or crowded along the walls silently watching our
every movement with the greatest interest. After a little,
finding that we could not get much information from the
Rajah, we left his house and walked through the village to
pay a visit to the missionary. The houses of the village
are situated on either side of a pretty broad road, and
with their little garden patches and banana groves have a
very neat and tidy appearance.
We found Mr. Kelling, the missionary, at home in his
little house at the other end of the village. He isa German
by birth, but at an early age he left his home and native
country to take service under the Dutch as a pioneer of
Christianity in the far East. Long past the prime of life
now, he has buried two faithful companions who came to
share his labours and anxieties; he has suffered terribly
from the effects of insufficient nourishment and the ma-
larious climate ; a witness of the terrible eruptions of 1871
and 1874, by which he lost many of the faithful members
of his congregation, he nevertheless seems willing and
contented to pass the rest of his days in solitude and hard-
ship for the sake of the sacred cause he has at heart. No
one who has seen these faithful men at the scenes of their
labour can fail to admire the simple-minded courage and
determination with which they spread the first principles of
a higher civilisation amongst a savage people. It is true
that there are some black sheep even in this noble flock
who do an immense amount of mischief amongst the people
they are sent to minister unto; but, as a rule, the traveller
CH. WI ON BOARD H.M.8. ‘FLYING FISH’ 39
can see in a moment both in the bearing of the natives and
the regularity of their homes and villages the beneficent
influence of the minister they are fortunate enough to
have in their midst.
An hour spent with Mr. Kelling, who talked to us in
German both of the troubles and anxieties in his work
and of the natural history of his highland home, passed
pleasantly enough, and then he took us through a grove of
screw pines and another of coco-nut palms to a little
hill from which we were able to obtain a magnificent
view over part of the island, the Ruang voleano, and the
sea.
Returning to the shore, we found our time was up, so,
bidding good-bye to Mr. Kelling, we hurried on board the
‘Flying Fish’ and were soon under way again for our
observation island, Tindela.
We stayed less than twenty-four hours at Tindela, the
object of that flying visit to our observation spot being
only to correct by it the determination of the longitude of
the Ruang volcano. The spot that Captain Maclear had
chosen was a low sandy spit on the southern side of
Tindela. It combined the advantage for astronomical work
of a considerable sea horizon with an uninterrupted view of
many of the most important islands, capes, and headlands
in the Straits.
It was an interesting place in many other respects, and
T have often wandered up and down the sandy shore when
the officers were taking observations, watching the crowds
of hermit crabs crawling along the sand at high tide or
picking up the lumps of water-worn coral and other débris
with which the beach is littered.
“When the observations were concluded, we hastened
back to Tagulandang, and once more we dropped our
anchor off the Ruang as the sun was setting.
40 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IIT
Before leaving Manado we had taken on board a
native of the Gulf of Tomini, named Motiara, who from his
knowledge of the navigation of all these islands was em-
ployed to make himself as useful as he could as a pilot.
He came on board with a large leaf hat, which was painted
red all over and had the word ‘ Loods’ (pilot) printed in
large white letters in front. This man, whose utility as a
pilot was very slight, mainly amused himself while on
board by painting and repainting his wonderful hat with
any of the ship’s paints he could get hold of, and, under
the guidance of the blue-jackets, who were much more adept
with the needle than he, in mending the many rents in his
scanty garments.
As I was anxious to see if the eruption of the Ruang
in 1874 had completely destroyed all traces of coral
reef round the island, I asked Motiara if it were possible
to walk all round the island, and he told me that it
was. With the permission of Captain Maclear, he and
I started in the afternoon to attempt the walk, but
before we had got half way round we came to a low
cliff standing well out into the sea. Motiara thereupon
calmly informed me that it was impossible to cross
that cliff before sunset, and that we must go back. Before
finally abandoning the attempt, however, I made the ascent
of this cliff alone, leaving my guide contentedly smoking a
pipe on the trunk of a tree that had been washed ashore.
I struggled on for some distance through a dense growth of
leguminous herbs and Cyperacex, but at last, finding that
my progress was very slow and that the vegetation, already up
to my waist, was becoming deeper and denser asI advanced,
I was obliged reluctantly to retrace my steps. Although
I did not succeed in my attempt, I gained some insight into
the character of the shore of this remarkable island volcano,
and I can pretty confidently assert that no coral reef has,
CH. III ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 41
as yet, formed on any part of it. The beach is composed
of a fine black volcanic sand, upon which may be seen
scattered lumps of water-worn tubiporas, astreas, fungias,
and other corals. In many places I found the footprints
of the maleos, and several little pits where they may have
deposited their eggs, but as the island had quite recently
been visited by a number of natives from Tagulandang,
none of the eggs were to be found.
On the following morning (August 21), accompanied by
two of the officers of the ‘ Flying Fish,’ a small party of
blue-jackets, two native guides and the schoolmaster of
Tagulandang, I made the ascent of the Ruang. Plunging
at once into the thick undergrowth of leguminous herbs which
seems to form a belt surrounding the island just above high-
water mark, we soon came to a small thicket of young
trees profusely festooned with creepers. Then we came to
a broad bare lava road consisting of large lumps of dried
mud which broke into a fine black dust as we trod upon
them. Leaving this lava road, we plunged again into a
wood of young trees with a profuse undergrowth of ferns
and grasses.
As our guides were frequently occupied for some minutes
in cutting a way through the undergrowth, we had ample
opportunity of looking around us at the various natural
objects that presented themselves. The maleos seemed to
be here quite tame, for they would calmly watch us from
the branches of the trees until we got within thirty or
forty yards of them, and then only, slowly and clumsily
flew on a few yards further. Pigeons were in the woods,
too, in great numbers. There was the handsome bronze-
winged pigeon, Carpophaga paulina, and the beautiful little
green dove with a bright red tail. Large and brilliant
Epeira spiders hung in the centre of their huge coarse
webs. Butterflies and diurnal moths flitted in countless
42, A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. III
numbers through the dense foliage, and brilliantly coloured
flies fed upon the greenish-white umbels of a small shrub.
Now the ascent became steeper and steeper, the under-
growth became less dense, the trees farther apart, and at last
we emerged upon the bare black rocks and stones of the
-erater-lip. Five or six minutes more of hard climbing over
loose and difficult ground, by far the most tiresome part
of the journey, and at last, footsore and weary, we were
able to look into the great crater of the Ruang, and rest
_ awhile after our exertions.
The crater-cup is not particularly deep, and only a
Fig. 5.—-The Ruang Volcano.
dozen small jets of smoke were issuing from its sides, but
there is a restless and uncanny look about it, which seems
to suggest the evil deeds it has done in the past and is
capable of doing in the future. The little jets of smoke
flicker and spurt from time to time, and, without warning,
great slices of the friable walls of the crater dash down the
slopes into the cup-shaped bottom accompanied by a dull
rushing sound anda cloud of dust. Turning from this scene
of restless voleanic energy to the peaceful sea at our feet,
a magnificent view rewarded us for the toils of the morning.
CH. Ill ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 43
Just across the strait lay the forest-clad slopes of Tagulan-
dang, and close by it the little island of Passiac, while in
the same direction we could see in the far distance the
summit of the Siauw volcano, with the ever-present cloud
of smoke hovering over its conical peak. We could not
see, however, from that position the mountains of Celebes,
for the opposite walls of the crater hid them from view.
Our barometers told us that we had reached the height of
approximately 1,700 feet, but there was a peak a little to
the southward of our position, some 500 feet higher, which
rose like the pinnacle of a temple from the edge of the
cup. From this point and this alone could we hope to
obtain our true bearings with the mountains and islands of
Celebes, and consequently we called upon our guides to lead
the way to this summit. The guides, however, who imagined
that they had already fulfilled their mission, refused, and by
telling us that it was not possible, and then that it was not
lucky to go there, tried to dissuade us from the attempt.
This they did not succeed in,doing, for very shortly
they had the mortification, or disappointment shall I say,
of seeing our little white surveying flag floating upon the
highest point of the volcano. It was by no means an easy
task to attain this summit, for nearly every step we took
sent showers of sand and stones down the slopes of the
mountain, and the heat caused by the midday sun shining
upon this black soil was intense. On hands and knees we
scrambled up, here surmounting a great black boulder, and
there crossing a small patch of soft white ash, but at last
we reached the-summit, a small plateau not more than fifty
square yards in area, with all the sides precipitous except
the one by which we had approached it. We were, in all
probability, the first who had ever reached the summit
of this peak, for the natives have neither the courage
nor the curiosity to make the ascent, and white visitors are
44 A NATURALIST IN CHELEBES CH. III
almost unknown in these parts. But even if we were not
the first, we were at any rate to be the last, for upon visiting
the Ruang a month afterwards I noticed that the greater
part of the turret-shaped peak had given way and rolled
down into the crater.
From this plateau we obtained a view of the sea in all
directions, and were able to make such observations as were
necessary of the relative positions of the neighbouring
islands. It is impossible for me to describe the beauty of
the view from this commanding position, for no words of
mine can do justice to the richness and variety of the
colouring or the tone and boldness of the outline. The
clearness of the atmosphere in the dry summer months of
this tropical region not only renders objects at a distance re-
markably clear and distinct, but seems also to exaggerate the
intensity of colouring of sea and forest. The wide expanse
of the sea at our feet, of that deep sapphire blue colour
which is only met with in the deep waters of the great
oceans, framed by the greenish blue water of the shores and
coral lagoons, the great expanse of the blue heavens, broken
only by a single cloud stationary over the distant Siauw
volcano, the infinite variety of green and brown foliage on
the forest slopes of the neighbouring island, and then in the
far distance the azure mountains of Minahassa in one direc-
tion and of the Sangir Islands in another, presented one of
those magnificent panoramic pictures which it has rarely
been my good fortune to see, and which once seen can never
be forgotten.
The little island of Passiac, which, as may be seen
by reference to the chart, lies only about four miles from
the Ruang, was of particular interest to me. The part
above water and covered with trees is only a small arc of
the rim of a large almost ring-shaped atoll stretching out
towards a very wide barrier or fringing reef on the coast
OM4 aT} WOM 4oq 4reI}s OULL
SONVONVINDVL GNV OVISSVd JO Squat TVaoO—"9 Slt
TOTPBAISNTTT UAVS OTT] OFT WIOTY Surtq 09 TIpLvorq UT poonper Aesodind taeq sey spuryst
‘ONVOU FHL JO LINWOAS FHL Woudl
CH. Ilr ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 45
of Tagulandang. The presence of atolls and barrier reefs
in the neighbourhood of active volcanoes is by no means a
common occurrence, and Darwin was inclined to believe that,
as volcanoes are usually situated in regions of elevation,
this fact was consistent with his famous theory that atolls
and barrier reefs are only formed during subsidence of the
land. For many reasons which I cannot enter into now I
am persuaded that the subsidence theory is not sufficient to
account for all the facts, and that the presence of such an
atoll as the Passiac so close to a region of quite recent and
considerable volcanic activity is difficult to account for under
this theory.
But, as Ihave spoken so frequently of the volcanic energy
of the Ruang, I may be allowed to digress here a little, to
relate the story of the recent eruptions as told me by Mr.
Kelling, the missionary at Tagulandang. The first recorded
eruption was in the year 1811, but that and another in 1835
seem to have done but little damage. On March 8, 1871,
there was a terrible explosion, the top of the mountain being
blown into a thousand atoms. This was accompanied by
a terrible seaquake, the water rising over fourteen fathoms,
sweeping away several villages on the coasts of the islands,
and followed by a shower of stones and ashes which de-
stroyed many lives and the greater part of the crops. It
was said that over 400 persons lost their lives by drowning
and by the showers of hot stones and ashes. Finally, there
was an eruption in 1874, when another fall of stones
ruined many of the trees and huts, but no lives were lost.
It is very probable that during the eruption of 1871 the
whole of the forest on the Ruang was completely destroyed,
for there are now none of the large forest trees standing, such
as those found growing over every one of the neighbouring
islands. Thestonesand ashes thrown out by the volcano, upon
falling again on the mountain slopes, were arranged by the
46 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. III
action of gravity into broad streaks or roads radiating from the
crater outwards to the sea-coast. These roads are composed
either of large blocks, big stones or lumps as big as a man’s
fist, or of a fine powdery dust. Now those composed of the
last material retained the moisture on the surface longer than
the others, and consequently seeds brought by the wind, by
birds, and other agencies, germinated upon them first and in
a very short time the beginnings of a new forest made their
appearance. The roads made up of blocks and lumps are,
however, not so favourable for the germination of seeds,
because the rain soon soaks through them and the sun quickly
dries them up again. They thus remain barren for several
years after the forest has become established upon the finer
soil. In 1885 the slopes of the Ruang were mapped out as
in a crude pattern with stripes of young forest and stripes
of stones and blocks, presenting a very curious and strange
appearance when viewed either from the summit or from
the sea (see fig. 5).
For some reason, the vegetation ceased about 200 feet
below the lip of the crater, and I could find nothing
growing there but a few blades of a grass (Imperata
arundinacea) and here and there a fern (Blechnum orientale).
The wonder is, however, that anything could grow there at
all, for the heat of the soil at midday is intense. Many of
the lumps of rock were so hot that it was impossible for me
to keep my hand upon them for any length of time. Not-
withstanding the intense heat, the absolute dryness, and the
absence of vegetation, these higher regions were simply alive
with insects of all kinds, whose brilliant colours were very
conspicuous against the black rocks and stones. These in-
sects were preyed upon by numerous swifts, whose shrill cries
alone broke the absolute silence of that desolate spot. The
condition of the summit of the Ruang seems to be character-
istic of the peaks of the volcanic islands in these regions.
CH. III ON BOARD H.4MLS. ‘FLYING FISH’ 47
Professor Moseley records the same abundance of insect life
on the heights of the Gunong api of Banda and the volcano of
Ternate (49).
I was on the point of leaving the officers, whose work
was not concluded by the time I had finished all that I
wished to do, when we saw a little way below us the showers
of dust and stones which marked the footsteps of a visitor.
Strange as it may seem, the visitor was no other than one of
our guides who, braving the wrath of the spirits of his
ancestors who dwell for ever at the summit of the mountain,
had come to beg a drop of water to quench his thirst. Un-
fortunately, our own throats were in the same condition as
his, and we had not the wherewithal to satisfy them, so that
it did not require much pressure upon my part to persuade
him to return with me to the ship.
The descent was quickly accomplished, anda plateful of
good soup prepared by the excellent Chinese cook soon re-
lieved me of my thirst and fatigue. Two hours later the
rest of the party arrived, none the worse for the hard day’s
work.
When I look back upon this visit to the Ruang I feel
that in many ways I had greater opportunities for collecting
specimens of botany and terrestrial zoology there than I
had in the same space of time at any other period of my
stay in the tropics. The absence of any old forest trees
and the presence of a considerable undergrowth bring the
flowers, the birds, and insects, and in fact all objects of
natural history, much closer to the hands of the naturalist
than they are usually in tropical forests.
I regret now exceedingly that my collections from the
Ruang are not more extensive, but I admit that at the time
I did not appreciate the value of my opportunity, and my
anxiety not to be separated from the party during the ascent
and the cravings of my flesh for water during the descent
48 A NATURALIST IN CHELEBES CH. III
rather cooled, I am afraid, my enthusiasm for adding to my
collections. I had hoped before leaving Celebes to have
another opportunity of visiting the Ruang and making some
collections more at my leisure, but the opportunity never came,
and my investigations were consequently never concluded.
Such feelings as these, however, are common to the travel-
ling naturalist. He always feels, I imagine, dissatisfied with
what he has done upon any particular coast or island, and
always hopes that fate will bring him there again to com-
plete his work. He forgets in his contemplations the
difficulties and hardships he laboured under and the thou-
sand trifling details which absorbed his time and attention,
and perhaps he does scant justice in blaming himself for
things he has left undone.
It takes a great deal of time and energy to collect plants
‘and birds, butterflies and shells, flies and spiders in a new
and difficult country, and one who makes but a rapid march
through it cannot expect to obtain many specimens. The
feelings of the naturalist upon leaving such a country
must be something like those of the visitors to King
Solomon’s mines, who left with only one pocketful of dia-
monds.
August 22.—After cruising about all day taking sound-
ings we arrived at about five o’clock off the island Biarro.
We found a very good anchorage on the northern side in
about twelve fathoms.
The time was now fast approaching when the ‘ Flying
Fish’ was to leave these waters for the South, and, in the
interval, Captain Maclear very kindly gave me several
opportunities of dredging in the Talisse Sea from one of
the steam-cutters. I propose in a later chapter to give a
slight sketch of the results I obtained from these investiga-
tions, but I have still to describe before concluding this
chapter one other little expedition we made to Tanjong Aros,
CH. Ir ON BOARD HAMS. ‘FLYING FISH’ 49
or Stream Cape, the northernmost extremity of the island
Talisse.
Starting at five o’clock on the morning of August 28, we
reached the extreme point of the island before six o'clock.
The rugged rocks stand straight up out of the sea, and are
capped by a low forest of screw pines and other trees, in which
numbers of black baboons were disporting themselves. Al-
though the water is not particularly deep, there is no reef off
Tanjong Aros, and this may be accounted for, I believe, by
the very strong tide which rushes past and gives the name to
the point. It must not be understood, however, that because
there is no reef there are no corals, for, in the beautifully
clear water I could easily distinguish clumps of sarcophytum,
brain corals, astreas, and others resting, at intervals, on the
white sandy bottom. All that I wish to imply is that the
strong tides prevent the corals from growing in such luxury
and abundance as to forma reef. The same may be said
of the coast from this point to the Kinabohutan Straits,
where the upright basaltic cliffs and the great caves and
grottoes tell the story of the scouring action of the tides
and waves.
Immediately to the east of Tanjong Aros there is a
little bay, at the side of which are two splendid caves.
The one to the north must be about fourteen feet in height,
and its walls are whitewashed with the excreta of the bats
and birds inhabiting it. The other one is much lower, and
we had some difficulty in getting into it in the dingy.
It was inhabited by countless swifts of two species of
those which build the edible nests (Collocallia esculenta
and fusca). These delicate little creatures, terribly
agitated by our visit, flitted about in a perfect cloud
around our heads. The walls of the cave were simply
lined with their nests; and if I had been so disposed I
could have gathered thousands of them in a very short
E
50 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. III
space of time. Contenting myself, however, with a dozen
nests and eggs, and two or three specimens of the birds
for future identification, I was glad to get away from
the stifling atmosphere of the cave, and the heart-rending
shrieks of the terrified parents, into the purer air outside.
I found that the nests were of a very inferior quality—from
a commercial point of view—that is to say, they were com-
posed of a very large proportion of vegetable fibre and
feathers, and a very small proportion of the consolidated
saliva of the bird. These nests were in bygone times of
some value, and the cave used to be the ‘ property’ of the
Rajah of Manado. Of recent years, however, there has
been some dispute as to the ownership of this cave, and I
believe that at the present time no one actually claims the
sole right to take the nests. As the approach to the cave
is not without danger, and the Chinese in Manado now
import large quantities of the nests from Borneo and the
Philippines, where they can be obtained of very much
better quality, the value of this cave has very much
diminished, and J believe it is now worth very little. At
any rate, I tried to persuade myself that I had not been
guilty of committing the heinous crime of poaching on
another man’s preserves.
There has been a considerable discussion as to the way
in which these little birds manufacture their nests; but
there can be no doubt now that they are formed by the
consolidation of the mucous secretion of the salivary glands.
The belief that the little bird makes them by the mastica-
tion of a particular kind of sea-weed is now known to be
erroneous. The natives, however, have an explanation of
the formation of this material which is novel, if not
plausible, They pointed out to me that in July and August,
when the birds are building, the waves of the sea are fre-
quently capped with crests of foam. Thousands of the
CH. IIT ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 61
little swifts may be seen skimming over the waves, and as
they go they are said to collect a certain quantity of the
foam in their mouths, from which they manufacture the
mucilaginous material which helps to consolidate their
nests.
Ii is strange how many things have been supposed by
the unlearned of every race and clime to have been born
of the sea-foam. I suppose its graceful, ever-changing
beauty, both of form and colour, has induced the poetical
and fanciful mind to believe that it must contain something
that is more than air and water. In our own country it
Fie. 7.—Pollicipes.
was generally believed that’ the Alcyoniwm digitatum, or
Dead-men’s fingers, of our coasts is formed by the churning
of the waves, as butter is produced from milk; and the
eges of the common whelk, the eggs of cuttle-fishes, and
many other objects which are thrown upon the sand by
heavy seas, were said to have been born of the ocean’s
foam.
Aphrodite herself, goddess of love and beauty, was born
of the foam of the sea; and many other examples might
be quoted from history, legend, and myth, in which similar
ideas may be traced.
E2
52 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. Itt
In the neighbourhood of these bat and bird caves there
were several broad ledges of rock covered, of course, with
barnacles and limpets, but often bearing small shallow
pools containing specimens of the fauna and flora of the
sea-bottom. In one of these I obtained half a dozen
specimens of the curious barnacle Pollicipes; in another I
found a few small specimens of the purple Distichopora.
As this was the first time—and, as it happened, the last—
I had found Distichopora, I was very anxious to see the
polypes alive and expanded, but I was disappointed, for they
were all retracted. I fancy that in these shallow pools the
polypes are generally expanded only at night or in the early
morning, for the sun soon raises the temperature of the
water to such a degree that their movements, if expanded,
would be sluggish and uncertain. The Distichopora does
not belong to the same class of the animal kingdom as
the ordinary corals. The animals which build up the vast
masses of madrepores, astraeas, and other reef-building
corals, are allied to the sea-anemones, but the animals
which build up the arborescent skeleton of Distichopora
and the great lamin of the millepores are more nearly re-
lated to the common fresh-water polype Hydra and its allies.
They exhibit, however, a very curious division of labour
in their colonies, as Professor Moseley discovered. Some
of them are simply stomachs for the reception and digestion
of food, while others are simply feelers for catching it. As
all the individuals of such a colony are united together by
a very complicated system of canals, this arrangement for
catching and digesting the food benefits all alike, and is no
doubt extremely efficient.
The majority of the forms in these pools were, however,
true corals. I remember a beautiful piece of a coral called
Galacea, most splendidly decorated with bright-green ten-
tacles, and a mass of Astrea whose polypes were marked
cH. TI ON BOARD H.M.S. ‘FLYING FISH’ 53
with gold and purple colours. But it would take a chapter
to describe all the forms of interest and beauty which were
to be found within these sea pools. Hach was a mine of
wealth for the naturalist. Unfortunately my supply of
spirit was at the time not very large, and I was unable to
preserve more than a limited number of them; but never-
theless I was extremely sorry when my time was up and I
Fic. 8.—Portion of the skeleton of Galacea Esperi, reduced to
half diameter.
was obliged to leave these interesting places to rejoin the
cutter.
Two or three days after this little expedition to Tanjong
Aros the surveying work of the ‘ Flying Fish’ in the Banka
Straits was finished, and the time had at last arrived when
I was to part for a time from my kind and hospitable
friends.
A farewell dinner in the ward-room, a hearty exchange
54 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. ur
of well-wishes for good health and success, and my ex-
tremely enjoyable and interesting cruise on board H.M.S.
‘Flying Fish’ came to an end. I was put ashore in the
dingy, and for the first time I passed the night on Talisse
Island. The next morning when I awoke the ‘ Flying Fish’
had departed.
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 55
CHAPTER IV
TALISSE ISLAND
Reasons for settling in this island—Inhabitants and topography of the island
—Every-day life in the island—Surface dredging—The ‘ Panchuran ’—
Work on the reefs—Food— Temperature and barometric pressure-——In-
sect pests—Evening amusements—The coolies-—Diseases of the natives—
My house—Attap—The gardens—Deer-kraal—Hill-climbing— Mangrove
swamps—Collecting orchids—The plantations—Planting coco-nuts—
Ebony—Kinabohutan—Pirates—Banka, Tindela,and Ganga—Absence of
coral reefs on shores exposed to the N.N.E.—Our visitors—The post
prau—Native songs—The ‘ Minahassa ’—An Arab.
Berore describing my life and surroundings in the little
island of Talisse I must explain why it was I fixed upon
that island for my head-quarters. I required for my in-
vestigations a good, vigorous coral reef, not far from my
house; I required a sea shallow enough for me to dredge,
but at the same time not exposed to monsoons; I also
wished to be near a primitive forest and a mangrove
swamp, and not too far away from Manado. As all these
conditions were fulfilled in Talisse, and as I had already
acquired a considerable knowledge of the topography of
the Talisse Sea during my stay on board the ‘Flying
Fish,’ I thought that I could not do better than make it
my head-quarters.
I believe now I made the best choice, and that Talisse
possesses greater advantages in these respects than any
other place on the coast or islands of the north part of
Celebes. There is a fringing coral reef varying in vigour
and size nearly all round the island. On the east side
it is washed by the Talisse Sea, which is over twenty
56 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
square miles in area, in no place deeper than forty fathoms,
and fairly protected in all winds and seasons; there is a
considerable mangrove swamp in many places on the coast,
and more than half the island is still covered with primitive
forest. A canoe in the Dutch postal service calls about
once a week, and the agent of the Moluksche Handels
Vennootschap, a Dutch company that owns the coco-nut
plantations on the island, calls on a tour of inspection
about once a month. The only disadvantage that I found
was the difficulty of hiring for a reasonable price a good
seaworthy boat for my investigations upon the sea.
Another time I should be careful to hire a boat at the
principal town of the district before fixing upon my
headquarters.
Talisse Island is situated in lat. 1° 49’ 30” N., long.
125° 4/19” E., and is bounded on the north-west by the
Celebes Sea, south by the Straits of Tindela, and east by
the Talisse Sea and the Straits of Kinabohutan. It is
about seven miles long from north to south, and about three
miles broad at its widest part.
With the exception of a small portion at the northern
extremity, which contains the birds’-nest caves, the whole
island is owned by the Moluksche Handels Vennootschap,
a Dutch trading and culture company, with its head agency
at Manado. The company has a resident ‘ opzichter,’ or
overseer, on the island, whose duty it is to superintend the
clearance of the forest and the planting of the coco-nuts
by a band of some eighty to one hundred coolies.
Besides the coolies there are a few wandering fishermen
belonging to the Sangirese race, who reside temporarily in
little tumble-down huts at various places on the coast.
In addition to these, the island is from time to time visited
by the canoes of those strange, gipsy-like people, the
Wadjorese, who wander from place to place, subsisting
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 57
alone on the fish they can catch to eat or barter, and
seem to know no home but their frail little outrigged
canoes (54).
Running down the middle line of the island there is a
range of hills from 1,000 to 1,300 feet in height, and from
the foot of the hills to the sea-shore there is in many parts
of the island a level plain from 100 to 200 yards in breadth.
The presence of this broad level plain surrounding the hill-
sides cannot be accounted for entirely by any theory of
elevation, but rather by the accumulation of soil from the
hill-slopes advancing on the mangrove swamps, as I have
explained above in Chapter Il. Although I searched care-
fully in the watercourses, I could find no evidence of any
considerable elevation of the land in this region, nor do
I believe that these coasts and islands have undergone
any subsidence. The presence of a broad shore platform
proves, I imagine, that the land has remained stationary
for some considerable time.
There are only two constant streams in the island—one
at Koa, where I lived, and one on the opposite side of the
hill. In the rainy season there are many watercourses.
These completely dry up in the summer. The water of
our stream was cool, clear, and tasteless, but I always took
the precaution to boil it before drinking.
The agent of the company allowed me to live in the
house of the opzichter for the first few weeks of my resi-
dence in the island, but subsequently he kindly provided
me with a small but comfortable little house in the imme-
diate vicinity containing three rooms.
A slight sketch of my daily life in Talisse may not be
uninteresting to those whose travels have not taken them
so far or into such strange surroundings.
Being situated only 2° north of the equator, the difference
of the duration of daylight between summer and winter is
58 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
hardly appreciable. For all practical purposes we may say
that the sun rises and sets at six o’clock in the morning and
evening. My usual custom was to rise between half-past
five and six. My flannel sleeping costume was quite suffi-
cient dress for the fashions of the island, so that I could,
without any fear of losing my social status, read or write
for an hour or two before my bath over a cup of coffee
without the trouble of further dressing. I had not been
long in the island before I found that reading and writing
were not to be indulged in at that early hour; it was much
too precious for other work, for not only are the birds and
insects, which disappear as the sun becomes more powerful,
particularly visible at that hour, but it is the time of the
day above all others when the surface of the sea teems with
animal life. I remember well my disappointment when I
first got into tropical waters at finding that my surface-net
invariably came up almost empty. It was not until I had
been at work some time that I made the very simple dis-
covery that in the early morning hours every sweep of the
net brings up countless pelagic forms of all sizes and de-
scriptions. This may be due to the change in the tempera-
ture of the water. The temperature of the surface-waters
off the reefs in the middle of the day was as high as 80° F.;
in the early morning hours it was often below 70° F. It is
very probable that when the temperature of the surface
rises above 70° F. these forms sink to a cooler zone a little
below the surface, and that they could be readily caught
in a tow-net sunk to a proper depth at all times of the
day.
Thus, after a time, I used to forsake my books and
diaries in the early morning for expeditions after birds and
insects, or for excursions in a canoe for surface dredgings.
At 8 o’clock a.m. one of the two great treats of the day was
in store for me. This was the morning bath. Within a
Fig. 9—THE PANCHURAN.
CH. IV TALISSH ISLAND 59
hundred yards of my house a little stream of water emerged
from the hillside, and close by its source a long wooden
gutter had been arranged to make a spout, or ‘ panchuran,’
as the natives called it. The ‘panchuran’ had been
surrounded by a palisade of split bamboos, and thus a
primitive bathing retreat was formed, free from the gaze of
the inquisitive natives, who seemed to be always pleased to
get a glimpse of the white skin of the ‘ tuan puti,’ or white
gentleman, as I was sometimes called.
The ‘ panchuran ’ was overshadowed by lofty forest trees
and the great leaves of some young sagoweer palms, and these
were the favourite resort in the dry season of many of the
most beautiful birds of the island. There I often saw that
extremely handsome red kingfisher, called by the natives
the ‘rajah udan,’ or ‘king of the forest;’ the beautiful
parrot (Tanygnathus Miilleri), with its dark green wings
and bright Cambridge blue back, and many other familiar
friends of my rambles in the forest. How delicious it was
to allow the cool fresh water to trickle over me, or to order
Manuel to pour bucketfuls down my back! After my bath
I went back to my house to breakfast, which usually con-
sisted of boiled rice and chicken. From breakfast until
lunch I employed myself in microscope work, in skinning
birds, or otherwise attending to my collections; but when
there were spring tides Ihad to prepare in the mornings for
my expeditions to the coral reefs. Low water at spring tides
is at Talisse in the middle of the day, and I found that I
could work upon the reef for an hour or two, two days
before and after the lowest spring tide. On these days
(five every fortnight), Manuel and I would start off a little
after eleven o’clock, armed with two or three iron buckets,
a small case of collecting bottles, a crowbar, and other
implements that were useful or necessary for our work.
I protected my feet and legs with a pair of water-tight
60 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. 1V
Magdala boots, and Manuel wore an old pair of boots I had
given him for these occasions, for even his tough feet could
not stand the wounds and lacerations caused by this
rough work upon the reefs.
As soon as the ebbing tide permitted, we waded across
the shallow sandy lagoon towards the edge of the reef, and
worked away as hard as we could until the flowing tide
compelled us to retreat. It was extremely hot work in the
middle of the day, with the sun pouring down upon our
heads, but as I was generally pretty well wet through all
over, and constantly put my head in the water to keep it
cool, I was never any the worse for it. I used to enjoy these
excursions, however, notwithstanding their great physical
discomfort, for the variety and interest there is in every
square yard of a vigorous coral reef affords ceaseless amuse-
ment and wonder, the difficulty being to devote one’s
attention to any particular form or problem, and not to
fritter away the time in watching the active movements
of the brightly coloured reef fishes, the slow and steady
march of the great sea-slugs and star-fishes, the slow and
graceful waving movements of the Alcyonarian polypes, or
the darting frightened scrambles of the crabs and squillas.
I was never sorry when the time came to turn our faces
homewards, for, notwithstanding the excitement, this reef-
work is extremely exhausting. Sometimes I would fling off
my wet clothes when I reached home, and fall fast asleep
for an hour or so before lunch; but asI had always a great
many things to attend to, I tried to avoid this as often as
possible, and get my corals and other things properly
preserved at once. In such a climate I could rely upon
nothing to keep for an hour. When the thermometer stands
at 90° in the shade, a bucketful of water soon reaches a
temperature at which all its living contents languish and
die, and as soon as anything is dead putrefaction sets in
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 61
immediately and kills the rest. It was absolutely necessary,
therefore, to attend to my collections as soon as I returned
to my hut, and to keep only one or two choice creatures
alive in separate glass jarsin the coolest places I could find.
At first I was inclined to be dissatisfied that I could utilise
only five days on the reefs in the fortnight, but after a time
I found that, during those five days, I could obtain more
material to work upon than would last for two fortnights ;
in fact, the difficulty was to finish the examination and
preservation of the material I obtained at one tide before
it was time to work upon the next. But, besides this,
I found it very important to keep well up to date as far as
my writing was concerned. It is surprising how very soon
one forgets facts and details which have made such an
impression at the time that one fondly imagines they will
never be forgotten. Letters, diaries, notes, and labels take
up a great deal of time and energy, and it was as much as
I could do to keep abreast with the times in that respect.
The morning’s work done, I would have my luncheon
brought in. I need not enter into particulars: lunch was
the same as breakfast, and breakfast the same as dinner.
Each meal consisted of boiled rice flavoured with curry and
whatever fish, flesh, or fowl I could get. I generally kept
a stock of chickens, but, as many of them would run wild
in the woods, or be killed by snakes at night, or otherwise
disappear, and as my commissariat arrangements with
Likupang and \anado were not always in working order, I
sometimes ran short of these useful fowls, and then I had
to rely upon the produce of my gun. I have tried at times
very many kinds of game for food, such as baboons, bats,
parrots, sandpipers, pigeons, bivalves of many kinds, and
cuttlefish, but, as the resources of my kitchen were limited,
I can only say with varying success. Monkey is not bad—
I could recommend it as an entrée, but it is too tasty and
62 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
strong for a hungry person. Bats, when thoroughly imbued
with Spanish pepper (chillies) so as to disguise completely
their own peculiar flavour, are excellent, but great care is
required in the cooking of them. The wild bronze-winged
pigeons (Carpophaga paulina) are very good, and so are the
sandpipers. They can be made palatable even by an inex-
perienced cook ; but parrots are inferior as an article of food.
The bivalves are not very bad, but, like the fish, are quite
inferior to those of colder climates.
The natives spoke very highly of the quality of the
cuttlefish, but from the specimen I tried—it may have
been improperly cooked or of inferior quality, it is true—
I should think that first-class india-rubber would be more
palatable and digestible. I was not always so badly off
as this, however; for after my visit to Manado at the
beginning of October I had a supply of tinned soups and
vegetables, and a large sack of potatoes, which enabled me
to add considerable variety to my table. After lunch was
cleared away I often followed the custom of the colonial
Dutchman, and turned into bed for a good midday sleep.
I found this rest a useful and refreshing one when I
was not on any of my expeditions, for it was an excellent
way of getting through the hottest and quietest hours of the
day, and at the same time a valuable stimulus to the
exertions of the afternoon and evening.
I spoke just now of the ‘hottest part’ of the day.
Perhaps I ought to explain this more accurately. It would
never be considered very hot in Talisse by those who are
accustomed to the heat of Egypt, British India, or even
Java. The average temperature in my hut in the middle
of the day was 85°5 F.—that it is to say, about as warm
as it is in England on an exceptionally hot summer’s day.
I kept regular records of both temperature and barometric
pressure, but there is so very little change from day to
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 63
day that the record is uninteresting and monotonous. My
aneroid registered 29-9 inches of mercury pretty constantly
at nine o’clock in the morning, and 80-0 inches in the middle
of the day during the dry season, and rose to 30:1 inches
in the middle of the day during the rainy season. The
advent of the rainy season was not marked by any dis-
turbance of the barometer. So regular, in fact, is the rise
and fall of the barometer in these parts, that it is almost
possible to tell the time of day by a good aneroid.
After my afternoon slumber I would call my boy and
start off for a walk in the forest. There were three paths
open to me—one running northwards for about a couple of
miles, one running southwards, and one across the hill to
the other side of the island.
Along one of these paths I would start, and plunge into
the forest or the mangrove swamp in search of birds and
insects. Sometimes I came back quite empty-handed, but
I generally had a few new butterflies or some birds either
for my larder or my collection. I had practically to do
all the collecting myself. I found that Manuel, although
a fair shot and expert with the butterfly-net, was not in-
dependent enough to do any work for himself. If I had
the gun and he the net, he would be much more anxious
to find birds for me to shoot than to look out for butterflies
himself; and vice versd, if he had the gun and I the net,
he seemed desperately desirous of catching butterflies.
On my return from these shooting excursions I would
indulge in another bath at the panchuran, and then settle
down to write my letters and the notes and observations
for the day.
Writing is not in these coast places an unmixed pleasure
after the sun has set, for the scribe is pestered by all
kinds of winged abominations, which, attracted by the
light and half-killed by the heat of the lamp, perform their
64 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
dying gymnastics in the ink and on the paper. I remember
well on one occasion I was visited by a swarm of flying
termites that fairly drove me out to seek another occupa-
tion. These horrible insects alighted on my table, dropped
their wings, and then chased one another.on foot over my
paper, up my pen, over my hands, and up my shirt-sleeves
in such numbers that it was almost impossible to make a
legible mark upon the paper. Fortunately this was quite
an exceptional visitation. But the pests that were not
exceptional were the mosquitoes. When I first landed in
Java I suffered severely from the bites of one or two
mosquitoes, but afterwards I found that they became less
irritating at the time, and left no lasting discomfort; but
I was always cognisant of their presence, and the constant
humming and pricking of these little brutes were always
more or less distracting to me when engaged in any
serious work.
When my writing was pretty well up to date I would
often stroll round to the opzichter’s house, and spend an
hour or two with Mr. Cursham. Fortunately I had on the
voyage out learned to speak a little Dutch, so that I could
converse with him in a language that was not Malay, of
which at the time I knew only a few sentences. But our
répertoire of amusements for spending a quiet evening was
not very extensive. He had a backgammon board—and
many and many a game I played with him in the verandah
of his house—and a fairly good musical box ; but even back-
gammon becomes tiresome after a time, and the dulcet
strains of ‘ Home, Sweet Home’ and the ‘Blue Danube’
(with a few notes missing) fail to charm.
On moonlight nights such indoor recreations, however,
were hardly necessary, for a stroll on the rickety little pier
in the delicious cool evening breeze, listening to the rippling
music of the ebbing waters, was a far greater attraction,
CH, Iv TALISSE ISLAND 65
As arule, the sea at Talisse is not particularly phosphor-
escent, not more so than it is on the coast of Scotland, for
example—nor did I ever see any such milky-white seas as 1
afterwards saw in the Banda Sea; but nevertheless the path
of a small shark or other predaceous fish was frequently
marked out in lines of fire even on moonlight nights, so that
there was constantly something to divert my attention.
Iwas always on perfectly friendly terms with the natives
of the island, and could generally make myself understood,
either by signs or language, even by those who were not
acquainted with Malay, and many a hearty laugh have we
had together in trying to understand one another. The
‘coolies,’ as they were collectively called, varied in number
from forty to a hundred or more. They were recruited
from Manado, Tidore, Sangir, Talaut, and other places,
and often arrived in a half-starved, fever-stricken condition.
The Company always had a great difficulty in getting them
to stop for any length of time upon the island, for as soon
as they had had a few good meals of rice, and had earned
a little money, they were anxious to be off again to their
wives and freedom—a ‘ Freedom’ which, as a philanthropist,
I ought to spell with a capital ‘F,’ but which is, as a matter
of fact, synonymous with idleness, sickness, and general
unhappiness. Of course, the Company makes contracts
with these men to stay so many months, but, as the
Government officials are very anxious that there should be
no whispered suspicions of slavery in the relations between
European individuals and the natives, these contracts are
broken with impunity, and the coolies often calmly run
away after a few weeks’ work, with some portion of their
wages paid in advance.
The coolies were under the supervision of two mandurs
or foremen, natives of Minahassa, both of whom had lived
on the island and served the Company faithfully and well
F
66 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
for some years. The wives of these two mandurs were
my most constant visitors, and would often spend the
greater part of the day chatting with my boys and super-
intending the cooking.
I soon acquired the reputation of being a medicine-man,
and my small medicine chest was a valuable aid to me
in establishing friendly relations with these simple-minded
people.
Their complaints were usually fevers, diarrhcea, boils,
and ulcers, all of which I could treat with considerable
success; but a very prevalent disease of the eye, consisting
of a clouding of the cornea, was beyond my skill. The
Sangirese men were very often afflicted with a form of
ichthyosis, and were constantly scratching themselves like
monkeys, but they never sought relief for it nor seemed to
consider it anything but natural.
I never saw any cases of measles or scarlet-fever, small-
pox, or of any other zymotic disease, nor any traces of
syphilis acquired or inherited. Such complaints, however,
do, I believe, occur. The natives have a great many medi-
cines of their own, obtained by the infusion and decoction
of various herbs and fruits, and many of the Europeans
who have been a long time in the country, and the half-
castes are firmly persuaded that they are much more effective
than the drugs of our European pharmacopeeias ; but as the
native doctors are able to extract live lizards, nails, and all
sorts of things out of a patient’s head when he is afflicted
with a headache, I should not feel disposed to place too
much reliance on their efficacy.
A thorough and systematic study, however, of native
medicines might lead to some valuable results.
The natives have but little idea of some of the simplest
laws of sanitation, and allow themselves to get extremely
ill before they seek for assistance. It is wonderful, some-
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 67
times, what a simple remedy will do for them, and how
quickly their skin will heal when wounded. I remember
on one occasion a man came to me whose legs were nearly
covered with large vicious-looking ulcers. He was ex-
tremely dirty, and the wounds had been seriously irritated
by flies and mosquitoes. I first of all sent him to the
‘ panchuran ’ to wash himself, and then I covered the sores
with strips of rag soaked in a weak solution of carbolic acid.
On the following morning the ulcers were nicely granulating,
and two days later he went to work again, and troubled me
no more. As this man was exceptionally dirty when he
came to me, I ought, in justice to the Minahassers, to notify
the fact that he was Sangirese. I never saw or heard of
such a case amongst the Minahassers, partly because they
are accustomed to a more plentiful supply of wholesome
and nourishing food, and partly because they are more
cleanly and particular in their habits.
The natives often suffer terribly from large boils, but
they come and disappear again in a day or two.
The house in which I lived after leaving the opzichter’s
was raised above the level of the ground about four feet
six inches on piles. The piles and framework were of some
kind of hard wood, probably the Eusiderorylon Zwageri,
the famous ‘ belian’ iron-wood of commerce; the walls and
doors were made of a plait-work of young split bamboos,
suspended on frames of thicker bamboos or other wood.
This was sufficient to make the rooms quite dark in
the daytime, but it would have been but little protection
against draughts, if there had been any in the island to be
avoided. It was quite possible to pry into the house through
the interstices of this bamboo plait-work; and at night,
when the rooms were illuminated with oil-lamps, it looked
from outside not unlike a large hamper. The floor was
made of strips of Arenga wood, tied together by an ill-
F2
68 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
prepared string, made from the gumutu or leaf fibres of
the same palm. ‘These strips of wood were of various
thicknesses, and consequently the floor was very uneven
and irregular. The roof was very large, and covered
with ordinary attap of Arenga palm-leaves. In some parts
of Java attap is made from the allang-allang grasses,
but in Celebes invariably from palm-leaves, in the fol-
lowing manner. The pinne of the leaves are first of all
separated from the mid-rib. The Arenga palm-leaves
are often fifteen to twenty feet in length, bearing 100 or
more pinne on each side of the mid-rib. The pinne are
about four feet in length, and from three to four inches broad
when fresh. A lath or rod of split bamboo or reed about
six feet long is then chosen and placed in a convenient
position, with each end resting on a wooden stool or
support. The pinne are then folded evenly over the lath,
care being taken that each one slightly overlaps its neigh-
bour, and sewn together in position by rattan strings or
gumutu fibres. Hach strip thus prepared is called ‘ faras
katu’ (22). It is carefully dried in the sun and then put
aside until required for use. When a roof is made, several
hundreds of these ‘ faras katu’ are placed overlapping one
another like the slates upon an ordinary European roof,
and it is then called ‘ attap.’ An attap roof is a far better
protection against sun and rain than slates or tiles, the
only serious disadvantage it possesses being that it affords
a cosy retreat for spiders, mosquitoes, and other vermin.
My house contained three rooms, one of which I used
as a bedroom, the front one as a dining and sitting-room,
and the middle one, which was the darkest and coolest of the
three, as a library and store. All round the house was a
narrow verandah—well protected by the enormous roof—in
which I had a couple of tables set apart for microscope
work and writing. I had every reason to be satisfied with
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 69
my abode, although it was very much infested with the
white ants, and so rickety that a single footstep made the
whole house shake, for I might have been much worse off
in such an out-of-the-way island. In front of my house
was a sandy path which ran a distance of fifty paces to the
sea in one direction, and to the panchuran, a distance of
a hundred yards or thereabouts, in the other ; joining these
were the footpaths to the other parts of the island.
By the sea-shore ran a path past Cursham’s house to
the pier. On either side of this path had been planted a
number of aloes (?), yuccas, hibiscus shrubs, and other
garden plants, and it was shaded by two splendid casuarinas,
an Acacia cesia, and a number of sour lemon trees. At the
back of the two houses were some banana plants, and in a
clearing round the flagstaff, which stood in front of the
opzichter’s house, a number of pineapples had been planted
by Mr. Rijkschroeff, a former opzichter. Immediately in
front of my house was a large bamboo kraal, in which two
stags and three does of the Cerrus moluccensis were con-
fined, and in another, next to it, a fine specimen of the
babirusa pig.
There was great excitement when, at the beginning of
September, the does gave birth to young ones; but the
excitement was changed to disgust and disappointment
when the unnatural mothers stamped the young to death.
In every case, soon after the young was born, the mother,
in a fit of puerperal frenzy, stamped upon her offspring
with her fore-feet, and in this murderous intent she was
immediately joined by the other does and stags. At no
little risk—for the animals were all more or less vicious
when the young were born—Manuel rescued for me one of
the young, and I tried for some days to feed it with bananas,
hoping that in time the mother would take kindly to her
offspring, but it was no good; the doe remained inexorable,
70 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
and the young one was killed like the others. If I had
been able to obtain a good supply of fresh cow’s milk, I
would have tried to feed it with an artificial nipple, but
that was just what I could not get, and so I was obliged to
try again the affections of the parent, with the painful
result just mentioned,
Besides the companionship of one of my boys, Manuel
or Marcus, Mr. Cursham, the half-caste opzichter of the
plantations, often accompanied me on my expeditions,
and I learned a good deal from his wide and varied know-
ledge about some of the details of animal and plant life
in these forests. His experience in these matters often left
me in the lurch, however, for in swarming up the hill-
sides, or in breaking through a bush tangle, he and Manuel
could get along so much faster than I could, that I was
left a long way in the rear, while they were potting merrily
at the birds, baboons, or kusis far ahead. The chief
difficulty I experienced in getting along was that the
leather soles of my boots became so slippery by walking on
the dry leaves that I was obliged to plant my feet with the
greatest deliberation and caution to avoid falling down.
On some occasions I took off my boots, and went with
naked feet, like Cursham and the boys, and then I found I
could keep up pretty well; but this is not a plan I should
advise a European to adopt too readily, for our feet perspire
much more than native feet, and consequently our skin is
much more liable to abrasions, and to suffer from the attacks
of flies and mosquitoes, than is the hard, dry skin of the
feet of coloured men. India-rubber canvas shoes are ex-
tremely valuable when climbing up the slopes of a forest-
clad mountain ; they give almost as much grip as the naked
feet, and are for a time cool and comfortable. When I
became more experienced in forest work, I always carried a
pair of these with me, and put them on in place of my
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND vee
ordinary boots on rising ground or where it was particu-
larly slippery with dried fallen leaves.
Work in the mangrove swamps was always rather
depressing and disgusting. The damp, stifling, stinking
atmosphere, the muddy slippery ground, and the swarms of
ants, flies, mosquitoes, and other abominations, made the
work tiresome and annoying. The mixture, however, of
marine and terrestrial faunas, and the varied conditions of
life the swamp affords, make it an important locality for
the naturalist. The best swamps on the east coast of Talisse
—that is to say, those that were the broadest and most luxu-
riant—are situated opposite the southern point of Kina-
bohutan Island, and about half-way down the coast between
Koa and Tindela Straits. The best place, as far as numbers
go, to collect orchids is the sandy beach on the shore side
of the swamp, where there are usually a number of young
or stunted forest trees, bearing parasitic ferns and orchids
which are not beyond the reach of a good long pole or rake.
Of the many heart-rending disappointments it was my fate
to undergo, I think that my experience as an orchid collector
was the chief. When I first arrived, and was well enough
to search for such things, there were few orchids—in ac-
cessible places, at any rate—in flower. The only one I
obtained was a species of Grammatophyllum. I set to work
to collect a number of the bulbs to send to England.
Now, collecting orchid bulbs in the region of the swamps
may be an entertaining amusement to other people who are
looking on, but it is an unpleasant sport for the naturalist ;
so disagreeable is it, indeed, that Manuel, after one day's
experience of it, refused to help me any further. The
reason is that, as one pulls away the orchid from the
tree to which it clings, numbers of large red ants, which
are always running over them, turn round and fiercely
attack the would-be orchid collector.
72 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
These ants ran up my arms, down my neck, up my
trousers, and in a short space of time no part of my body
was free from their sharp painful nips. An hour spent in
collecting orchids in the swamps made me as angry and
uncomfortable as two or three hours of ordinary forest
work, and the irritating thing about it was that Manuel,
who, no wonder, refused to help me in it, would stand aside
and grow gradually more cheerful and amused as my pains
and aches increased. By the time the rains commenced
Thad a tolerably large collection of orchid bulbs to send
home, but they were neglected when I fell ill in December,
and had finally to be thrown away, as they had become
quite useless for transport to Hurope.
The plantations of Talisse were mainly, as I have said
above, plantations of coco-nut palms.
Coffee and cocoa had been tried, but, with the exception
of one or two small patches at the foot of the hills, the soil
was not sufficiently favourable to raise a paying crop.
The first process necessary for the formation of a coco-
nut plantation is the destruction of the primitive forest.
Strips of forest are selected, about two or three hundred
yards broad, stretching from the crest of the hill to the sea-
shore. The wild trees are then ringed by the coolies, with
a kind of hatchet knife, and when the leaves are withered,
and a favourable breeze is blowing, the forest is fired. The
dried trees burn for about a week, the subterranean roots
sometimes remaining glowing for months after the fire is
apparently extinguished. The strip thus cleared in the
dry season is left until the end of the rains, and then the
young coco-nuts are planted.
The coco-nuts are imported from the mainland or from
Sangir in the autumn; a small piece of the outer husk is
chopped off with a hatchet to allow the plumule to protrude,
and then they are arranged in rows under the opzichter’s
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 73
house until the ground is ready for them to be planted out.
I must confess I do not see the utility of thus allowing the
coco-nut to germinate before it is planted. The opzichter
told me that unless they did so the palm might grow up
crooked. This is undoubtedly absurd. It is probable, on
the other hand, that if they were not thus partially husked
before the rains actually begin, the risk they run of drying
up and dying before they are planted would be considerably
lessened. When once fairly started, the young coco-nuts
grow rapidly and in five years bear fruit. In ten years they
are in full fruit, and give but little further trouble. For the
first few years of their growth the planter allows a certain
number of the young forest trees to grow up with them, so
as to afford them shade and shelter. In three or four years
these are ringed again and allowed to wither and die.
The forest is prepared in strips as described above to
afford protection to the young and tender palms from
strong driving winds.
When a coco-nut plantation is once well established, it
is perhaps as good a class of property as could be wished
for in the tropics. The trees require little or no care, are
free from any serious diseases, and the copra can be easily
prepared for export by unskilled labour. The copra-market,
too, is fairly constant, and always returns a good profit to
the grower. The most annoying parts of coco-nut planting
are the initial stages, when many of the young palms and
nuts are destroyed by droughts and other unforeseen cir-
cumstances, and the fact that there is always a period of
some five or six years when there is absolutely no return
for the capital invested.
In ten years’ time, when the 54,500 coco-nut palms
which had in 1886 and previous years been planted in Talisse
and Kinabohutan are full grown and bearing fruit, they will
yield a handsome profit to the M.H.V. In the meantime
74 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
the most valuable produce of the island is the ebony wood,
the Kayu hitam of the local Malay, Diospyros Ebenum of bota-
nists. There are several of these trees on Talisse, their long
straight, dark unbranched trunks being very conspicuous
objects in the forests. The trunks are cut into lengths of
two metres each and then carried down tothe shore. These
logs of ebony are very heavy; it takes fifteen to twenty
coolies to carry one of them. The chatter, noise, and hub-
bub they make about the job is very ludicrous. The wood
is taken down to the inner side of the coral reef, where it is
allowed to remain for some weeks or months seasoning in
the water. When a ship arrives bound for Europe, a large
raft is formed of light-wood logs and the ebony is floated on
it to the vessel.
The little island, Kinabohutan, is said to have derived
its name from having been used in former years as the
burying place of the pirates. Not being an authority in
any sense of the word upon the languages and dialects of
the Eastern races, I simply record this saying without at-
tempting to refer it to any language or to vouch for the
truth of the assertion. The word Talisse is, I fancy, derived
from the Buginese word —\N ‘AY CZ Talisey, which
signifies, according to Matthes (45), the Katapang (TZ'er-
minalia Catappa), a tree which is common in the island.
According to Filet (17), however, the word Talisseij (Mak.)
refers to (Barringtonia speciosa), a tall tree common on the
coast of most of the islands of the Indian Archipelago.
Whatever may be the etymological derivation of the
word Kinabohutan, there seems to be no doubt that it was
originally used by the pirates as a burying-ground. Scarcely
twenty years ago the Straits of Banka were literally haunted
with pirates from the Sulu Archipelago, and, it is said,
from the Gulf of Tomini. It was commonly reported to be
‘agstTeg, JO ysvoo oT]y Jo dumea\s oAoASTUNT Ty 4791 9} TO
‘NVLAHOSVNIN GNV ASSIIVL NIAMILT LIVaLs ABL— Ot Out
CH. Iv TALISSE ISLAND 15
one of the most dangerous passages in that part of the
eastern seas. The island Banka was their chief resting-
place, whilst Limbé, Cape Coffin, Ganga, and Talisse offered
convenient places for concealment and retreat. It must
indeed have been an ideal place for the Malay pirate-king
and his dauntless followers. The coral reefs and shallows,
the racing tides and currents must have been of great ad-
vantage to those possessing local knowledge and resource,
and the wide extent of primitive forest, reaching from the
hill tops to the sea-shore, must have afforded them endless
opportunities for complete concealment and escape on the
approach of men-of-war.
Thanks, however, to the vigorous conduct of the Dutch
navy, piracy in these seas is now practically extinct. We
hear no more of those bloody but exciting sea fights such
as are found recorded in the voyage of H.M.S. ‘Samarang ’
at Ternate in 1845, and the European sailing vessels and
the native rorehis, sopis and praus sail these seas without
encountering any dangers but those of the winds and tides.
The change in this respect has been brought about
by the vigorous action of the Dutchmen, and is almost as
marvellous as the change in the character of society in the
highlands of Minahassa, which I shall presently describe.
The pirates are practically extinct now in the northern
parts of Celebes, and, although the stranger may occasion-
ally see in Manado or upon the seas a dusky individual
with a thin black beard and a certain air of disputed chief-
tainship about him, that rumour says was once a captain
of the pirates, his life is more likely to be that of a prosaic
scoundrel of the nineteenth century than one flavoured with
the freedom and romance of a ‘ Paul Jones’ type of hero.
Banka is no longer the haunt of pirates and sea-robbers.
At Djiko Sago there is a small village of peaceful people
who have taken advantage of the two little streams of
76 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
fresh water and the fairly good anchorage afforded by the
bay, to carry on their peaceful agricultural and fishing
pursuits unmolested and unmolesting. When the herrings
come, a certain number of wandering fishermen from Sangir
and elsewhere follow them to the bay called Djiko Calimata,
and at other seasons some of these same people may often
be seen at other parts of the island (21).
Kinabohutan now belongs to the M.H.V., and is covered
with young coco-nut trees.
The neighbouring islands, Ganga and Tindela, do not
call for much comment. Ganga has a small village on
the western coast, Tindela is uninhabited. They are both
covered with bush and scrub. The most interesting fea-
ture about them, and one which puzzled me considerably at
the time, is that there are no coral reefs on the eastern
shores at all, whilst on the western sides the reef is extensive
and vigorous.
Without more definitive information than I have at my
command it is with some hesitation I put forward now the
view that this is due to the scouring action of the tide
which sets in through the Straits between Kinabohutan and
Banka across Talisse Sea and out through the Straits of
Tindela and Ganga. Having experienced the effect of this
current so often in canoes and sailing ships, I can testify to
its strength and regularity, and it is a pity I cannot be more
accurate and give in figures its measurement and average
duration.
Whatever may be the cause of the absence of the coral
reef on the eastern shore of Ganga and the vigour and
extent of its growth upon the west, it seems to act upon
nearly all the promontories of the coasts and islands ex-
posed to the N.N.E. If the reader will refer to Map II. he
will notice that no coral reefs are marked on the east-
ern shores of Ganga and Tindela, at Tanjong Aros and a
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 17
considerable portion of the eastern coast of Talisse be-
tween T. Aros and Kinabohutan, at the eastern promontory
of Banka Island, at Cape Coffin and the southern shores
of Wallace Bay, the northern and eastern coasts of Limbé.
From personal experience I can vouch for the accuracy of
the Admiralty chart in this respect in most of these places.
To carry the problem into other regions, we find it stated
by those who have visited these places—and their testi-
mony is supported by official charts—that on the eastern
side of the peninsula the shores are steep and rocky, with
very few extensive mangrove swamps and coral reefs facing
seawards. Contrast this with the western coasts of the
peninsula. From the North Cape to Cape Piso there are
many wide and extensive coral reefs and swamps, and
the same at Tanawangko, on the other side of Manado
Bay.
The obvious conclusion to be drawn from these facts is
that for some reason or another—I will not enter into that
now—direct exposure to the flood-tide from the open ocean
is unfavourable for coral growth.
Although our life in Talisse was solitary enough, it must
not be supposed that we were entirely without visitors.
Once and sometimes twice a week a little post prau from
Likupang might be seen coming across the Straits. It was
manned by two natives, who announced as officially as they
could their approach by sounding the classic triton-shell
and flying the flag of Holland. They brought my mails in
a thick bamboo to shelter them from the wet, and they
always presented them to me with a graceful Oriental
obeisance—a form of respect due to one who had so much
communication with the outside world.
Then there were the fishermen who frequently called
for drinking water or to gather bark to twist into impromptu
string for their rowlocks. These men would sometimes do
78 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
me the great favour of selling me some fish, but more
frequently they would plead that they were taking them to
the market at Manado, and my attempts to trade with them
were unsuccessful.
Then there were the sopis from the Sangir Islands,
bringing perhaps a rajah on his way to pay a visit to the
Resident of Manado.
It was always interesting to see new faces ; and so strong
was the sense of security in the island that we never felt the
least anxiety about our property when these wandering seamen
came to visit us in our settlement. I wonder where else in
the world a small colony of planters, almost unprotected and
perfectly unprepared, would welcome as we did boat-loads
of dusky-looking villains such as these. I may say that
my house was often left entirely unguarded; and yet, with
two exceptions, I never lost a single article of any value to
me during my ten months’ residence in the island; and of
the two exceptions I may say that it is quite as likely as
not that the things were taken away by a misunderstanding
of my instructions rather than by wilful theft.
Just behind my house there was a large shed, where
frequently the crews of passing vessels would make a fire
to roast their pig or cook a turtle or simply boil their rice
and spend the evening in a sing-song. For many hours
of an evening the wild plaintive songs of the Sangirese
sailors would continue, now rising and swelling in a general
chorus, now sinking to a low, half-muffled solo. The
Sangirese music affected me at first, as I suppose most
Oriental music does English ears, as painfully nasal and
discordant ; but after listening to it carefully for several even-
ings together, and at last recognising the several songs as
they were sung, I began to feel their weird spirit and power
and even to look forward to hearing them again. The curious
and annoying thing about their music was that I found it
CH. IV TALISSE ISLAND 79
quite impossible to repeat. I tried in vain to remember
one of the most frequent and familiar tunes, but by hum-
ming, whistling, or singing I could make no tune at all
resembling theirs. Whether this is entirely due to my
deficiency of ‘ear’ or to a different number of the notes in
the Sangirese musical bar to ours, I do not know, but the
fact remains that, although the music of those sing-songs
is still rmging in my ears even as I write these pages, I
cannot make a sound even now that in any way resembles it.
We had but few European visitors to Talisse besides
the agent of the M.H.V. The visits of the ‘ Flying Fish’
and ‘Ternate’ were, of course, of exceptional importance
and interest to all of us.
There was a little schooner called the ‘ Minahassa,’
belonging to the M.H.V., which came occasionally. The
captain and the mate of this vessel were Dutchmen. Then
a German brig named the ‘ Claus’ and a Danish brig, the
‘Louise,’ came to take a cargo of ebony wood for Europe.
One day in December a brig came to Talisse with a
cargo of rattans from the Tomini Bay. She flew the
English flag, as she belonged to Singapore, but she was the
property of the old Arab trader who always sailed with her
as skipper. The captain had a harem of five wives on
board, all of them Malay women from various parts of the
Archipelago; the crew were mostly Arabs and Malays, the
others being Chinamen. This captain often came ashore
to see me, and told me many interesting things about the
people of the Tomini Bay. He had spent the greater part
of his life cruising about the Malay Archipelago, barter-
ing his clothes and knives and beads for rattans, copra,
copal, and whatever other produce he could procure. I
was told that he had amassed a very considerable fortune
in this trade, and I dare say it is true. But, like so many
of the wanderers over the face of the earth, he could not
80 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IV
bring himself, even in his old age, to settle down to a life
of retirement and inactivity.
T should like to have before me a true history of the
experiences of one of these Arab traders. Like all Moham-
medans, they seem to have facilities for travelling in un-
known, unexplored regions of the world which are effectually
closed to Europeans; and I feel certain that some of their
experiences amongst the wild Malays must be full of interest
and adventure.
This Arab captain who visited me in Talisse told me
about places in the Tomini Bay which are still blank spaces
in the maps, and others which are said to be inhabited
by savages dangerous to deal with. It might be said that
perhaps my friend the captain was not telling me the truth,
and it is quite likely that if there had been anything to
gain by it he would not have hesitated to ‘draw the long
bow;’ but there was absolutely no reason why he should
not tell me all he knew, for he was perfectly well aware that
Thad no connection but a friendly one with the Company he
was dealing with.
When he had discharged his cargo and there was really
nothing I knew of to detain him, he was an amazingly long
time getting off. On Friday he could not go because it wasn’t
lucky; on Saturday the wind was not strong; on Sunday
it was not lucky, and on Monday he was not ready. Thus
for a whole week he postponed his departure, for one cause
or another, from day to day, and every day he came ashore
and told me most decidedly he would sail on the morrow.
I mention this incident, not because it affected me in any
way whatsoever, but as an example of the dilatory life that
is led by the Orientals in these regions of the world.
I must now bring this general account of Talisse to a
close, and pass on to consider some of the most striking
features presented by its fauna.
CH. Vv FAUNA OF TALISSE 81
CHAPTER V
FAUNA OF TALISSE
Mammals—Babirusa and sapiutan both absent—The baboon—The cuscus
—Bats — Parrots —Eagles—Kingfishers—Eurystomus— Swifts — Crows
—Shrikes—Starlings—Nectar-birds—Pigeons — Maleos — Sandpipers —
Egrets — Reptiles — Amphibia — Insects — Spiders— Centipedes—Phos-
phorescent millipede.
Havixe described the details of my daily life in Talisse, I
must now devote a chapter to a consideration of the fauna
of the island.
As might be expected, there are not many terrestrial
mammals. Neither the babirusa pig nor the sapiutan
is found wild there, although fairly common near Cape
Coffin, on the opposite shore of the mainland. As these
two animals are among the most characteristic of the
Celebean mammals, I cannot pass them by without some
notice.
The babirusa (Sus babirusa) is a hog which, while closely
resembling in colour the ordinary wild pigs, is characterised
by possessing a very curious modification of the tusks.
The tusks of the lower jaw are very long and sharp, while
those of the upper jaw are curved upwards and backwards
over the snout as far as the level of the eyes. It has
always been a puzzle to naturalists to account for this
curious modification of the tusks of babirusa. We hada
full-grown male specimen in captivity at Talisse, and I
watched it carefully for some months, in hope of being able
to solve the difficulty ; but I must confess that I was unable
G
82 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. V
to observe the animal use them for any particular purpose.
I am inclined to believe that they are only useful to the
animal when fighting; the tusks of the lower jaw being
most valuable weapons of offence, and those of the upper
jaw, by protecting the eyes and the fore part of the head,
serve as excellent weapons of defence. The babirusa
has only been found on the seaward slopes of the Klabat
and ‘ Two Sisters’ hills of North Celebes, but I was informed
by Mr. Rijkschroeff that it is also to be met with on the
Kelelonde and Saputan mountains of the interior. It is
also stated that it may be found in the island of Buru. It
is a very shy animal, and never comes near any of the
native villages and huts (25), but is nevertheless active
and ferocious.
Of the Anoa depressicornis Wallace says: ‘The sapi-utan,
or wild cow, of the Malays is an animal which has been
the cause of much controversy as to whether it should be
classed as ox, buffalo, or antelope. It is smaller than any
other wild cattle, and in many respects seems to approach
some of the ox-like antelopes of Africa. It is found only
in the mountains, and is said never to inhabit places where
there are deer. It is somewhat smaller than a small High-
land cow, and has long straight horns, which are ringed
at the base and slope backwards over the neck’ (83). It is
fairly common on the slopes of the Batu Angus in Wallace
Bay, and also lives on the more desolate slopes of the moun-
tains of the interior.
_ A jet-black baboon (Cynopithecus nigrescens) (fig. 11),
with small red ischial callosities and a stumpy tail, is as
common in the forests of Talisse as it is upon the mainland.
A full-grown male measures twenty-three inches from the
tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, eighteen inches from
the hips to the tips of the toes, and has a span of sixty-four
inches. If it were to stand erect, therefore, it would be a
Fic, 11—CYNOPITHECUS NIGRESCENS.
cH. V FAUNA OF TALISSE 83
little under three feet in height. These baboons are usually
seen in pairs, but sometimes a family of seven or eight
may be found together feeding in a tree. Such families
invariably consist of a pair of adults and a number of young
ones. The natives told me that these baboons, when once
paired, remain faithful to one another until separated by
death. I should not like to place too much confidence in the
veracity of this story ;. but at the same time I should like to
point out that any information we can obtain concerning
the social arrangements of the Quadrumana is likely to be
of the greatest possible interest. Ethnologists have now
acquired a very considerable knowledge of the marriage
laws and customs of the most savage races of mankind,
ancient and modern; but at present we are almost entirely
ignorant of the degree of conjugal fidelity of any of the
genera or species of the anthropoid apes and monkeys, and
consequently considerable controversy exists as to what
systems should be considered primitive and what degenerate.
I believe, for example, that if we knew more of the habits
of the apes, we should find that a system of polyandry
never occurs amongst them.
The baboons of Talisse are usually to be found in the
branches of the trees feeding upon leaves and fruits, grubs
and insects of various kinds, but when the tide is low
they may often be seen walking over the roots of the
mangrove trees picking up and munching the mollusks and
small crabs they find in the swamps.
A fairly common mammal in Talisse is the Cuscus
celebensis, a slow, awkward, nocturnal, frugivorous animal,
rather larger than a cat. It lives entirely an arboreal life,
and can only move slowly and awkwardly when placed upon
the ground. It usually hangs suspended from the underside
of the branches by its four feet and long prehensile tail.
The young are carried on the back of the female with their
G2
84 A NATURALIST IN CHLEBES CH. V
tails firmly twisted round hers. The flesh of the cuscus is
rather tough, but quite palatable.
When I was in Manado, a native brought me a male, a
female, and a young one alive, but they refused to eat the
fruits and leaves I offered them, and soon sickened and
died.
It is rather strange that in this little island the only
conspicuous mammals inhabiting the forests should be
representatives of two widely distant great zoological
regions. The tailless baboons are characteristic of the
African fauna, the cuscus of the Australian region.
The island of Celebes is the northern limit of the genus
Cuscus, and with the exception of the island of Batjan,
where it may have been introduced by man, the southern
limit of the genus Cynopithecus, and yet here we find them,
living together in the same forests, and the only large
mammals of the island .
A small squirrel (Sciwrus murinus) is fairly common,
but, as it is very sharp and shy, I could only obtain one
or two specimens.
There are several species of bats to be obtained. A
large fruit-eating bat (Pteropus Wallacei ?) may be seen fly-
ing about amongst the trees every evening as the sun is
setting. The Cynonycteris minor is also very common, and
I obtained a fine specimen of a female Harpyia cephalotes
with a young one clinging to its mother’s nipple by its
mouth, and holding on firmly to the hair of her breast by
its little claws. This species is readily distinguished by the
bright yellow spots on its wings and body, which, however,
lose much of their brightness after a long immersion in
spirit.
It is a very curious fact that whilst the specimens of
Harpyia cephalotes obtained in Celebes have longer forearms
than those obtained from any other parts of the world, the
CH. V FAUNA OF TALISSE 85
average measurements of the forearms of Cephalotes peronii
are smaller in the specimens from Manado than those from
other parts of the Archipelago (see Appendix A).
It is difficult to form any very consistent theory to
account for these remarkable facts. It may he, however,
that the struggle for existence among bats is so keen in
Celebes that only the extremely long-winged forms and the
extremely short-winged forms have been able to compete in
the conditions of life.
_ One day, as I was passing the house of one of the man-
durs, I saw a little boy with a beautiful little bat attached
to a piece of string. For a small consideration I persuaded
him to give it to me, and the next day he brought me
another of the same kind. This bat has a body not much
larger than that of a mouse, covered with long bright reddish
brown hair, and the iris is quite white. It belongs to the
variety fulvus of the species Phyllorhina bicolor. It has a
very wide distribution, occurring in Ceylon, Sumatra, Java,
Amoy, Celebes, Amboyna, but the colour varies from bright
yellow to dusky brown. The specimens I obtained in Talisse
are decidedly redder than any of those in the British Museum
or the Rijks Museum at Leyden.
A few field notes on the birds of Talisse may not be out
of place in this chapter. It is true I cannot add a single
new species to the known birds of Celebes, nor can I say
much about any birds that are not well known to the orni-
thologist, but my excuse must be that while naturalists in
these regions have endeavoured to make their lists of the
avifauna as complete as possible, they generally fail to give
an idea to the general reader of the birds in any particular
spot which are common and of every-day occurrence. My
object, then, will not be to give a complete list of the birds
known to inhabit the island of Celebes—for that has
already been done by such competent ornithologists as
86 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. V
Lord Walden (80) and Blasius (6)—but rather to say a
few words about the feathered friends I met on my daily
walks, as one [would describe the blackbirds and thrushes,
the sparrows and martins, the rooks and magpies of our
own country.
The only parrots on the island belong to the species
Tanygnathus Miilleri. They are handsome green birds,
with a patch of light creamy blue on their backs. They
are very common towards sunset in the lower branches of
the trees, and keep up a constant chattering noise until
past midnight. The adult males can be readily dis-
tinguished by their bright scarlet bills, the bills of the hen
birds being almost invariably white. Some ornithologists
consider that there are really two species of this parrot
because a few specimens of hen birds have been found with
a scarlet bill and some cock birds with a white one, but I
must agree with Meyer (46) that this view is erroneous. My
boys and I shot a great many of these birds, partly to
settle this vexed question and partly for food, and I found
without exception that those with scarlet bills were males,
and those with white bills were females. They live together
in the same trees and fly about together in the same coveys,
so that I feel perfectly convinced that they belong to the
same species. It is very rarely that we find birds of two
species so closely allied as these would be living together in
any numbers. The struggle for existence is so keen in the
tropical world that the laws of natural selection would soon
pick out that species which was the better fitted for the
environment and the other would go to the wall. We
should, therefore, not expect to find that there are two
closely allied species of this genus of parrots living together
and feeding on the same fruits in this little island, and the
burden of the proof goes to show that there is really only one.
Tam surprised to read that Mr. Wallace (82) found that
CH. Vv FAUNA OF TALISSE 87
the natives universally recognised these birds as two species,
because my experience is that the natives of Celebes uni-
versally recognise them as the same bird; and, moreover,
look upon the one with the scarlet bill as the ‘ lakki-lakki,’
or cock bird, and the one with the white billas the ‘ peram-
puan,’ or hen bird. Dr. Meyer considers the parrots with
white bills to be younger specimens, and that the scarlet
bill is a sign of age. I-have seen some hens with a bill
slightly tinged with red, and it is very possible that they
may have been older birds than the others ; but if the bills
of the hens do eventually turn scarlet, I should think, from
the large number of them I obtained without any such tint,
they must change very much later in life than those of
the cock birds. The natives call this bird the ‘ Burong
Kakatua,’ but this name, it must be remembered, is applied
by them to all parrots and cockatoos in general.
There are several large birds of prey in Talisse, but, as
they have wonderfully keen sight and are very shy of human
beings, it is very difficult to get within range of them.
The great osprey (Pandion leucocephalus) has an expanse of
wing of four feet. I saw several of them hovering over
the forest of Talisse, but I never got a shot at one. The
only specimen I obtained was shot for me by the Dominie
of Manado in a rather remarkable way. It was on one
of the Saha islands in the Talaut group. A small party
from the ‘Ternate’ had landed on the island to shoot
birds for me, and the Dominie was armed with one of the
Government rifles used by the colonial navy. As we pro-
ceeded through the bush, two or three of these huge birds
rose from the trees and whirled round and round some con-
siderable distance above our heads, uttering the most piercing
cries. The Dominie fired, and at the third shot brought
down one of them. Now to hit a bird on the wing with a
rifle bullet is at all times a difficult task, but the conditions
88 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. V
of this shot were so exceptional that it is worthy of being
classified as a ‘ crack’ shot, and should be recorded with a
certain amount of respect. At the same time, I cannot
recommend to ornithologists the Dutch naval rifle as the
best weapon for use in collecting specimens, for the bullet
is apt to derange the feathers. I found in the crop of this
specimen a partially digested starling (Calornis neglecta),
but both this great osprey and the sea-eagle (Halietus leu-
cogaster), which is very common in these parts, mainly
prey upon fish. I have often watched them for hours from
the pier at Talisse fishing in the shallow waters of the reefs.
They hover over the water for some time and then suddenly
splash into it, seize an unfortunate fish with their claws,
and sail away majestically to their home in the forests.
A bird, often seen on the orange trees and the higher
branches of the trees in the mangrove swamps, is the
beautiful brown falcon (Erythrospiza trinotata). The only
specimen I obtained was shot for me by Cursham’s boy
on an orange tree just in front of my hut. I had been out
shooting all the afternoon, and on my return I found
this bird lying dead upon my table with a little skewer
of wood through its breast. The boy, who boasted of
the name of ‘Solomon,’ noticed the bird as he passed
my hut on his way to the panchuran, and, finding that
I was out, hastily manufactured a blowpipe from a piece
of bamboo, and using a dart of the same wood and a little
plug of cotton wool, at the first shot pierced the bird
through the heart. Now this was not only an excellent
example of the ease and accuracy with which the natives
of these islands can use the blowpipe, but, as nota single
feather was displaced in the operation, and scarcely a drop
of blood spilt, an instance of the superiority of the weapon
in many respects over fire-arms for collecting specimens.
I am afraid, however, that it will never come into general
CH. V FAUNA OF TALISSE 89
use, for it would require much patience and practice for a
European to use the weapon with such accuracy as this,
and the natives, when opportunities arise, infinitely prefer
the pomp and vanity of fire-arms.
Another falcon, rather larger than this (Spilornis rufi-
pectus), is also fairly common in the mangrove swamps. I
saw one of these birds nearly every day not far from my
house, but could never get a shot at it until at last one day
I managed to break its wing as it rose from a mangrove tree.
I had started out that afternoon with the intention
of collecting insects only, and had left my guns behind,
taking with me only some nets and collecting bottles.
As I passed this tree, however, I saw the falcon within
easy range of my gun, and instead of flying away, as he
usually did when I approached, he calmly sat and looked at
me first with one eye and then with the other, as if he were
making quite certain that I had no dangerous weapon about
me. This was too much for me, so I hurried back to my
hut and returned with my gun just in time to indicate to
him that he had been for once a little too bold and that
I wished to add him to my collection. I saw several other
specimens afterwards, but never one that was anxious to
repeat the experiment.
The Poliornis indicus is not so often met with in Talisse
as the other rapacious birds, and is, I fancy, purely a forest
dweller. I never saw one in the swamps on any occasion,
and the few specimens I found were usually some two or
three hundred feet above the sea in the depths of the forest.
The general native name for all the large birds of prey
is Kohéba: thus, the sea-eagle is usually called the Kohéba
besar, or big eagle; the osprey, Kohéba gunong, or osprey of
the mountains, and so on; the Erythrospiza, however, is
usually called the ‘ Sikip abuabu.’
Some of the most beautiful of the many beautiful birds
90 A NATURALIST IN CEHLEBES CH. V
of the Malay islands are the blue kingfishers. They are
seen in nearly every field and road-side, and their plaintive
cry of ‘ kiss-kiss ’is one of the most familiar sounds to the
field-naturalist. The commonest species in Celebes is the
Sauropatis chloris, a beautiful little bird with a white body,
bright blue wings, and a long jet black bill. On nearly all
my walks near the swamps or water-courses I found them
skipping about on the huge leaves of the young coco-nut
trees or feeding among the roots of the mangroves. They
were by no means shy birds, and I could often get quite close
to the trees upon which they were perched and watch them
for some minutes before they became frightened and flew
away. The natives call them ‘ Kiss-kiss,’ from their cry.
A less common but by no means rare bird is the
Halcyon coromanda, one of the most beautiful of the king-
fishers, called by the natives ‘ Rajah udan,’ or king of the
forest. One of these, which I never had the heart to shoot,
was nearly always to be seen perched on the bamboo palings
of the panchuran when I took my morning bath. It has a
dull red body and wings, with a patch of very brilliant light
blue in the middle of its back. The bill is very long
and thick, and has the same dull red colour. My boys shot
a specimen for me one day, but I found it by no means an
easy task to make a good skin of it, as its bill was so large
and awkward to pass through the neck.
Another little kingfisher (Alcedo bengalensis) I occasion-
ally met with in the mangrove swamps, but it is not so
often seen as the other two.
The cuckoo to which I have already referred and the
Eurystomus orientalis are occasionally met with. The
Eurystomus is one of the most fearless birds in the island.
He will sit upon his perch in a low tree or shrub flapping
his wings and uttering a series of ‘ kiak-kiak’ cries while
his enemy approaches and he seems to have no fear of any
CH. V FAUNA OF TALISSE 91
consequences that may ensue. On the first occasion I
came across this bird he was sitting on the top of a
small dead stump a few yards only from the spot where I
had cut my way out of the mangrove swamp, and he was
really so close to me that I was afraid of injuring the
specimen. I waited a few minutes to slip into my gun a
cartridge lightly loaded and with very small shot. I had
plenty of time, however, to take deliberate aim, and the bird
came down uttering most piercing shrieks. At the sound
of his cry four or five scissor-tailed birds, which I had not
noticed before, came out to join in the hubbub, and from the
noise they made I assumed that they were rejoicing over
the death of an old enemy. My boys called this bird ‘ Koko-
taka,’ but Meyer (46) says that the native name is ‘ Tjetje.’
Three kinds of swifts are very common in Talisse—two
of the birds which build the edible nests (the Collocallia
esculenta and fusca), and a larger bird with very long
wings, the Macropteryx Wallacei. They may frequently be
seen perching on the trees of the mangrove swamps or
skimming over the waves of the sea in search of food. The
two Collocallias build their nests in the almost inacces-
sible caves of the sea-shore, as described in a previous
chapter, but I searched in vain, both in Talisse and else-
where, for the nests of the Macropteryx. The native name
for the Macropteryx is ‘ Pavas.’
The Corvus enca is a crow very commonly seen in
the coco-nut plantations. In size, shape, and cry it very
closely resembles our English crow. But the Celebean
bird seems to be rather smaller than those from Java,
Sumatra, and Borneo (24). The native name for it is
‘ Woka-woka.’
A shrike called by the natives ‘Burong maspas,’ or
‘Kukt inewahat’ (24), and the handsome black drongo-
shrike or scissor-tailed bird, Chibia leucops, or ‘ Burong
92 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. V
gunting,’ are as common as the blackbirds and thrushes of
our English woods. The latter is a very handsome jet black
bird, with two long tails which open and shut during flight
like a pair of scissors in action.
There is a starling, too (Calornis neglecta), frequently
seen in thousands upon the dead trees of the forest. It is
of a uniformly dark colour, with a brilliant orange-red iris.
The native name is ‘Sié.’ It is but rarely seen in the
forests and fields of the main island, but is nevertheless
quite the commonest bird met with throughout the islands
which lie between Celebes and the Philippines. I found it
in numbers in Tagulandang, Siauw, Sangir, Talaut islands,
and the Nanusa islands.!
A beautiful golden oriole (Oriolus celebensis), reminding
one of the English bird, is occasionally seen. It is called
the yellow bird, ‘ Burong kuning,’ by the natives.
The smallest and at the same time the most domesti-
cated of the birds of Talisse are the beautiful little nectar-
birds (the Anthothreptes celebensis), called by the natives
‘Burong chuwi.’ They may be seen upon nearly every
hibiscus shrub in the gardens behind my hut, and seem
to be always so busy searching for insects upon the
leaves and flower stalks that they hardly know what it is
to be shy. The male has a most brilliant little head of
green and pink and brilliant metallic colours; the throat
is dull brick red, the breast pale yellow, and the back
covered with a bright violet and green metallic gloss.
Every specimen is a perfect little bird gem. The female
chuwi is not nearly so brilliant, the back and breast being of
a rusty pink and the wings of a dull golden green colour.
There were several kinds of pigeons, the commonest
and at the same time the most conspicuous being the
1 The variety of this bird found in these islands is regarded by some
ornithologists as a separate species (67).
cH. V FAUNA OF TALISSE 93
large fruit-eating bronze wing (Carpophaga paulina). The
breast is of a creamy pink colour, and the wings dark
green, with a very well marked reddish-copper gloss. Its
native name is ‘ Kum-kum,’ which approximately describes
in words its deep musical cooing song, which is not unlike
that of our common wood-pigeons. I usually found them
in pairs, perched on some of the highest branches of
the trees, and many an anxious moment have I spent,
when my cupboard was bare, waiting to see if my fowling-
piece would be effective at such a distance. The feelings
of a hungry naturalist when he sees a really edible bird
calmly waiting for the next shot are better imagined than
described.
The grey pigeon, ‘ Kum-kum putih’ (lyristicivora luc-
tuosa), is not very common in Talisse, although it abounds
in the neighbouring islands. Biarro 1.
851 is)
930 Banka Passage
Tolissell, o° poral.
e\)BankaI.
Phys, © Strait of Banka. 4
4
\ Gamako:
SY qmayo
S P¥Talabu
qlifor:
; a Hier'ils .
f Fernatel./, Dodiogadl
125 Longitude East 126 of Greenwich . : 127 ;
Iondon ; John Murray, Albemarle Street. .
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT’ 157
that the Malay hunters are almost as ignorant of these
things as our European authorities.
We must accuse the baboons and snakes of being the
chief cause of our want of knowledge, for they are able to
carry on their predatory habits in all the nooks and crannies
of the branches of lofty trees which are inaccessible to human
beings, and consequently the birds are compelled for self-
preservation to hide their nests and their precious contents
in some of the secret places of the forests free from the visits
of unwelcome visitors, and at present beyond our ken.
As a bird’s-nesting expedition, however, my visit to the
island was a failure; but there were many things in the
dense jungle covering the island which I am sure would
have repaid further investigations had time and opportunity
‘permitted. The island is surrounded by a strand of white
coral débris, upon which is found, as usual, lumps of water-
worn organ-pipe coral, blue coral, shells and bits of drift
wood, and nuts of various kinds, but presented nothing
that was new or particularly interesting to me. For some
time our little party, consisting of the Dominie Wielandt,
the second mate of the ‘ Ternate,’ and a small party of
Malay sailors and attendants could find no entrance to the
thick jungle of vines and creepers which formed an en-
circling barrier round the forest, but at last Manuel found
a track leading to a small plantation of bananas in the
centre of the island. In many respects the jungle was
different from any that I had seen, for some heavy rains
had brought out in flower a number of the herbs and
creepers, and these again had attracted from their hiding
countless beautiful butterflies, diurnal moths, and other
insects, which in their turn kept a number of birds in a
state of agitation. Our advent into this wild island jungle
was not hailed then by the usual deadly silence of the
orests I had previously visited, but by a cloud of brilliant
158 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
flies, moths, beetles, by the shrieks and screams of the parrots,
starlings, and scissor-tailed birds.
If I had only had with me a few companions willing to
devote themselves to the collection of different specimens,
we should have made a magnificent collection of new and
interesting animals, but the interest of the party was nearly
the whole time concentrated upon the efforts of the Dominie
to bring down with his needle-gun one of the three or
four large ospreys that were soaring above our heads, and
even when he had succeeded, and presented me with the
mangled remains of the bird I had often wished for, T had
the greatest difficulty in stimulating the ornithological
enthusiasm of Manuel to a proper pitch.
The most interesting bird I obtained upon this little
island was a fine specimen of the handsome parrot,
Tanygnathus megalorhynchus. It is not uncommon in the
Talaut and Sangir Islands, but, like its little ally the Hos
indica, is almost unknown in Celebes. Meyer (46) says that
he obtained one specimen on the little island Mantehage,
near Manado, but other ornithologists have failed to obtain
any specimens from Celebes at all. It has a fairly wide geo-
graphical distribution extending as far south as New Guinea.
It is an interesting fact that the wing-coverts gradually
change from a deep green colour to a brilliant metallic blue
as we approach the southernmost limit of the species. The
specimens I obtained have quite green covert feathers, and
those from New Guinea, in the Leiden Museum, are blue.
Intermediate varieties of these two colours are found in the
islands which lie between these two extremes.
On the following day I visited the smaller Saha island,
but found fewer birds and butterflies there than on the larger
one. The woods were very damp, and there were many
screw pines, mangroves, and other marsh trees, but, per-
haps owing to the greater scarcity of birds, a great many
helices and other land and swamp molluska were found.
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 159
On Thursday, the 29th, we left our anchorage at Lirung
and steamed towards the Nanusa Archipelago. On our way
we brought to off the village Pulutan, and sent a boat ashore
to fetch the rajah. He came on board, accompanied by three
or four of his principal officers, and conversed for some time
with the Resident of Manado through an interpreter.
The rajah spoke in Talautese, and his remarks were
translated into Malay by the ‘ capitain laut’ of Lirung, whom
the Resident had brought with him to act as interpreter.
The languages spoken in the Talaut islands are, accord-
ing to the best authorities, closely allied to the language
spoken in Great Sangir.
The Rajah of Pulutan and his people were miserable-
looking, half-starved individuals, and were all bent half
double with awe or fright as they approached the Resident.
They seemed to be more comfortable when they were
squatting in a row on the deck, and supporting one another
shoulder to shoulder, like a group of monkeys. The rajah’s
hair was long, black, and rather crimped, and his head was
covered with a dirty cloth fashioned like a turban, which
he removed when he came on board. He was clothed in a
loose-hanging garment of native manufacture, and judging
from his appearance must have had very little contact, at
any time, with Europeans or European manufactures.
Steaming along the coast of Karkelang all that after-
noon we crossed to the Nanusa islands before sunset, and
came to anchor in twelve fathoms at six o'clock off the little
village of Karaton.
It was too dark for me to go ashore that evening, but I
had an interesting anthropological study in a group of
natives who came aboard in a large canoe, loaded up
to the water-line. Some fifteen or sixteen of them came
on to the deck, and immediately squatted down on their
heels, while the others swarmed up the hatchway, and
160 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
tried to get a glimpse of those on deck. Nobody seemed
to take any notice of them, and they seemed to take no
notice of anybody; they asked no questions, made no com-
plaints, uttered only a few whispered words to one another,
and, in fact, seemed to me as if their purpose in coming
aboard was to be seen rather than to see. The quiet, in-
offensive, phlegmatic character of the Malay seemed
exemplified in these poor miserable inhabitants of the
remote islands. They must be fatalists to the backbone
to show so little curiosity in a fine modern steamship,
which had nominally come to save them from sickness and
starvation. Early the next morning I went ashore with the
Resident and other officials to inspect the village. It is only
a few paces from the shore, but is completely hidden by a
grove of dense forest trees, amongst which I noticed some fine
specimens of the famous waringin (Urostigma benjanvineum),
with its long pendulous aérial roots.
There were eight large houses built to enclose a consider-
able oblong quadrangle, and the whole was surrounded by
a low concrete wall. Hach house accommodated several
families, and I was told that in some cases as many as five
hundred individuals were crowded into one of these dwellings.
They were built upon wooden piles, many of them seven
feet above the level of the ground, and the refuse of the
kitchen and all manner of filth had accumulated for years
beneath each house so as to diffuse a stench which is beyond
my powers of description. Had the village been visited
by a sanitary inspector with the necessary powers instead
of by a Resident without, there can be no doubt of the first
step he would have taken to restore the village to a fairly
sanitary condition. It is useless to recommend such people
to remove their rubbish; their spirit of conservatism is so
strong that they look upon their refuse accumulations as
they would upon any other relics of a departed generation,
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 161
and would as soon remove the bones of their ancestors as
the débris they left behind them.
Our entrance into the village caused no little interest
and excitement, and we were followed about wherever we
went by a crowd of half-naked men and boys. The women,
of whom we saw very little, wore only a sarong folded round
the waist—no bracelets, necklaces, or hairpins of any
description. Their long dirty black hair was simply tied
in a knot on the top of the head. They all ran into the
Fic. 18.—Large house in Karaton.
houses as we approached the village, and all we could see of
them afterwards was a row of their uncomely heads watch-
ing us over the balustrades, or peeping at us through the
chinks in the walls.
After some little delay we were invited into the house
of a miserable shrivelled-up old man, clad in a long cloak of
the native koffo cloth of the simplest ‘ cut,’ who, I believe,
was the chief of the village.
The house was dirty, dark, and of evil odour, and the
crowd of men and boys who followed us in made it rather
Mu
162 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH, VII
difficult for me to see as much asI should have wished.
The house was approached by a ladder of some nine or ten
steps, and was divided into a number of compartments by
|
Fic. 19.—Tampat Got.
a series of wooden partitions, the one at the top of the
ladder being probably the largest, and serving as a common
room or entrance hall. When we entered, the chief sat
down on the floor in front of one of the principal pillars
CH. Vil TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 163
which supports the roof, and the djugugus, capitains laut,
and other officers stood around him facing us.
Suspended to a rafter above our heads, I noticed a
number of little painted canoes hung with the torn leaves
of coco-nut palms, and in the middle of them was a pyra-
midal cage made of short wooden sticks like a European
boy’s birdtrap, covered with the spathes of the banana
flowers, and decorated with coco-nut leaves like the canoes.
The canoes are undoubtedly for the spirits of sickness,
and I believe, although I could obtain no information on
this point, that the ‘tampat Got,’ or god-cage, as Manuel
always called it, was a temple for the protecting spirit
—corresponding with the Empung rengarengan of the
Alfars of Minahassa—of the house. The use of the fetich
canoes may be explained in this way. The natives of
Nanusa, and, in fact, of most of these regions, believe that
when a man is ill his own spirit is released from his body
and is replaced by the Sakit, or spirit of sickness. In
accordance with this view, their cures consist of various
attempts to call the spirit of the patient back again into his
body and to drive out the Sakit. The obvious means of
preventing sickness, then, is to provide some resting-place
for the Sakit in their houses which is more attractive to him
than the body of man. Being islanders and spending the
greater part of their lives upon the water, these simple
people naturally suppose that the spirits, both good and evil,
are mariners, and consequently will be more attracted by a
handsome and gorgeous canoe than by anything else.
I was very anxious to obtain these canoes and the god-
cage for our museums in England, and consequently the
first business I had to transact in this house was an
attempt to barter some Manchester sheetings for them.
One of the lads in the house who could talk a little Malay
tried to persuade me that they were very poor things after
M2
164 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
all, and produced an old and very dirty model of an ancient
Spanish whaler, which he said was very beautiful and could
be sold. I bought this as a preliminary to further negotia-
tions, for it was of very little interest to me compared with
Fic. 20.—Sakit canoe.
the other more valuable canoes hanging from the rafter.
Subsequently I was successful in purchasing, for many
yards of cloth, the god-cage and all the fetish praus, and
immediately gave them to my boy to be carried back to the
‘Ternate.’ I hope sincerely that our visit to Karaton was
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 165
not followed by a severe epidemic, because if it had been, I
am sure these poor people must have called down upon
my head all manner of curses for having robbed them of,
or rather bought from them, their most potent preventive
medicines.
As soon as I had finished negotiations about the canoes
I wished to penetrate into the other compartments in search
of an altar, which I was told was to be found somewhere in
the house; but as I was warned that I should frighten the
women, who were there in great numbers watching our
movements through the chinks in the walls and over the
partitions, and that I should seriously displease the rajah if
I went any further, I was persuaded not to, and thus I left
this interesting but extremely dirty house with only a view
of the entrance hall.
Before the boat came to take us off, I had an opportunity
of examining the coast-line for a few minutes, and was
surprised to find a great reef of hard coral limestone just
below high-water mark. I had had suspicions in Lirung
that the Talaut islands have been slightly elevated, from
the wide marshy plains raised a few feet above the sea-level
which extend from the hill slopes to the seashore, and that
they could not have been formed in the same way as the
shore plains of Talisse and the north of Celebes, as there
is no vigorous coral reef nor mangrove swamps.
This reef, then, of old coral limestone, raised about
some eight or nine feet above the level of coral growth,
was of great interest to me, as it confirmed the view I had
tentatively held that the Talaut islands are being, or
perhaps I ought to say have been, slowly elevated. Ishould
not like to assert that the Sangir islands and the northern
portions of Celebes are not also being slowly elevated, as is
very commonly the case in volcanic regions, but so far as I
am aware we have no conclusive proof of it, and for many
166 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
reasons I am inclined to believe that those lands have for
several years, at least, been in a state of rest.
The same afternoon we weighed anchor and returned to
Lirung.
Of the seven islands in the Nanusa Archipelago only
Karaton, Mengampit, and Ourata are inhabited; and, as
it is said that there is no other anchorage in the archipelago,
Karaton is probably the only island that has ever been
visited by Europeans.
Karaton is a flat island with a hill about 200 feet high
on the north side.
Mengampit is a conicalisland, very probably an extinct
volcano, and its highest point is 800 feet above the sea-
level. Mengnupu is low and covered with forest. The
legendary story of Mengampit is as follows :—
In olden times there were two bees on the island
Mahampi,? of which one was a male and the other a female.
The female bee conceived and brought forth a human female
child, who was called Ansalina. Not far off there was an
island called Pulu Pate, inhabited by a man named
Bidadarie, who fell in love with Ansalina, and eventually
became her husband. From the children of Ansalina and
Bidadarie all the people of Nanusa trace their descent.
The principal deity of the Nanusa islanders is called
Alaoruru, and two minor gods are called Ada and Tewah.
The first seems to indicate a Mahomedan influence, and
the last two names so closely resemble the Judaic Adam
and Eve that we cannot help suspecting the influence of
the old Spanish Catholic priest. In a later chapter I shall
point out that similar names are found in the mythology
of the Alfars of Minahassa. The people also believe in a
devil and witches. When a woman is discovered to bea
° This legend was obtained for me by the Resident of Manado. Mahampi
is another way of spelling Mengampit.
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 167
witch she is buried alive. Circumcision is practised in the
Nanusa Archipelago. At the age of twelve the boys are taken
into the bush by their father and a friend, and the opera-
tion performed there. It is not the occasion for any feasts.
Some of the men are tatooed on the breasts and the
women on the hands, the commonest figure being a cross
with the lines crossed, +.
When a man marries in Nanusa he leaves his own
village, or the house of his parents, and goes to live in the
house of his wife’s parents. There seems to be no law of
exogamy—that is to say, a man is allowed to marry a woman
of his own tribe. Polygamy is infrequent amongst the
best people.
We only stayed one night at anchor in Lirung, and then
sailed for Mangarang in Kabrukan. Mangarang is one of the
largest villages in the Talaut islands, and is famous for the
large sailing canoes (sopis) built there. There is no safe
anchorage known near this village, so that the captain
of the ‘Ternate’ simply laid to and put us off in a boat.
We walked through the long straggling village, and came
at last to the house of a German missionary of the name
of Gunther. His house is prettily situated at the foot of
a small hill, and commands a good view of a fine avenue
of trees which runs through that part of the village. He
did not seem to be quite satisfied with the condition of
affairs, and complained bitterly of the unhealthiness of the
climate and the irreligion of the natives.
The people seemed to me to be clean and their houses
tolerably well kept, and I should have thought that a
capable missionary would have made some impression upon
them. It is true they were not well clothed, and were not:
particularly diligent in their attendance at the services
held in the little wooden church, but these qualities depend
more upon the minister than upon the natives. They will
168 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. vir
not spontaneously clothe themselves and go to church on
the appearance of a missionary in their midst. They must
be taught to do these things. Mr. Gunther was married
to a native wife, and I believe that, to a very great extent,
his want of success was due to this. There can be no
doubt that the native does not have so much respect for a
European who is related to him by marriage as for one who
successfully resists the charms of the native beauties.
It was evident that Mangarang had not suffered as we
had in Talisse for want of rain, for the long grass was quite
green and there was an abundance of flowering herbs and
shrubs in the avenues of coco-nut palms, pala trees (Myris-
tica), nangka trees (Artocarpus), and waringins. There were
simply thousands of large convolvulus and hibiscus flowers
on all sides, and in some places the ground was covered
with the yellow flowers of a species of water-melon called
sambiki by the Malays. As a botanist my opportunities
there were immense, but then my zeal as a zoologist was
also excited by the hundreds of brilliant butterflies and
moths that were visiting the flowers, and the slugs and
snails that were enjoying their herbaceous repast in the
warm damp vegetation. I believe I did right in devoting
the short space of time at my disposal to the zoological
world, for the shore plants of these small islands are
usually the same throughout a given area, and the botanist
is very seldom rewarded with anything new or very rare
unless he journeys to the mountains and hills of the interior.
Insects and land mollusca, on the other hand, often manage
to exist in remote islands, which would immediately or
rapidly succumb in the struggle for existence in larger
islands or continental lands.
My great prize in Mangarang was a large clumsy
brown butterfly (Liphyra brassolis) with a thick heavy body
like a moth. Professor Westwood informs me that some
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 169
entomologists have mistaken it for a moth, but that my
specimen proves beyond doubt that it is a true butterfly,
and that its nearest allies, curiously enough, are the little
‘blues.’ We left Mangarang the same day, and a few hours
afterwards arrived at Béo. Here the ‘ capitain laut’ came
on board, and told us a terrible story of sickness and
death. Out of a population of nearly nine thousand in
the neighbourhood no fewer than three thousand had
died within the space of a few months. The rajah was
dead ; the president rajah, the djugugu, the father, mother,
and the brothers and sisters of the capitain laut were all
dead; and the village was still stricken with severe sickness.
I went ashore with the Resident and Controleur to
inspect the village, and to see if anything could be done to
relieve the suffering people.
We first visited an old German missionary named
Richter, who had spent the greater part of his life in that
remote and fever-stricken mission. He expressed no par-
ticular wish to leave his exile even for a time, nor any
desire to revisit his fatherland and civilisation, but seemed
quite content to live the remainder of his life and to die on
the scene of his lifelong labours. Poor man, his visit from
us was destined to be the last he received from any white
man; for a few weeks or months after we left the news
arrived that he had fallen a victim to the fever in Béo.
The walk through the village and the glimpses I caught
of the people were perhaps as depressing as anything I had
experienced in the Hast Indies. The numerous deserted
and tumble-down huts, the long rank vegetation even in
the principal paths of the village, and the still heavy
pestilential atmosphere seemed to whisper death and dis-
ease at every step; and the lean gaunt figures of the men
and women, with their painfully slow and weary move-
ments, told only too eloquently the story of their sufferings,
170 A NATURALIST IN CHLEBES CH, VIL
But I should be sorry to accuse the climate of Talaut of
being exceptionally bad, without first of all trying the effect
of a few simple sanitary experiments. If a strong native
government could insist upon a general destruction of all
those huge foliaceous trees which retain the heavy moisture
and prevent the free play of the sea-breezes, and a general
clearance of the long rank vegetation which chokes the
paths through the village and of the accumulated filth and
rubbish beneath the huts, I believe that Béo might become
as healthy a spot as any in the archipelago. There are no
vast pestilential mangrove swamps in the neighbourhood,
there are no stagnant ponds nor slow-flowing rivers to keep
the district damp and fever-stricken, but there are cool
breezes every evening from the hill ranges, and refreshing
winds from the sea-coast to clear the country of evil
vapours. It is, I believe, the indolence and filthy habits
of man alone which cause the frightful calamities in these
remote districts, and I believe that a few simple lessons in
sanitary conditions would do far more good than thousands
of war-ships bringing quinine and other medicines.
The Dutch Government has established elementary
schools throughout the colonies under their direct control,
and even in Béo I saw signs of an attempt on the part
of a native teacher to impart an elementary education.
Would it not be possible for the Government to instruct
these teachers in the first principles of sanitary science, and
give them powers to carry their principles into practice?
We went from hut to hutin this dreary village, hearing the
same story of sickness and death until we were heartily
tired of it, and felt quite relieved when we were once more
on the way back to the ‘ Ternate.’
In one house we entered we found a woman sitting on
a mat in the middle of the floor with a crowd of her rela-
tives and friends around her. We were told that people
CH. VIL TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 171
came from long distances in Talaut to see this woman, and I
fancy that she supposed that she had been the main object of
our visit to Béo. She was an emaciated old woman who
had suffered severely from fever afew weeks previously, but
seemed quite pleased to receive her distinguished visitors.
Fic. 21.—Wooden spears from Fic. 22.—Wooden shield from
Béo. Béo.
She exhibited the curious and interesting abnormality of
two functional nipples on each of her breasts. I tried to
find out if there was a history of the same abnormality in
her family, and she told me that her grandfather had had
four and the child of one of her sisters four also, but could
think of no other instances.
172 A NATURALIST IN CHLEBES CH. VII
In passing through the village I noticed in one of the
huts some curious spears and shields entirely made of wood.
The spears are about seven feet long, and made of some
hard wood with a piece of bamboo cut in a wedge-shaped
fashion to a sharp point lashed on the end by a piece of
rattan ; the shield is about five feet long by one broad, and
is composed of three pieces sewn together by coarse stitches
of rattan, a middle piece with a large central boss and
two wings. These are to the present day the principal
weapons used by the natives of the Talaut islands both for
warfare and the chase. The Talautese are, in fact, living
in what might be called a ‘ wooden age.’ All their imple-
ments, weapons, utensils, and tools are made of wood and
leaves, and they are destined to remain in that condition
until the advent of civilised man : for in those islands, built
up in the sea by volcanic and coral action, there are no
stones that could be fashioned to form knives and no iron
and no copper. It will not be possible for them to pass
through a stone age, a bronze age, an iron age, as our own
savage ancestors have done; they must wait until circum-
stances allow them to pass directly from the wooden to the
civilised condition.
Before I left one of the men showed me the way they
procure fire in those parts. He took a piece of bamboo and
split it in two pieces, and then cut a small slit-shaped hole
in the middle of one of them. Placing this one on the
ground with the concave side downwards, he rubbed the edge
of the other one over the hole with a jerky sawing motion
until a considerable quantity of smoke appeared. Rapidly
removing the piece of bamboo from the ground, he fanned
the little heap of smoking sawdust that had been formed
with the other bamboo stick, and in a very few minutes the
heap began to smoulder and burst into flame.
The whole process was done so quickly and so simply
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 173
that when I had secured the sticks I thought I had also
secured the method, but I soon found out my mistake, and
notwithstanding long and diligent practice with those two
bamboo sticks, I have never yet succeeded in producing a
spark by rubbing them together.
By the time we had finished our inspection of Béo the
sun was sinking on to the horizon, and as we rowed back
to the ‘ Ternate’ the whole sea and sky was illumined by
one of those brilliant rosy-red sunsets so frequently seen in
tropical lands. The long coast-line of Karkelang and its
undulating plains and hill ranges were lighted up by the
brilliant colours of the sunset. The whole scene was as
gorgeous and beautiful as could be well imagined, and
everything seemed to speak of peace, of quietness and
beauty. It was hard to believe we were leaving a district
haunted with deadly miasmas, and that the elements were
shedding a pall of colour and beauty, as it were, over a
scene of human suffering and death but rarely paralleled
even in these fever-stricken climes.
We left Béo at about half-past six in the evening of
Saturday, November 21, and steamed half-speed all night
towards Great Sangir. At daylight the next morning we
were close to the northern shore of that island, and in sight
of the great Awu volcano, whose slopes are broken up by
magnificent ravines and gorges. This volcano has been,
perhaps, more destructive than any in the Moluccas. We
have records of a most terrible eruption which lasted from
December 10 to December 16 in the year1711. Sjamsialam
and his son, the Princess Lorolabo and her daughter Sara-
banong, and over two thousand people of the kingdom of
Kandahar were killed (42).
On March 2, 1856, there was another fearful eruption,
which lasted until March 17, and nearly three thousand
human lives were lost (14). The streams of boiling water
174 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
and of steam, which poured down the mountain slopes,
rather than the flow of lava, caused the enormous mortality
of this second eruption. After the eruption of 1711 it
seems that a large lake of water was formed in the crater,
and a certain privileged class of Sangirese were allowed by
the gods to visit this lake every three or four months to
test the water with their rice. If the water was hot enough
to cook their rice, they took it for a sign that an eruption
would shortly follow. The eruption came in 1856. The
waters of the lake began to boil, burst their banks, and
flowed down the side of the mountain towards Tabukan
and Taruna, causing immense destruction of human lives
and property.
As we were passing Kandahar, we noticed a large prau
coming out towards us, flying the Dutch flag, so we stopped
to allow the rajah who was in her to come on board. He
wore a curious cap, in shape not unlike a ‘ glengarry,’ made
of black cloth, and he carried a beautiful blue umbrella.
His business did not seem to be very urgent or important,
so we soon left him behind in his big canoe and continued
on our way to Taruna, which we reached shortly after mid-
day. Taruna may be said to be the capital of Great Sangir,
for not only is it the seat of one of the most powerful rajahs
of the island, but it is also the headquarters of the Con-
troleur of the Sangir and Talaut islands, and the port of call
for the steamers of the Ned. Ind. Stoomvaart Maatschappij.
A considerable trade is carried on by a few Chinese merchants,
who barter European cloths and other articles for copra
and other native products.
Sangir may be considered to be the home of the coco-
nut in these parts. All along the shores of the islands the
traveller sees rows and rows of these handsome palms, and
on entering the Bay of Taruna the hills and shores seem to
be almost destitute of any other trees. The natives are fully
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 175
aware by this time of their commercial value, and in every
Sangirese village the traveller notices and his nostrils are
offended by the stench of the copra, the white fleshy part of
the nut, which is laid out in rows in the sun to dry.
From the abundance of this palm in some lands, and
the fact that it requires absolutely no care in its cultivation
after the first few years of its growth, it is quite easy to
understand how the European sailor in olden times looked
upon it as a forest tree, the property of the first comer, and
had in consequence no compunction in cutting it down for
his own use and enjoyment. I believe that if we could
trace the cause of all the many troubles that our sailors
have had with the natives in tropical lands, we should find
that one of the commonest of them is the destruction of
the coco-nut trees, followed by the natural resentment of the
‘extremely savage’ owner. It should be taken as a maxim
by the traveller that every coco-nut palm he sees in the
tropics belongs to some one, and that he is committing a
theft if he steals the fruit thereof.
It might well be asked, how does the owner of coco-nut
palms protect his property from native thieves? There
can be no doubt that anything of the nature of police
regulations would be absolutely useless, and consequently
society has discovered a method which is both more effec-
tive and less expensive. The native owner simply hangs
up in the tree a little fetich doll (urd), which I suppose has
previously been properly endowed with power by the walian,
or priest, and then anyone who steals a fruit from that tree
becomes immediately afterwards violently ill. This method
is found by experience to answer extremely well, and pro-
perty in the wild forests and desolate sea-coasts of Sangir is
probably as well protected as it is anywhere in the world.
It may be said that this is simply gross superstition,
and that we should pity the poor native for his ignorance,
176 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
but I have no pity for a man who is superstitious where the
superstition is his protection. In our more highly organised
European communities we can afford to dispense with such
primitive ideas, and even to dis-
courage them as mischievous,
but among savage races these
superstitions are essential fea-
tures of their social system, and
their sudden abolition without
anything to replace them might
lead to endless mischief in their
communities.
A little while after we came
to anchor I went ashore with
the Resident of Manado, the
Dominie, and Controleur. After
a considerable walk along a nar-
row path in a field of allang-
allang grass (Imperata arundi-
Fic. 23.—Uri, a coco-nut fetich sees aaa aa
from Sangir. sopogon), and glaga (Phragmi-
tas), we came to a nice broad
road lined by groves of coco-nut palms leading to the
village. We passed the house of the rajah, which was
decorated with festoons of palm leaves, and protected
by four sentries, each of whom wore curious grass hats,
shaped like an old-fashioned ‘ chimney-pot’ with a tuft of
chicken’s feathers stuck jauntily on one side of it, and armed
with wooden spears and curious little wooden shields; and
then we came to the church, a large substantial building
of coral concrete, well seated and well lighted. The village
was tolerably tidy and clean, but did not present the same
signs of progress and prosperity that I have seen in other
Sangirese villages.
The next morning the Dominie Wielandt and I left the
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 177
‘Ternate’ for Manganitu in a small boat. We had not got
out of the bay before we met five large praus filled with
men beating drums and making a ter-
rible noise. We hailed the largest of
them and spoke to the rajah of Man-
ganitu, who was on board. He told us
that Mr. Steller, the German missionary,
was at home, and that we could stay
in the village until the arrival of the
* Ternate.’
It took us three hours to row to
Manganitu, but as it was not oppres-
sively hot at that early hour in the
morning, we could thoroughly enjoy and
appreciate the lovely coast scenery as
we passed along, or gaze with wonder
and admiration on the displays of colour aa ena ”
of the numerous sea-gardens on the This shicldis only 21 in long.
sea-bottom. with split palm leaves.
Manganitu is, like Taruna, situated at the end of a deep
bay, but it does not, unfortunately, possess the same natural
advantages as a port, for the bay is much
more open and exposed to westerly gales,
and a great barrier of coral reef prevents
any approach to the village nearer than
six cables.
The tide being nearly high when we
reached our destination, we were able to Fic. 25.—Hat of
force our little boat through the opening in SP On Hee
the reef made by a stream of water which runs through the
village, and thus gain the shore without wetting our feet.
The village of Manganitu is very pleasantly situatep
at the foot of the range of hills which forms the backbone
of the island of Great Sangir, and the wide roads and well-
N
178 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
kept compounds round the houses give it a very neat and
tidy appearance. There are very few large trees actually
in the village, and this, I believe, accounts for its remark-
able salubrity compared with many of the other villages in
the island.
As soon as we had landed we were conducted to the
house of Mr. Steller, the missionary, a very pleasant and
picturesque little home at the head of the village. Beds
were provided for us at the house of the rajah, and we
were invited to take our meals during our stay with Mr.
Steller’s family. I can never forget the kindness and hos-
pitality of these good people, and perhaps the two days I
spent at Manganitu were the most enjoyable and interesting
of the whole cruise. I had often felt dissatisfied in other
places with the results of missionary work —I thought that
the benefits that accrued to the natives were hardly worth
the expense and sacrifice incurred; but in Manganitu I
began to feel differently about it, for Mr. Steller’s beneficial
influence upon the people was to be seen on every hand,
and the practical value of his teaching was to be observed
in every corner of the village.
A missionary such as Mr. Steller, who teaches the use
of some of the simpler arts of the civilised races, and by
cultivating the soil himself brings home to the native mind
the practical value of the land he lives upon, undoubtedly
increases the happiness and prosperity of the people.
The missionary who merely indulges in evangelical dreams,
and devotes himself only to the destruction of practices
and beliefs which he classifies as ‘pagan,’ is to my mind
worse than useless.
After we had partaken of some lunch we were introduced
to the tuan bohki, the rajah’s wife, and she took us to her
house to see the room that had been prepared for us.
The house wasa very large one, and consisted of a large
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 179
central hall or reception room, as it might be called, and a
number of little partitions or retiring rooms opening from
it. One of these was reserved for the Dominie Wielandt
and me, but as it was thought to be inconsistent with
European customs for two gentlemen to sleep in one room,
a large curtain was hung across it between the two beds, so
as to give each of us a separate compartment.
The whole house was hung with an amazing quantity
of the native koffo curtains, giving it the appearance of a
small ethnological museum.
These curtains are made from the fibre of the wild
banana,’ which is found in considerable abundance in the
Sangirese forests. The Malays call the cloth they make
from it ‘ koffo,’ a word which has been imported from the
Philippines. The tuan bohki explained to me the way in
which the cloth was woven, and I thought at the time that
I fully understood it, but in trying to repeat the explanation
on a loom I obtained from Sangir I broke down, and the
process still remains a mysteryto me. Some of the threads
are used quite plain, but others are coloured to form a
pattern. The colours used are blue, red, yellow, and black.
The blue colour is obtained from the Indigofera tinctoria,
the red colour is obtained from the roots of a plant called
by the natives seha, the black colour from the bark of trees
called palenti* and from the flowers of the hibiscus, the
yellow colour from the Curcuma longa.
The loom is apparently of the same construction as that
used in the Philippine islands.
In front of the house there was a roomy verandah
3 Musa mindanensis, the pisang utan of the Malays. It has not a very
wide geographical distribution, but extends from the Philippines to Gilolo and
Celebes. The Sangirese word for Musa mindanensis is horti; for the koffo
dorundung.
4 The native boy who accompanied me into the country could not show
me a seha tree nor a palenti, so that I am unable to identify them.
Nn 2
180 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
situated on the ground. It was furnished with two large
tables, upon which the tuan bohki had placed some vases
containing beautiful bouquets of wild flowers, and a number
of chairs of European design.
In a corner of the verandah stood a sentry, or djaga,
Fic. 26.—Notched sticks for keeping time in Manganitu.
The numbers read from right to aaa es oe in the illustration is between
whose business it was to keep the time for the village. The
way in which the time is kept is as follows: Two beer
bottles are firmly lashed together, mouth to mouth, and
fixed in a wooden frame, which is made to stand upright in
two positions. A quantity of black voleanic sand runs
from one bottle into the other in just half an hour, and
when the upper bottle is empty the frame is reversed.
CH. VII TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 181
Twelve short sticks are hung upon a string, marked
with notches from one to twelve, and a hook is placed
between the stick bearing the number of notches corre-
sponding to the hour which was last struck and the next
one. The hours are struck by the djaga on a large
gong.
Unfortunately my watch had stopped, so that I was
unable to test the accuracy of this primitive sand-glass, but
Mr. Steller told me that it kept very good time.
When we returned to bed that evening, after spending
the day with the Stellers, we found the rajah and his wife
waiting to receive us. The house was lighted by ordinary
paraffin lamps, and the numerous attendants and retainers
of the court who had retired to rest were lying asleep all
over the floor of the entrance hall. We picked our way to
our compartment over the prostrate sleeping forms, and
to the music of the concerted snores of some hundred
people we soon fell asleep.
The following morning, after a delicious bath in the cool
stream behind the mission house, I started off, in a canoe lent
to me for the purpose by Mr. Steller, for an inspection of the
coral reef. After dragging the canoe over the sandbanks
at the mouth of the river, I skirted along the reef until
I came to a spot where a number of women were collecting
shellfish, and then I ran the canoe on to the reef and got
out. Although the reefs are very much the same as they
are in some places on the coast of Talisse, I found a few
things which were new to me. The chief peculiarity was
an extraordinary number of brittle stars, some of them
ornamented with the most brilliant colours. I remember
one in particular, with its arms striped with broad green and
yellow bands, the dise being marked with spots and streaks
of the same colours.
For the first time I found on this reef one of those
182 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
chitons whose shells are provided with a number of small
eye-spots (Chiton incisus). As these eyes had never been ob-
served before in the living animal, and some conchologists
were formerly sceptical about their optical nature, I examined
these brilliant little spots with great care andinterest. The
surfaces of the lenses only are visible without dissection, but
they are very clear and transparent, and although I could
not detect any rosy (or other) colour in the spots which
disappeared after death, I am nevertheless perfectly con-
vinced from Moseley’s anatomical investigations that they
are really true eyes (50).
After working some two hours on the reefs in the
excessive heat of the mid-day, I was glad to return to the
village to dinner. In the afternoon, a boy, who, I suppose,
had seen me or heard that I was collecting things on the
reefs, brought me a couple of Lingulas. Lingula is a bra-
chiopod, and one of the few animals which has been living in
this world almost unchanged since Cambrian times. I was
particularly anxious to see the animal alive in its native
habitat, but I never succeeded. The fact is that the natives
are very fond of it as an article of food, and although they
would bring me a few specimens now and then for my
collection, they were afraid to let me poach on their
preserves.
There can be little or no doubt that it lives near the
corals, and it would be really very remarkable if it could be
shown that this animal, which has come down to us from
such remote epochs, has been all the time an inhabitant
of the shallow tropical seas, where, perhaps, the struggle
for existence is keener than it is in any other area of the
globe.
The next morning after breakfast Mr. Steller placed a
horse at my disposal to take me to his garden in the moun-
tains.
CH. VIE TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 183
The glimpses I got of the country and the seashore
as we slowly toiled up the tortuous mountain path were
extremely beautiful; every view I obtained of the mountains
and valleys, or of the wide expanse of blue sea with its
little green islands, seemed more perfect than the last. At
one time we passed through a low bush and undergrowth, to
which the golden flowers and white bracts of the \Jussaenda
frondosa gave colour and variety; at another time we
plunged into a wood of lofty trees, where the banks of the
path were covered with a profusion of moss and ferns, and
at another we passed by wide fields of rice and maize or
groves of bananas.
At last we came to Mr. Steller’s garden, where a pretty
little house was being built for him. A stroll among the
young trees in the garden in search of birds and insects,
and after lunch a bath in a deliciously cool brook, brought
my visit to this delightful spot to a close, and it was with
great reluctance that I retraced my steps down the moun-
tain side towards Manganitu. The general aspect of the
country of Great Sangir is very similar to that of North
Celebes.
There is a bird in Great Sangir which the natives call
the ‘burong mas,’ or gold bird. I was told that it only
occurs in this island. I tried in vain to obtain a specimen
during my short stay in the island, but since my return
home I have, through the kindness of the Resident of
Manado, received a skin in a very fair state of preservation.
It turns out to be the Nicobar pigeon (Calenas nicobarica).
The only specimens of this handsome ground pigeon
found in Minahassa were, I believe, obtained by the late
Mr. van Musschenbroek, a former Resident of Manado. It
is, however, extremely rare on the main island. Several
specimens have been obtained by different naturalists in the
Sangir islands, where it is not so very rare. Mr. Wallace
184 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII
(83) has pointed out that this bird has very long powerful
wings in proportion to its body, and is consequently pecu-
larly fitted for island life. ‘Being a ground-feeder,’ he
says, ‘it is subject to the attacks of carnivorous quadrupeds
which are not found in the very small islands.’
Soon after I reached Manganitu the news arrived that
the ‘ Ternate’ was in sight, and in a few minutes the village
was in a state of unwonted excitement and commotion. The
rajah assembled all the able-bodied men about him, and
harangued them on the plans for the reception of the
Resident, and these in turn rushed about collecting guns
and drums and spears and shields and all manner of things
that would make a noise or appear decorative and pleasing
to their honoured guest. After waiting about for some
time on the sea-coast we saw a boat approaching us from
the ‘Ternate’ containing the Resident and Controleur of
Manado. They were received by the rajah and Mr. Steller
amid a fiendish noise from the guns and drums of the
villagers, and then we all passed in procession to the verandah
of the rajah’s house, where we sat in solemn conclave for
upwards of an hour.
Had a stranger suddenly appeared during that hour
he might have supposed that we were discussing affairs of
the most vital importance to the state. The Resident, the
Controleur, the Dominie, the rajah, president rajah, and
myself were seated round a long table, while the djugugus
and other officials stood at the opposite end of the
verandah, and the natives of all classes crowded round
gazing at us with deep interest and curiosity. It might
then readily have been supposed that matters of importance
for the welfare of the state were under discussion, but it was
not so. As far as I can remember the conversation, not a
word was said bearing upon the politics of the Sangir islands
from the beginning to the end of the visit, and the incident
CH. VIL TO SANGIR AND TALAUT 185
closed without reference to the burning questions of the
day in the little state of Manganitu. All these questions
I understood were discussed at the meeting of the rajahs
at Taruna, and this visit of the Resident to Manganitu was
purely a formal one.
Early the next morning we parted with our kind host
and rejoined the ‘ Ternate.’
We reached Ulu in Siauw the same day, and I went
ashore to visit the beautiful and famous spring at the head
of the village.
In the early history of the Sangir islands Siauw played
a very important part. The rajahs of the island have been
for centuries extremely powerful, owning considerable pro-
perty in Great Sangir and drawing levies of warriors and
ships from the distant Talaut and Nanusa islands. In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was the scene of several
conflicts between the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the native
rajahs. Soon after I landed I came across a large white stone
slab, bearing the monogram of the old Dutch East Indian
Company and a date which was only partially legible. The
figures 16 and half of the figure 8 were sufficient to indicate
that the year the stone commemorated was within the
1680-1690 decade, and ‘D. i. Janev’ indicated that the
day was New Year’s day.
Siauw was made over to the Dutch by the king of
Ternate in 1677, and it is probable that this stone was
placed there by the officers of the Company to commemorate
the event a few years afterwards.
Ulu was formerly the seat of a European missionary,
but for some years previous to my visit there had been no
European on the island, and the people had to a certain
extent degenerated in consequence. The village, however,
looked tolerably clean and respectable, and the delightful
bathing-place at the springs shadowed by glorious forest
186 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VII:
trees was evidently extensively used and enjoyed by the
people. The village was overrun with pigs, some of the
young ones being curiously striped with transverse bars of
gold and slate.
The great volcano was in a fairly active condition, the
crater sending up towards evening volumes of dense black
smoke which showered down a fine ashy dust over the
deck.
In the morning the rajah of Siauw come on board—a
fine handsome man, well dressed in black European clothes
and bearing the gold-knobbed cane of office. The Resident
seemed to be very angry with him about something I did
not understand, and J can well imagine that in dealing with
this proud and powerful monarch any official might feel
that his hands were full.
We left Siauw for Tagulandang the next morning, but
our stay there was very brief, as the only business we had
to do was to confirm the appointment of a new rajah, and to
fire a salute of seven guns in his honour. We steamed
away the same afternoon, and as the sun was setting that
evening we were once more at anchor off the little wooden
pier at Talisse.
cH. var CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 187
CHAPTER VIII
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SANGIR ISLANDS
Holy islands—The islands between Celebes and the Philippines— Facilities
for the distribution of animals—The avi-fauna—Legend of a former land
communication with Sangir—History of Sangir—The Sangirese race—
Slavery—Food—Diseases—Religions —Marriage customs—Funeral cus-
toms—Fishing implements— Weapons— Dress — Physiognomy — Lan-
guage.
Great Sane, situated between lat. 8° and 4°N., long.
143° E., is about twenty-five miles long, and in its broadest
part about fifteen miles across. It is exceedingly mountainous
throughout, the greatest height! being reached by the Awu
volcano in the north. The land is everywhere very fertile,
and where it is uncultivated is covered by luxuriant forest
growth.
Between Sangir and the Talaut group there are several
small islands, but their exact number and position has never
yet been very accurately recorded. Of these the Cabiu
islands are the largest, and their position is from one and a
half to two miles to the east of the northern extremity of
Sangir. One of these islands, called Cabiu lusu, is considered
by the natives to be holy, and they leave from time to time
goats and chickens on the island as offerings to the spirits
(79). The island is used by the natives as a refuge where
they can wait until the wind is favourable and weather
clear for their passages to Talaut, and this is perhaps the
original cause of the islands being considered sacred.
1 I can find no accurate determination of the height of this volcano, but
I should think it must be over 5,000 feet.
188 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VIII
Several of the small islands are recognised as holy
throughout the Eastern seas. There is an island called
Massape,? near Siauw, which has been considered sacred from
very ancient times. The natives not only bring their offer-
ings there to secure a favourable wind, fine weather, or other
seamen’s blessings, but even when they are ill or unlucky
they make a pilgrimage to Massape, and by offering a goat
or a few chickens to the presiding spirits they hope to
be speedily cured or to secure better luck.
The islands Mandako ? and Mahangetang, lying between
Great Sangir and Siauw, are also looked upon as holy.
They believe that a great doctor lives there who can cure
everything. He is considered to be either an ampuang
(deity) or an orang petenong (priest) (14).
Sangir is connected with Celebes by a very complete
chain of islands, so that even small canoes can by creep-
ing along from island to island make very long voyages.
The widest passages to be crossed are the Siauw passage
between Siauw and Tagulandang, ten miles, and the Banka
passage between Biarro and Talisse, eighteen miles. But
even in making these short passages canoes are not infre-
quently drifted many miles out of their course by the strong
sea currents and contrary winds.
Unfortunately so few soundings have yet been taken
between and in the neighbourhood of these islands that
we are unable to say for certain whether they are connected
by submarine banks or not—whether, in fact, they should
be looked upon as the peaks of mountain ranges now sunk
beneath the sea, which formerly perhaps connected the
ranges of Minahassa with those of Mindanao, or simply
as volcanic peaks rising from the bed of the ocean.
The only soundings we have are those taken by the
‘Flying Fish’ in Banka passage, and one taken by the
° Tam unable to give the position of these islands.
cu. v1 CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 189
‘Challenger’ in the Sea of Celebes, about thirty miles west
of Siauw. The fact that in the passage the sea was in places
as shallow as 232 fathoms, and that nothing deeper than
930 fathoms was found, whilst in the open sea the lead went
down to the enormous depth of 2,150 fathoms, suggests that
when these seas have been more thoroughly surveyed it
will be found that there is a continuous submarine range
running between Mindanao and Minahassa, which appears
above water as the Sangir and Siauw chain of islands.
It is, however, by no means necessary to assume that
there was at any time any land communication between
Celebes and the Philippines. To obtain complete land com-
munication between the two we should require an eleva-
tion of at least 6,000 feet, or in other words, if we believe
that Celebes and the Philippines were at one time con-
nected by dry land, we must presume that the land has
sunk at least 6,000 feet—a presumption we are not justified
in making, especially in a volcanic region, without some
very good reason. The fauna and flora of the two islands
do not afford us evidence sufficiently weighty to justify
any such theory. If we found any striking correspondence
between the heavy ground-feeding mammals of the two
islands we might think differently, but we do not. The
babirusa and sapiutan (31 and 70) of Celebes are not known
to occur in the Philippines, nor is the Cervus hippelephas,
whilst on the other hand there is no true cat, porcupine,
shrew, or tragulus in Celebes.
The fact that many of the squirrels, rats, and bats are
identical or very similar in the two islands is not to be
wondered at, for ‘these could easily be drifted across the
narrow straits aa the links in the chain of connecting
islands on drifting timber.
The opportunities afforded to arboreal animals to migrate
from one island to another in these regions are not so in-
190 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VIII
frequent as might be supposed. During the heavy rains of
1882 the Manado river brought down vast numbers of
mighty forest trees,and many of these must have drifted
far out to sea with a very considerable crew of squirrels,
mice, caterpillars, and other animals. Around the active
volcanoes whole forests of trees are occasionally floated off
into the sea. Dr. Guillemard told me that at the Batu
Angus opposite to the island of Limbé he has seen trees
standing in the lava which had flowed from the voleano, and
that these trees were so burnt round their bases that they
could be toppled over by a push. It is quite certain that
during the eruption of the island volcanoes, numbers of
trees are in this manner carried down the hillsides by the
lava and floated off into the sea. It might be urged that
the animals which are accustomed to live in the trees would
under the circumstances of a violent volcanic explosion all
be killed by the heat or by sulphurous fumes. It is possible
that this is so in very many cases, but not always. Some
days after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 a female green
monkey was found floating on some drifting timber in the
Sunda Straits. She was terribly scorched, but completely
recovered, and is, I believe, still alive.
We cannot fairly deduce any argument either for or
against any former land communication between Celebes
and the Philippines from the evidence afforded by the distri-
bution of birds. The straits between the several islands
are so narrow that they afford no insuperable geographical
barrier to the passage of even the smaller birds, and many
of the peculiarities of the avi-fauna of the Sangir islands
must probably be attributed partly to the absence of certain
mammals, such as the apes and the paradoxurus, and
partly to the peculiarities of the vegetation.
There are, according to Blasius (5), twelve birds peculiar
to Sangir and one to Siauw. Some of these, such as the
cH. vit CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 191
starling (Calornis sanghirensis) are little more than varieties
of Celebean birds, but only one (Oriolus formosus) is closely
allied to a Philippine species. It is not going too far to
say that of the peculiar Sangirese birds, the majority show
stronger affinities with the birds of Celebes than with the
birds of the Philippines. Let us see how these facts are
supported by other peculiarities in the avi-fauna. There j
are, as is well known, several birds in Celebes which,
having but a limited geographical distribution beyond the
main island, may be said to be characteristic Celebean birds.
Of these no fewer than ten are found in the Sangir islands.
These include the scissor-tailed bird (Chibia leucops), the
green parrot (Tanygnathus Miilleri), the maleo, and the
‘ Maspas’ shrike (Graucalus leucopygius). Of characteristic
Philippine birds, on the other hand, there are only three
found in Sangir: the lugon parrot (Tanygnathus lugonensis) ,
a nectar bird, and a variety of the Mindanao Eudynamis.
From these facts, we can say that the greater por-
tion of the birds of the Sangir islands have been derived
from Celebes, a smaller portion only having come across
the straits from the southern peninsula of Mindanao.
The fauna of these islands, then, does not afford nearly
sufficient evidence to enable us to decide whether there ever
was a former land communication between Celebes and
Mindanao or not. To attempt to solve this problem we
must have far greater knowledge of the character of the
sea-bottom between the islands than at present we possess.
But while we must be content to wait for the solution
of the problem, some of the natives of Celebes are quite
prepared with an explanation.
‘In olden times,’ they say (63), ‘when Makapoedellock,
the son of Batahansorong, was datu or prince of Mahan-
getang, a great part of the land was sunk into the depths
of the sea because he had outraged his sister Taroara.
192 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH, VIII
Since this time only the highest land has been inhabited,
which the people call Sangir, or Soemangi, tears from the
lamentations of the great disaster.’
Concerning the early history of the islands of the Sangir
group there is, as might be expected, much obscurity, and
the brief account I give below, compiled with some difficulty
from the accounts of several writers, can only be regarded
as approximately correct.
Originally the island of Great Sangir was ruled by only
two kings, those of Kalongan and Tabukan, but towards
the close of the seventeenth century it was split up into
six kingdoms and a vice-royalty under the king of Siauw.
These were the names of the kingdoms: Taruna, Manga-
nitu, Cajuis, Limau, Tabukan, and Saban, and Tamakko,
under the king of Siauw. These were subsequently reduced
to four—Candahar, Manganitu, Taruna, and Tabukan,
Tamakko still remaining under the king of Siauw (79).
The kings of Sangir were for many years the rulers of
the greater part of the Talaut islands, and were able in time
of war to draw from them a considerable number of fighting
men as auxiliaries.
It is doubtful when Europeans first came to Sangir, but
it is interesting to note that some of the ships which had
discovered the route to the Spice islands by way of Cape Horn
under the gallant and enterprising Magellan were among the
earliest arrivals on the scene (74).
Magellan died in the Philippine islands on April 27,
1521, and after his death the Spaniards sailed to Cagayan,
Sulu and Borneo, but returned to Mindanao, and thence
sailed to Sangir and Tidore (74).
‘We reached a beautiful island called Sanghir,’ we find
recorded in the journal (44) of the voyage. In 1525 one
of the ships of D’Elcano’s fleet was wrecked on Sangir,
and from the treatment the sailors received at the hands
cH. var CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 193
of the natives, the Sangirese obtained for many years an
evil reputation. In 1563 or 1568, the Portuguese priest
P. Diogo Magalhaens was sent to Manado by Pedro
Mascarenhas, Bishop of Ternate. He found the natives
of Manado a warlike people, and the terror of the district.
From Manado he went to Siauw, where he baptized the
rajah and six thousand warriors. From Siauw he went to
Sangir, where he baptized the king and queen of Kalongan
and raised a large wooden cross.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century there was
trouble between the Dutch and the Spaniards at Siauw.
The brave and famous Kaitsjil Ali, admiral of the fleet
of the Sultan of Ternate, rendered valuable aid to the
Dutch against the Spaniards. In 1614 the combined forces
of the Ternatees and the Dutch drove the Spaniards out of
Siauw, but the natives fled into the forests, because they
could not remain as Christians under the Ternatees. Two
years later there seems to have been an attack upon the
natives by the Dutch, when many of them were barbar-
ously murdered and others captured (74).
In the year 1646 Governor Seroyen placed a garrison
in Tagulandang, and commanded the natives to plant
cloves; but the trees were destroyed in 1653 by order of
the Governor of the Moluccas (54). The final act by which
Siauw was made over to the Dutch by King Amsterdam of
Ternate was signed on November 2, 1677.
The Sangirese people are divided into nobles (papung or
bangsa), free men (kawane) and slaves (lang). The nobles
are again divided into the papung tuwas, the children or
grandchildren of rajahs lawfully begotten by their wives of
royal blood; the papung beka, the illegitimate children of
rajahs by slaves; papung timbang, the children of the
papung beka by slaves; and the bubatos, or chiefs of lower
rank (14). The upper classes have no special privi-
to)
194 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH, VIII
leges except at feasts. The slaves are well treated, and
either live with the prince as servants or simply bring a
share of their produce to their masters. The oldest and
most trustworthy slaves get the title sahada manjura or
marinjo (89 A).
Mr. Steller told me that in Manganitu there are two
kinds of slaves, the slaves that are bought (budak-budak
pemblian) and the slaves that are simply inherited (budak-
budak pusaka). It seems, according to his account, that
men were made slaves for comparatively trifling offences.
Thus the process of the preparation of sago? is done in
secret, as it is thought that a stranger takes away its spirit.
If a man passed by the boat-shaped trough in which the
rajah’s sago was being prepared, he and his whole family
were seized and made slaves. Again, the ground over
which a fisherman was accustomed to fish becomes after
his death pilih, or holy, and if anyone fished there, or even
went over the place in a canoe, he was seized by the family
of the deceased and brought before the rajah, who gener-
ally condemned him to be a slave of the deceased man’s
family.
When a prince died the whole village went into mourn-
ing ; umbrellas and all finery were laid aside and the women
wore their hair loose down their backs. If any of these
signs of mourning were abandoned before the proper time
the offenders were liable to be seized as slaves.
The system of slavery which still persists in many parts
of these islands where the Dutch flag flies is, however, a
form of slavery of the very mildest character ; and it is the
opinion of those who are competent to judge that the slaves
are just as happy as the faithful attendants of their princes
as they would be as free men.
8 This is most probably not the true sago, but the pith of the Arenga
cachariferum.
cH. vil. CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 195
Right and proper as it undoubtedly is to abolish every
form of slavery, however mild it may be, I cannot help
thinking that the Dutch are wise and just to allow the
system to remain in Sangir until the people have more
fully benefited by the influence of civilisation. A sudden
and sweeping reform in this direction might lead to political
catastrophes, which would throw the natives back for
generations and lead to untold mischief to the prestige of
the Dutch Government. By the establishment of elemen-
tary schools and the encouragement of missionary work,
the Government is preparing the way for a certain and
permanent reform in the future, and I have no doubt that
in a few generations slavery will be extinct in Sangir, as it
is in many of the more thoroughly colonised possessions of
the Dutch in the East Indies.
The food of the Sangirese consists of trepang, turtle,
various kinds of fish, the pith of the sagoweer palm,
rice, Indian corn, papaya (kowle—Carica papaya), batatas
(B. edulis), a kind of pea called siafu (probably a species of
phaseolus), and yams.
A curious implement (fig. 27) is used y the Sangirese
for flaking out the pith of Z
the arenga palm. It is
made of bamboo, and is
held in both hands like a
chopper or axe. When
the native has felled his
tree and split it in two
halves, he sits down across
the half which retains the Fic. 27.—Bamboo implement used by the
sago or pith, and plies Sangirese for flaking out the pith from
the trunk of the sagoweer palm.
his sago chopper. By
striking rapidly and sharply with the edge formed where
the bamboo has been cut across transversely, the pith is
02
196 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VIII
separated in thin flakes, and in that condition it is ready
to be cooked and eaten.
On special occasions such as feasts the natives eat pigs
and chickens and other forms of animal food.
The Sangirese suffer from many kinds of disease.
Besides the ordinary forms of fever and dysentery, the most
prevalent and terrible diseases are the boba and the
kaskade himpank. The first shows itself at first as small
sores like pock-marks all over the body, and this is followed
by a swelling of the joints, which subsequently ulcerate.
The kaskade begins with a peeling of the skin of the hands
and feet, and this spreads over the whole body.
As a remedy against fever they use a decoction of the
leaves of the daun bari muda (Crateva magna), and they rub
their bodies with sap of a species of Psychotria. They
also use the mushroom Pachyma tuber-regium as a remedy
for diarrhoea, fever, and other complaints.
For kaskade they use an ointment made of leaves of the
daun burong (Rhinacanthus communis) mixed with sulphur
and lemon juice, and they drink a decoction of the root of
the same plant (14).
I have not been able to find any very clear account
of the religions of these islands; but the natives seem
to believe in the existence of a number of spirits, the
Ampuangs, who are probably mythical ancestors like the
Empongs of the Minahassers. There are a number of
priests who perform certain quasi-religious functions, and
that their office is probably inherited appears from the
following account of a custom given by Van Doren. They
maintain that anyone who is 80 inquisitive as to climb up
the mountains must atone for it by death. An exception to
this rule, however, was made in the case of certain persons
whose forefathers were permitted by the gods to climb the
mountains and to work miracles. People belonging to this
cu. vil CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 197
family made a pilgrimage every three or four months to
the top of the Awu volcano, and tested by means of a stick
the heat of the water of the lake which is found in the
crater. If the water was hot enough to boil their rice they
considered it to be a sign that an eruption would soon
follow.
The marriage customs throughout the Sangir, Talaut,
and Siauw archipelago are based on the old matriarchal
system—that is, when a man is married he becomes a
member of his wife’s family, and must leave his own and
go to live in the village or the house of his wife’s parents.
There seems to be no law of exogamy, for a man may
marry a woman belonging to his own village or not, as he
pleases ; but in Nanusa I understood that marriage was not
permitted between members of the same household. The
enormous households of the Nanusa archipelago are pro-
bably the remnants of a much more complete system of
intra-tribal clanships, which has become almost obliterated
in the more highly developed races of Sangir and Siauw.
Before a man is able to take a wife, however, he is
obliged to bring a certain amount of property—or, to use the
common Malay word, harta—to the parents of his fiancée.
The amount of the harta varies of course with the locality
and the rank of the contracting parties. Thus a rajah’s
daughter in some parts of Sangir expects a dowry of twelve
slaves, twelve gongs, twelve shirts, twelve china plates, one
hundred small plates, twelve swords, and one kati of gold, or
its equivalent in money (85).
Divorce is by no means an uncommon proceeding,
and is very readily granted. Mr. Gunther told me that in
Mangarang a man is sometimes married two or three
times in the course of the year. The rajah of Morong in
the Talaut islands told me that in case of a divorce the
children go ‘where they do not cry,’ and in the case of
198 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VIII
the wife’s adultery the offending man must pay a fine to her
parents.
In Great Sangir if a man lives with another man’s wife
he must pay the husband the full harta; butif he is unable
to do this, and his friends will not help him, then both he
and the woman become the slaves of the husband. The
only persons who are free from the matriarchal system are
the sons of the rajahs, who do as they please about following
their wives.
The dignity of rajah passes from father to son, but not
necessarily to the eldest son. If, for example, there are three
legitimate sons, the people are called together and the most
fitting son is chosen as the future rajah.
Property is inherited communally by the children (14).
On the death of a rajah the body is placed in a coffin,
but is not buried at once. For some days it is watched by
a number of young maidens of good family, and all the
people put on black garments and exhibit other signs of
mourning. A great feast is also held, and the days are
passed in eating and drinking and frolic of different kinds.
At last the body is placed in an outer coffin, and carried to
the grave with considerable ceremony.
Murder and homicide were formerly punished in Man-
ganitu by death, the form of death being the same as that
of the deed. In other parts the death punishment was by
hanging toa gallows. Small thefts were punished by fines,
or by cutting off the fingers, or by flogging with a rattan
cane, and the punishment for incest was drowning, the vic-
tim being thrown into the sea with a stone tied round his
neck.
The Sangirese have been from time immemorial a hardy
and fearless race of mariners, as might be expected from the
insular nature of their country. Their forests abounding
in excellent timber for shipbuilding, they construct not
cH. vir CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 199
only the little double outrigged coasting canoes, called lepa-
lepa, but also large sailing vessels of some 4,000 lbs. freight,
called koyangs, which are able to go long journeys and stand
very considerable seas.
Being great mariners they are also great fishermen,
and wonderful and ingenious are the numerous methods
by which they ensnare and capture the many kinds’ ot
edible fish. One of the most important fisheries is that of
a species of herring (Clupea atricauda).
These herring pass in very large numbers along a
constant and well-defined route, and a party of Sangirese
follow them from place to place, catching large numbers
of them with an ordinary round throw-net in the shallow
shore waters. I cannot, unfortunately, give any accurate
account of the movements of these fish, for my various
informers gave me very different, and in many cases con-
tradictory, reports. All that I know is that they appear
on the coasts of Talisse during the month of January
or February, and disappear again in March or April.
During the herring season, if I might so call it, the favourite
place for the fishermen is a little shallow sandy bay facing
due west at the northern end of the island Banka. The
fish, when caught, are laid out by the women in rows on
strips of wood to dry, and are protected from sun and
rain by a thin attap roof.
Flying-fish are considered by these people, and with
justice, to be very palatable, and several methods are
employed to catch them. One method is of great interest,
as it seems to be precisely the same in its details as a
method employed by the natives of Santa Cruz in the
Solomon islands.
A considerable number of wooden floats are connected
together by a.string, and to each is attached a line and a
single unbaited hook. Each float is weighted at one end
200 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VIII
by a stone, fastened to it by arattan binding, and the other
end is fashioned into an angular odd figure exhibiting
many variations. They are called lawak by the natives.
I have reason to believe that originally the figure carved
on these floats was that of a long-necked sea-bird, such as
a heron or whimbrel, and the figure we now find is merely a
conventional representation that has gradually come to be
used instead of the more elaborate carving.
‘Another common method of fishing,’ says Guppy in
his book on the Solomon islands, ‘ which resembles in its
idea that of the kite-fishing, consists in the use of a float of
wood about three feet in length, and rather bigger than a
walking-stick. It is weighted by a stone at one end, so that
it floats upright in the water. The upper end of the float,
which is out of the water, is rudely cut in imitation of a
wading bird, and here we have the same idea exhibited
which I have described above in the case of kite-fishing,
the figure of the bird being supposed to attract the larger
fish. There is, however, this difference: a glance at the
figure will convince anyone thata fish is not likely tu be
deceived by such a sorry representation of a bird. Doubtless
we have here an instance of a survival of a more effective
mode of fishing, in which the idea has been retained, but
the utility has been lost. This plan is in fact nothing more
than the employment of a float which is thrown into the
water by the fisherman, who follows it up in his canoe and
looks out forits bob’ (28). In the figure the two floats on the
right-hand side are from the Sangir islands, the two on the
left from Santa Cruz. It will be seen at once that the bird
design is much better preserved in the larger specimen
from Santa Cruz than in either of those from Sangir.
The hook is a simple piece of bent twig. It is precisely
similar in shape to that used by the natives of Santa Cruz,
where it is made of bone or tortoiseshell. No bait is used.
cH. vuI CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 201
The movement of the sea causes the floats, the lines,
and hooks to be in a constant state of agitation.
The ordinary fishing spear, common to nearly all the
Malay races, is also used in Sangir. This consists of a
Fic. 28.—Fishing floats from San-
. 29.— head of Mal.
gir and from Santa Cruz in the es er aes ae eee Maley
é fishing spear.
Solomon islands. : tie
4 A Avery common implement, used through-
The two on the right from Sangir, those out the archipelago.
on the left from Santa Cruz.
bundle of short hard pieces of pointed wood, fastened on to
the end of a stick, so as to be separated from one another at
the end by wedge-shaped spaces. This is thrown with con-
siderable force into shallow water, where there are shoals of
202 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VIII
small fish disporting themselves, on the chance that some
of them may be wedged in between the pieces of wood
or pierced by them. At best it is not a very effective
Weapon.
The Sangirese also fish with the hook and line in water
as deep as two hundred fathoms. The line is made of
twisted gumutu from the arenga palm, and for bait they
use pieces of pork and chicken. The fish they catch by this
means are often very large. I have seen some in the hands
of Sangirese fishermen that must have weighed as much as
fifteen or twenty (English) pounds (14).
I am not able to give a complete account of the weapons
used by the Sangirese, for when the Resident of Manado is
in the neighbourhood the natives keep their fighting imple-
ments in the background.
The most important weapon, however, both for fighting
and hunting, seems to have been and to be the spear. As
it is impossible to obtain iron, or indeed any other form
of metal, in their own country, those who can afford it
are obliged to buy or steal iron-pointed spears from other
islands, but the majority of the people are contented with
the wooden spears mentioned above (see fig. 21).
Bows and arrows are not seriously employed by any
of the Malays. In some parts of Minahassa (22) bows and
arrows are used as a game for children, and this may be
also the use of similar weapons that have been brought
from Talaut (10).
In some parts of Sumatra the Malays use the bow and
arrow for killing small game and fish, and for shooting
fire-balls at the gods of sickness (48), but I have not yet
come across an account of any people, undoubtedly belong-
ing to the Malay race, who use them as their principal
weapons in battle, as the Papuans do.
Iron swords are possessed in Sangir by those who can
cu. vit CHARACTERISTICS OF SANGIR ISLANDS 208
afford them, and heavy wooden clubs are sometimes used
by the lower classes.
The club in fig. 30 was taken from a man who, the
police asserted, was lying in ambush to murder
one of the Dutch officials as he passed by. It
is made of a heavy black palm-tree wood, and
remarkable for the ornamentation on the handle
of the Roman capital letters Aand B. It is not
an uncommon thing to find savage men copying
the white man’s ‘ pictures’ onto hisown weapons
and implements.
The Sangirese are slow in their movements
and thoroughly phlegmatic in their disposition.
They are but rarely seen to laugh or to become
animated in conversation, and their expression
is generally one of vague wonder or weary sad-
ness. Their skin is of a light brown colour, of
rather a darker tint than that of the Alfurs of
Minahassa. Originally the dress of both men Soe oe
and women was probably a simple robe of club from
native-made koffo, hanging from the shoulders reas on
and reaching to the knees, but since the intro-
duction of cotton goods by the Chinese traders the men wear
a pair of cotton trousers, and the women a sarong of dark
blue or black material wound round the waist, and in the
more civilised parts a jacket or kabaya of the same material.
The more brilliantly coloured materials are, I was told, only
worn by the wives and concubines of the Chinese.
The women, when young, are occasionally rather good-
looking, but both men and women are greatly disfigured by
avery prominent upper lip, produced by the constant habit
of betel chewing. With us the quid of tobacco, when not in
actual use, is commonly held in the cheeks, but the Sangirese
hold the betel quid between the upper lip and the front
204 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. VIII
teeth, and hence comes the hideous disfigurement of the
mouth which may be seen in nearly all adults in these
islands.
The women usually wear their long black hair tied in
a loose knot, called botto, on the top of the head. Many
of the men I saw had shaved the back of the head, and
wore only a fringe of hair, called pakw, reaching from
ear to ear over the forehead. In some districts the children
have the hair shaved off a patch on the top of the head,
which they call kusi. The custom of shaving off part of
the hair of young children is found in many other parts
of the Malay archipelago. Thus the missionaries Wilken
and Schwartz relate that amongst the natives of the Bolang
Mongondu, which lies to the west of Minahassa, the same
custom prevails, and the lock of hair is hung up in a young
coco-nut under the front roof of the hut (90).
The opportunities I had of learning the Sangirese lan-
guages were so few that I must refrain from suggesting on
my own responsibility any possibilities of their relationships,
and for the same reason I must withhold from publication
the short vocabularies of words I collected for my own use.
The gospel of St. Luke has been translated into Sangirese
by Mr. Kelling, of Tagulandang, and published by our
British and Foreign Bible Society in London, and I under-
stand that the whole Bible is now being translated into
the same language by the daughter of Mr. Steller, of
Manganitu.
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 205
CHAPTER IX
JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA
Minahassa—The capital Manado—Heerendienst—Manado as a port—Ex-
ports—Start for the interior—Tondano—Condition of affairs a century
ago—Ballottos—The Great Lake—Atya Wyckii—Kakas and Langowan—
Arrival at Kelelonde—The coffee garden—Mapalus—The Tompusu pass
—The forests of Minahassa.
Arrer my return from the Sangir islands I remained on
Talisse island and continued my work in the forests and
on the reefs, but in the beginning of January I was obliged
to leave for Manado on account of an illness I contracted
at the commencement of the rains, which required not only
proper medical advice, but also better fare than I was able
to obtain in my little island home. I will not weary the
reader with an account of my long and tedious con-
valescence ; suffice it to say that I returned twice to Talisse,
once with the vain hope of being able to continue my work
and a second time to pack up what remained of my col-
lections. From January 1886 until September, when I
finally left Celebes for my journey home, I lived either in
Manado itself or in the mountains, and it is my purpose in
the concluding chapters of this book to give a brief summary
of my travels and some account of the present condition of
Minahassa, together with a description of some of the
customs, legends, and fables of the inhabitants, both in the
past and present time.
The word Minahassa means a country that has been
formed by the binding together of a number of territories
into one. The principal word in it is derived from ‘ asa,’
206 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES ” OH. Ix
meaning ‘one’; the verb ‘mahasa’ signifies ‘to join into
one,’ whilst the prefix ‘ni’ turns the verb into a sub-
stantive. The original form, Nimahasa, has since become
changed into Minahassa. The chief town is Manado, or
Menado, as it is more commonly spelt, pleasantly situated
on the shores of a wide open bay of the same name, and
divided into two parts by the river which brings the over-
flow waters from Lake Tondano to the sea. Its position
was approximately determined by P. de Lange to be 124°
49’ 44” B. by 1°29’ 39” N. Ibis divided into five districts :
Manado and Bantik on the north bank of the river; Aris,
Klabat bawah, and Negori baru on the south. The most
important of these and the centre of the trade and govern-
ment is Aris. Here we find the church, the schools, the
fort, the prison, the government offices, and the houses of
all the principal Europeans.
The business quarter, where the market, the tokos, or
shops, of the Chinese and Arab traders, and the establish-
ments of the two principal European merchants are
situated, lies on the river side of Aris ; the Chinese quarter
extends from the market out towards the Klabat bawah
district, whilst the official residences and offices extend
along the shore towards Negori baru.
The market is always a scene of activity and animation,
and the gay garments of the women lend colour and
brightness to a spectacle which is never devoid of a certain
picturesqueness and beauty. The fruit-sellers stalls are
filled with the produce of the season—bananas, oranges,
rambutans,! mangoes, pineapples, and the evil-smelling
but delicious dorians. The fishmongers exhibit their stock
of fish,? many of them coloured with every colour of the
1 Nephelium lappaceum.
2 The fish commonly seen in the market-place at Manado belong, ac-
cording to Bleeker, to the following genera: Mesoprion, Lithrinus, Sicydium
Julis, Leptocephalus (7).
CH. Ix JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 207
rainbow. The cloth-sellers exhibit their sheetings from
Manchester, and the red and blue kains printed with won-
derful and grotesque patterns for the sarongs and tjelanas
for the fashionable natives.
But besides those who are occupied with the business
of the market, there may always be seen a number of
loafers who have been attracted simply by idle curiosity or
a desire to indulge in a mild dissipation. These may be
found standing or squatting in little groups playing at top
or drinking sagoweer, the native wine of the country, from
the long bamboo vessels of the sagoweer sellers. Then
there are the Chinese pedlars with their long pigtails, the
Arab traders with their gorgeous turbans, an occasional
European in his white duck suit and straw hat, and a
crowd of car-drivers, country folk, servants, soldiers, and
policemen. Stretching from the market-place up towards
the district of Klabat bawah is the Chinese quarter, and
at the head of it is the little Chinese temple where dwells
the Tapi-kong.
The dwellings of the principal Europeans are, as I men-
tioned above, situated in the centre of Aris in the neigh-
bourhood of the church and residency. They are well
built and roomy timber houses, each surrounded by a little
compound or garden, which is often prettily laid out with
roses, hibiscus shrubs, crotons, and other foliage plants,
whilst palms and other lofty trees afford a welcome and
pleasing shade from the fierce rays of the mid-day sun.
The population of Manado consists of a very small
percentage of white Europeans, a number of half-castes
who are also called Europeans, Chinese, Arabs, Christian
and a few Mahomedan natives, and the Bantiks, a race
of Alfurs who still retain their old religion. Most of the
Mahomedans and the Bantiks live on the right bank of the.
river in the districts Manado and Bantik.
208 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. Ix
It is impossible to give the exact numbers, but I should
judge that the population of Manado must be between five
and six thousand.
Two fine roads run out of Manado, one to Kema on the
opposite side of the peninsula, and another to Lotta and
the mountains of the Tondano district. These roads were
well made in the first instance, and are kept in good order
partly by the prisoners and partly by the heerendienst, a
service which the free men of the country are obliged to
perform as part of their taxation.
The system of heerendienst has been very severely
criticised by many well-meaning persons as tyrannical and
unjust, but I cannot help thinking that everyone who is
really acquainted with the circumstances of these colonies
and the character and condition of the people must admit
that it is a service which is both necessary and just. The
Dutch Government has brought to the people of Minahassa
not only the blessings of peace and security, but also
the possibilities of a very considerable civilisation and
commercial prosperity. The natives are now able to sow
their rice in perfect confidence that they will gather the
harvest in due season; they are able to send their corn,
their chickens, and other produce to the markets without
fear of being plundered on the road and without expe-
riencing the horrors of war and bloodshed; they pass their
lives in peace and quietude from the cradle to the grave.
In return for this it is only just that every able-bodied man
should be compelled to lend a hand in maintaining this
happy condition of affairs. In a land where the necessities
of life are so easily obtained, and the wants of the people
are few, poverty is inexcusable, and starvation unknown.
Under such circumstances it would be impossible for the
Government to obtain a sufficient number of men to labour
on the roads at a reasonable wage, and in consequence they
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 209
would be either neglected or extremely costly to maintain.
The heerendienst is, then, the only system by which the
roads can be kept in a proper state of repair without over-
burdening the exchequer or increasing the taxation of the
people beyond their capabilities. If it is true that some of
the Dutch officials have occasionally used the heerendienst
for their own personal service, it is the abuse of the system
we should deprecate, not the system itself.
Turning our attention for a moment from the land com-
munications to the sea, it seems strange that the government
of a nation such as the Dutch, famous for many centuries
for their nautical genius and their marine enterprises, should
have paid so little attention to the necessities of Manado as
a port.
It is true that the bay is and always must be an ex-
ceedingly unfavourable one for the locality of a great port,
owing to the very limited and difficult anchorage it affords,
and any considerable quay works would be extremely costly.
But it is quite possible, at comparatively small expense, to
remedy two very great disadvantages from which Manado
suffers. The first of these is that none of the lights of the
town are visible from the sea. On several occasions I have
arrived at Manado oe sea, after dark, and on each occasion
eS aie “=< * any sort or description was to
close to the shore. No wonder,
then, tnat the steamers which visit Manado often waste
hours in the bay waiting for the daylight to show them the
way to their anchorage. If two lights were fixed, one at
the river-mouth and the other in the Negori baru, they
would be of great service to steamers approaching Manado
by night, as they would indicate to the captains at least the
locality of theroads. Of very great service too to mariners,
especially to the masters of sailing vessels, would be a few
firmly fixed buoys in the roads.
210 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IX
I remember watching a German barque approaching
Manado one evening as the sun was setting, and wondering
if she would be able to make fast before the darkness set in.
She approached within afew yards of the anchorage, and I
was expecting to hear every moment the rattle of the chain,
when the land wind set in, and she drifted out to sea
again. The next morning at sunrise she was far away on
the horizon, but by the evening was again within a few
yards of her anchorage. Again she failed, and again ; and
it was not until the fourth night after her first appearance
that she reached the anchorage and made fast.
The captain afterwards told me that had there been a
buoy in the roads to which he could have fastened a hawser
he would have been able to get in on each of the four occa-
sions. It was only the fear of the land wind getting the
upper hand before he was able to send his hawser ashore
that compelled him on each occasion to go out again into
the bay.
Manado, it must be remembered, is not only the chief
town of an extremely fertile and promising land, but is
also within a few miles of the direct route between the
centres of commercial activity of China and Australia, and
it is quite possible that if a little more attention were paid
by the Dutch to the development of the marine accommo-
dation of this town it might lead to a very considerable
increase in her commercial prosperity.
At present the exports from Minahassa are copra, coffee,
cocoa, nutmegs, vanilla, and a few other spices, rattan,
copal, ebony, and other wood, and it is quite possible that
within a few years tobacco and perhaps tea will be added
to the list. But Minahassa is capable of doing more than
this, and with a better service of steamers trading directly
with the civilised world, might in time become one of the
principal centres of the trade in tropical produce.
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 211
At the beginning of April 1886 I received an invitation
from a gentleman named Rijkschroeff, a former opzichter
of the M. H. V. in Talisse, to visit the coffee garden of which
he was then the manager, at a little village on the slopes of
the Kelelonde mountain in the Tondano district. I was
very glad to be able to accept this invitation, for I was
very anxious to see something of the beautiful mountain
scenery of Minahassa before I left, and I also had hopes
that the cool breezes of that high district would so restore
my health as to enable me to return to my work on the
coral reefs of the coast.
The Resident of Manado kindly offered me a seat in a
carriage that was to take him and two of the government
officials to Tondano and the neighbourhood. We started
at about ten o’clock from Manado on April 3, and after a
long and rather tedious journey we reached the house of
Mr. Broers, the Controleur of Tondano, at about eight
o’clock the same evening.
Starting from Manado in a small carriage drawn by
two oxen, passing by the little market-place of Negori baru,
and the nutmeg and vanilla gardens of some of the leading
planters, we arrived at Lotta, our first halting-place, a
distance of six paals,? in about two hours. The road from
Lotta to the next station, Tomohon, is very steep, and
runs circuitously along the slopes of the Lokon mountains.
Some of the views the traveller gets as he is slowly
dragged along are extremely magnificent. At one spot
the wide expanse of Manado Bay, with its deep blue waters
and evergreen guardian islands, Manado tuwa, Siladen,
and Bunakin, spreads out beneath his feet; at another the
broad and fertile plains of the river valley, extending from
the Lokon to the distant Klabat mountains, form a magnifi-
cent panorama of fine rich scenery; and a little farther on
3 One paal is approximately equivalent to one English mile.
P2
212 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. Ix
he passes along the brink of a deep ravine filled with lofty
palms and other trees. In many ways this portion of the
road between Lotta and Tomohon affords more magnificent
views of hill and dale, of plains and distant mountains,
of coast and sea than any I can remember to have seen.
If it has a rival anywhere, it is the road from Kakas to
Remboken, where the waters of Lake Tondano take the
place of what would otherwise be missed in sea and coast
scenery.
Our journey was not without incident, for before we
had proceeded more than half-way one of the six oxen we
had brought with us from Lotta fell down exhausted with
the heat. Soon afterwards another fell, and, as a final
blow to our misfortunes, the shaft broke about two miles
from Tomohon, and we were obliged to complete the distance
on foot. Perhaps our misfortune was as disappointing to
the natives as to us, for many of the leading people had
come out to meet us on horseback, and in honour of the
Resident had decorated their houses and the roadside with
numbers of Dutch national flags. It must have been a
disappointment to many of them that our entrance into
their village was so unceremonious. After a meal with a
German trader and a cup of tea in the beautiful and taste-
full¥-decorated house of the Hukum besar (chief of the
district), we proceeded on our way to Tondano, but, as it
was quite dark and a light misty rain was falling, we
saw nothing of the beautiful scenery of this part of the
road.
Tondano is a large and prosperous town situated on the
banks of the river which carries off the overflow waters of
the great lake. It is the centre of the coffee district, and
the wide fertile plains on the shores of the lake produce
an abundance of rice and Indian corn to support the large
and thriving population.
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 213
The Tondanese were in olden times true lake-dwellers ;
they lived in houses built on piles driven into the shallow
waters of the lake. The name Tondano is composed of
toi, men, and dano, water, the letter wu indicating, accord-
ing to Graafland, a form of the genitive. The Tondanese,
then, are the ‘men of the water.’ They are a branch
of the great family of Minahassers, who were called
Toulowrs, or ‘men of the lake.’ They were brave and
warlike people, and, with perhaps the exception of the
Bantiks, were the last of the Minahassers to accept the
yoke of the Dutch. Unable to attack them on the land, the
Dutch, under Commander Weintré (56), with the help of
the natives of other districts, brought praus and corra-
corras from Manado and Tanawangko, and met them on
the lake. The Tondanese were eventually completely de-
feated after a siege which lasted nine months, and their
lake-dwellings burned to the water’s edge. This was at the
beginning of the present century (1809), and ever since then
they have, with the exception of a couple of smaller troubles
in later times, remained peaceful and quiet subjects of the
Dutch Government. The introduction of Christianity and
civilisation by the missionary pioneers has reduced them toa
condition of obedience and subjection which to colonists in
many parts of the world might truly be considered to be
ideal.
What a wonderful change has come over these people
within the last century! As I walked through the town
of Tondano on that lovely Sunday morning (April 4, 1886),
enjoying the bright sunshine and cool crisp air, I could
not but be deeply impressed with the order, peacefulness,
and beauty of the place. The rows of pretty little houses,
each one—almost a model of neatness and cleanliness—
surrounded by a garden of flowers and shrubs, the quiet
4 The old form Toudano or Todano has become changed to Tondano.
214 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. Ix
and respectful demeanour of the people, who raised their
hats and greeted us with ‘Tabeh, tuan ’° as they passed,
the busy little market-place, and the great church with its
huge bell calling the pious and sombre-clad Christian
natives to the morning service, were but symbols of the
general condition of peace and prosperity of the country on
the Tondano lake.
Almost within the memory of some of the older in-
habitants this same country was in a perpetual state of
trouble and disorder.
Let us pause a moment to consider the condition of
these people before the advent of the Dutch East Indian
Company. The Toulowrs were the people of the lake, and
most of them lived in pile-dwellings built in the shallower
waters of its shores, while the Tombulus, or the ‘ people of
the bamboo,’ dwelt in houses grouped together in small ham-
lets hidden far away in the recesses of the forests and the
mountains. The Towlowr houses were protected from the
attacks of their enemies by their position on the waters,
whilst the houses of the Tombulus were defended by pointed
sticks of bamboo stuck in the ground all round the village,
and by festoons of thorns wound round the tall piles on
which their houses were built. In time of war—and it was
nearly always war-time in those days—every man’s house
was, indeed, his castle, and no one dared to go outside the
village unless accompanied by a band of armed companions.
The houses were large, as they are to the present day
in Nanusa, and the compartments in which the ten or
more families lived were separated from one another by
mats or cloths suspended on ropes stretched across the
room. On the east side of the house a spot was set apart
for a square altar (temboan) made of bamboo sticks, and
to the corners of this strings adorned with young coco-nut
5 The universal salutation of the Malays : ‘ Good morrow, sir.’
CH. Ix JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 215
leaves were attached, which were connected with an open
space in the roof of the hut or a neighbouring tree (91).
These strings were, in fact, god-ladders. They were for the
purpose of allowing the gods to slide or step down from the
tree or the roof to the altar.
Every opportunity was taken to hold a feast, or fosso,
as it was called, whether it was to celebrate a victory won,
or to implore the assistance of the gods in an expedition
that was about to start, to save the life of anyone who was
dangerously ill, or to initiate a youth into the duties and
responsibilities of manhood.
On such occasions the members of the family were
called together, food and wine with betel-nut and its acces-
sories were placed upon the altar for the refreshment of
the gods, and the walian, or chief priest, took up his position
in the centre of the group as the director and master of the
ceremonies. When everyone was silent, the children ceased
their play and laughter, the walian commenced by calling
all the gods to be present on the occasion, and inviting
them to eat and drink and to chew the betel. Then he
worked himself into a state of frenzy; his own spirit, it
was supposed, left him, and its place was temporarily taken
by the spirit of one of the gods. Then in this half-un-
conscious hypnotic state, when all around were thrilled with
feelings of awe, he would utter the commands of the gods,
springing bodily with gigantic leaps into the air, or swaying
his arms, filled with long palm leaves, delivering his words
in a dull monotonous sing-song voice or yelling them out
with vigour. At last he fell exhausted on his stomach and
lay as one dead. ‘The spirit of the gods had fled, and
left him without one. Then another priest endeavoured to
charm back his spirit by whistling for it as one would for a
dog. Then they waited until he again sprang up, this time
in a dazed condition, but dumb until after he had drunk
216 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH, IX
copious draughts of sagoweer and silently chewed the betel.
Thanksgiving for the recovery of the priest concluded the
Fic. 831.—B6té, a tuft of
the hair of an enemy,
usually fastened to the
sago-sago, or sword of
the priests, atthe fossos.
ceremony, and the evening passed in
feasting, dancing, and debauchery.
The fossos were often the occa-
‘sions of the most revolting barbarity.
Abhuman head, or the body of a child,
specially obtained for the purpose, had
to be placed beneath the principal
pile of every new house, and when the
house was finished a fresh head had
to be obtained to hang up in the roof
(102). Victory was celebrated by the
drinking of the blood of the captured
enemy, or cutting his body into fine
pieces (twmuktok) (22).
Before every expedition the locks
of hair (bots) of an enemy previously
slain were stirred up in boiling water
to extract the courage, and this infu-
sion of human courage was drunk by
the warriors.
Those, however, were the days of
song and romance, and specimens of
a rude art, characterised by what ap-
pears to us as gross obscenity, have
been found.
We can picture to ourselves those
terrible raids. The half-naked savages
starting out by night armed with iron
swords and bamboo-tipped spears, and
narrow shields rather broader at the
ends than in the middle, creeping
silently through the forests, and re-
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 217
turning wounded and blood-stained, laden with the ghastly
spoils of human heads or scalps, and dragging with them
piteous little children in their wake. When we remember
that this was the condition of affairs at the commence-
ment of the nineteenth century, and that at the present
day life and property are quite as secure in the district of
Tondano as they are in any civilised country in the world,
we may well wonder at the change.
There are but few Europeans in Tondano besides the
Controleur, the missionary, and a few other officials. The
inhabitants are nearly all the descendants of the old Tonda-
nese who dwelt in savage days in the old pile-dwellings on
the lake. They are typical Malays in feature, remarkably
fair for Orientals, strong, tall, handsome, and upright.
With a curiously sad, but at the same time not unhappy or
discontented, look, they are, nevertheless, far more energetic
in word and action than the natives of the low-lying dis-
tricts of the coast. For two days I enjoyed the hospitality
of Mr. Broers, the Controleur, and the light invigorating
breezes of Tondano, and then I left for Kelelonde.
The canoes that are in common use on the lake are
of the most primitive and unstable type. They simply
consist of a semi-cylinder, hollowed out of a tree stem, with
the ends filled up with mud and grass. These canoes are
called blotto or ballotto by the natives. They are not only
extremely easily capsized, but require, even in the calmest
weather, constant baling to keep the water out. They are
of every size, from the child’s blotto of ten or fifteen feet
in length to the fisherman’s craft of fifty. The rowers
stand to their work, balancing themselves and the canoes at
every stroke. The paddles are from six to eight feet long,
provided with a flat round blade made usually of wanga
wood (Metroxylon elatum) (56). It is really an extraordi-
nary thing that a people so advanced in some respects
218 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH, IX
should be so conservative as still to construct and use
such obsolete canoes. It is true that even boys amongst
them can navigate these frail vessels with astounding skill
and speed, but there can be no question that a more stable
and secure canoe might safely be introduced to the notice of
the Tondanese with considerable advantage to them. As
an ethnological curiosity and relic of the past they are ex-
tremely interesting, and it is to be hoped that one of the
controleurs who is stationed at Tondano will take care,
before they are supplanted by more modern types, to pre-
serve a few examples of the blottos for the national and
colonial museums.
It was happily unnecessary for me to think of crossing
the lake in one of these, for Mr. Bakker, the President of the
Landraad at Manado, was about to cross the lake in a well-
built European gig, lent to him by the Major of Tondano,
and he very kindly offered to take me with him.
The only outlet to Lake Tondano is at its northern end.
Here a lacustrine delta is found, consisting of a number
of low marshy eyots and a couple of shallow channels which
unite together to form the swift Tondano river. The river
passes through the village of Tondano, where it is called the
Temberan (22), literally ‘swift flowing,’ and then plunges
from a height of over sixty feet into the dense jungle of the
ravine, forming the famous waterfall of Tonsea lama, one
of the many beauty spots of Minahassa. From Tonsea
lama the river takes a northerly course to Ajer-madidi, and
then bends to the west and discharges its waters in the sea
at Manado.
Leaving a little landing-place on the river just opposite
the house of Mr. Broers at seven o’clock in the morning,
our boatmen rowed against the rapid stream towards the
lake, showing us thereby how easy it is for them to learn
to manage a European boat. Passing through the shal-
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 219
lower waters of the mazes of the lacustrine delta, where
our course was shaded by the gigantic leaves of palms and
lofty timber trees, where kingfishers and other birds of
brilliant plumage, startled by our oars, flew across the bows
and disappeared in the dense luxuriant foliage of the banks,
we came at last to the great lake itself, a glorious expanse
of calm green water, surrounded on every side by fine
mountain ranges, glistening and sparkling in the rays of
the morning sun.
At the northern end of the lake the water is generally
very shallow, and even our experienced kamudi had some
difficulty in steering clear of the numerous sandbanks
which are formed there. In places, too, great tangled
masses of a green confervoid growth hampered our move-
ments and impeded progress.
Upon these floating islands of green weed and on many
of the sandbanks stood troops of handsome white and grey
herons (Bubuleuws coromandus), majestically preening their
feathers or fishing leisurely in the shallow waters. A little
farther on and we were free from all obstacles and difficulties,
and as our boat sped over the deep waters of the lake to-
wards Kakas, our kamudi started one of the old and weird
Alfar boating songs, and the rowers as they plied their
oars took up the melancholy refrain.
Iam absolutely ignorant of the Tondanese dialects, so
I cannot tell for certain what they were singing about ;
but it was probably somewhat to this effect if translated
literally into English :
Pull now and let her go,
eh-h-h-h-h,
For the waves are high,
eh-h-h-h-h.
Forward our boat
With lightning speed,
eh-h-h-h.
220 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES \ CH. IX
And then as we approached the shore :
Give honour, all ye villagers,
eh-h-h.
Here comes the great Tuan,
eh-h-h-h.®
The lake, although situated among mountains of vol-
canic origin, is probably not an old crater, as some persons
have supposed. It is about nine miles long from Tondano
to Kakas, by about three and a half broad at Remboken.
It is 696 metres above the sea-level—that is, approximately
2,000 feet. The depth is said to be nowhere more than
ninety feet, and over the greater part of the area the
waters are very shallow. These facts suggest then that
the lake is simply a portion of the tableland of the central
mountain range, which lies at a rather lower level than
the land immediately surrounding it, and has in conse-
quence accumulated the waters of the neighbouring water-
sheds, and thereby formed a lake. The crater theory is
not supported by any feature that I can call to mind.
Tt has been pointed out that it would not be a matter
of insuperable difficulty to drain the lake, leaving in its
place a vast plain of fertile land admirably suited for coffee,
rice, or Indian corn culture. No one can truly say that
the district of Tondano is as yet so densely populated that
it is necessary, or even desirable, to undertake any such
stupendous engineering work for the sake of a few square
miles of fertile land. Apart from questions of economy,
however, what a pity it would be to interfere in any way
with this beauteous spot! The thought of turning this
® Molemo wo mapatoromo éh
Maam bangko im balolongan éh
Eh londej nami
Tember i pamajang
Sumigi éh makawanua éh
Ijaimo si Tuwan wangko éh.— (22)
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 221
lovely lake into a gigantic Dutch polder is enough to give
the English traveller a shock. It may be that, when a
Dutchman visits for the first time a great expanse of
inland water such as this, his national emotions overcome
him, and he thinks unconsciously of a plan to drain the
water off, and intersect it with rectangular dykes and
ditches, and pictures to himself a score or more of green
and white windmills, ever pumping water in or out, and
a floating population of bargees, armed with long punting-
poles. Whatever may be the feelings of the traveller,
however, the resident Dutchmen of Celebes are proud of
their Lake Tondano ; they love its calm peaceful waters and
the panorama of the surrounding hills and mountains of
unrivalled beauty and luxuriance, and they like to spend
their holidays in the cool invigorating climate of its shores,
and rest awhile from the cares and worries of official duties
in the tropical heat of Manado in a region where everything
speaks of peace and contentment. We may safely predict
then that Lake Tondano will remain ‘a thing of beauty ’
for many generations yet to come, and we may add a fervent
hope that it may remain to Dutchmen a ‘joy for ever.’
Three kinds of fishes are commonly caught in Lake
Tondano. The kebos (Ophiocephalus striatus) sometimes
reaches a length of two feet. It is characterised by pos-
sessing a covering of large scales over its head and by
remarkably long pointed dorsal and anal fins; the betok,
here called geteh-geteh, is the well-known climbing perch
(Anubas scandens) ; and there is also a species of eel (Anguilla
Elphinstonei). All of these fishes are very generally dis-
tributed over the East Indies.
In many parts of the Tondano river the large prawns
previously mentioned as occurring in Talisse are found,
but I have no certain information that they occur in the
river above the Tonsea lama falls.
222 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IX
In the lake itself, however, there are found in great
numbers a small fresh-water prawn, which I have named
after the Jkhr van der Wyck, Resident of Manado, Atya
Wyckw (38). This species differs very considerably from
other species of the genus Atya, and some carcinologists
have expressed an opinion that it should be separated
from them in another genus.
The species of fresh-water prawns which are collected
together in the genus Atya have a very wide geographical
distribution, being found in Mexico, West Indian Islands,
ik aS RETF re
(SDD 7? XN
Fic. 32.—Atya Wyckii, a small prawn found in Lake Tondano.
2, The same, natural size.
Cape Verde Islands, the Moluccas, Philippines, Samoa,
Tahiti, and elsewhere. A curious feature of their distri-
bution is that they are but rarely found in continental
rivers and lakes. The cause, whatever it may be, which
confines them to the fresh water of the islands has not yet
come to light. Our information is at present unfortu-
nately not very exact as to the localities inhabited by
these curious forms. Atya sulcatipes is said to live at a
height of 300 feet above the sea-level at San Nicalao, in
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 228
the Cape Verde Islands, but I cannot find it mentioned
anywhere that any other species lives as high above the
sea-level as my species from Tondano.
One of the most interesting points about these Crustacea
is the curious tuft of hairs found on each of the pincers of
the first two pairs of claws. If these hairs be examined
with the microscope, it will be found that every one of them
is provided with a number of tiny recurved hairlets, shaped
like a sickle. Asevery hair is provided with some thirty or
forty of these hairlets, the tufts at the end of each pincer
must act as a very efficient scouring-brush, every tiny
particle of dirtand every microscopic animal and plant with
which they come in contact being retained in the hairy
mesh. It is very probable that the animal feeds by means
of these tufts of hair, first scouring the water-weeds and mud
for particles of food, and then, with the help of its hairy
mandibles and maxilla, cleaning them off intoits mouth. In
correlation with this habit of eating tolerably small and soft
food is the structure of the mandible, which is much more
delicate and hairy than most of the mandibles of the sea-
prawns.
Atya Wyckii differs from other species of the same genus
in its small size and in the structure of the chele. The
entire length of the largest specimens is not more than
seven-eighths of an inch, the females being usually one-
eighth of an inch longer than the males. The next largest
Atya is the Atya bisulcata, which is nearly an inch and a
half long ; many of the other species being twice or even
three times as large. In Atya Wyckii the chela is set straight
on end on to the carpal joint, as it isin a lobster or a prawn,
but in all the other species the carpal joint is somewhere
near the middle of the chela, so that its long axis lies
almost at right angles to the long axis of thelimb. It may
be that the prawn in Tondano, isolated in this mountain
224 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. Ix
lake, 2,000 feet above the level of the sea, with few com-
petitors in the struggle for existence and plenty of food,
has retained the primitive condition of its fore-limbs,
whilst the others, situated in places where the struggle
is more keen, have undergone certain modifications of
structure to fit them better for their environment.
In other words it is quite possible that the Atya Wyckii
more closely resembles in structure the original ancestral
type of the genus than any of the other species, all of which
have, within comparatively speaking recent generations,
become considerably modified.
As an article of food these small prawns are much
prized by the natives, and the Dutchman is very glad to
add the kleine garnalen to his list of comestibles at the
rijsttafel.
As our boat approached the wooden pier at Kakas many
interesting and beautiful sights were to be seen in the shallow
weedy waters at this end of the lake. Besides the little
prawns above mentioned there were countless numbers
of small creatures skimming through the waters. In
some places the water was quite black with mosquito and
enat larve, and in others hundreds of swift dragon-fly
larvee could be seen darting amongst the water reeds and
weeds.
What an immense field for research there is in this lake!
I dare say that the life-history of not a single one of these
numerous larve has yet been worked out, and there must
be thousands of minute forms of animal and vegetable life
that if brought to light would be of immense interest and
importance. It was my hope and desire at the time to
return again to Lake Tondano to investigate the fauna of
its shallow waters, but, for reasons it is unnecessary to
enter into here, I was never able to do so.
To continue the narrative of my journey. Arrived at
CH. Ix JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 225
Kakas, we were received and hospitably entertained by Mr.
Veen, Jun., who kindly helped me to engage a carriage to
convey me to my destination, Kelelonde. I have so often
spoken of the genial and hospitable character of the Dutch-
men in the Indies that it is hardly necessary to add that Mr.
Veen’s kindness and hospitality to me was not exceptional.
The road from Kakas to Langowan might be called
uninteresting were it not for the fact that it presented
a remarkably different type of country to any I had yet
traversed in Minahassa.
The road is broad, level, and straight. On either side of
it there are vast fields of corn and plains of wild grass.
There are but few patches of forest land, and those that
remain are rapidly being cleared for plantations of coffee.
Of the familiar palms the traveller notices that the sagoweer
palm grows well and in abundance, but the coco-nut is
scarce, and the few specimens there are seem weak and
slender compared with those of the warmer regions of the
coast. Birds, as might be expected, are there in thousands.
Turtle-doves and pigeons, crows and scissor-tailed birds,
thousands of little rice-birds, and many other kinds may be
seen on every side. It was without exception the richest
district for birds I had hitherto been in.
As a naturalist and sportsman I was eager to examine
the avi-fauna with greater care than was possible when
driving along the road in a little gig, but it was necessary
to reach my destination before sunset, and I was conse-
quently obliged to press on. Even if I had been able to
study birds in this region, it is more than probable that I
should not have found a single new form, for a former Resi-
dent of Manado, the late §. C. Van Musschenbroek, made
such a sweeping investigation of the ornithology of Mina-
hassa that but little more remains to be done.
Langowan is a pretty little village, and like all the other
Q
226 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IX
villages in this region composed of well-built comfortable
looking houses. In the middle of the high road at the
centre of the village is a handsome wooden church, in some
respects one of the most pleasing edifices in Minahassa, and
not far from this are one or two large houses belonging to
the planters and the village chiefs. In nearly every com-
pound round the houses of the natives may be seen a
number of healthy coffee-trees, some of them well-trimmed
and neat, others growing in wild and disorderly profusion.
In some of the better gardens there are seen roses, poin-
settias, bougainvilleas, castor-oil plants, with pansies and
many seedlings sent from Europe, whilst potatoes, beans,
asparagus, and other vegetables are cultivated for the
table. One gentleman whose garden I visited had a fine
collection of birds in large wire cages, and prided him-
self on the great variety of flowers, shrubs, and vegetables
he was able to raise.
Not far from Langowan there are some hot-water springs,
and these, together with the numerous deposits of sulphur
which abound in many places, tell the story of the volcanic
nature of the district. Soon after leaving Langowan there
is a low steep hill of a fine golden gravelly soil, and beyond
that the road gradually slopes up to the highest level of the
Saputan Pass.
This little hill of gravel looks very much like a former
lake beach, and I think it is very probable that Lake
Tondano, now nearly five miles off, once reached across the
plains of Langowan as far as this point. The aspect of the
whole country round the lake had previously caused me to
believe that it must have been at one time far more exten-
sive than it is now, but I had no evidence before of the
position of its former banks.
Three miles and a half from Langowan we turned off
from the high road into a track which led through the
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 227
forest to Kelelonde. The track was a very bad one for a
light gig such as ours, and we jolted and pitched about in
a manner that was anything but pleasant after a long
day’s journey. We reached Kelelonde shortly after sun-
set, and were received by our host, Mr. Rijkschroeff, the
opzichter of the coffee garden, and the only European in
the little mountain settlement. Before retiring to bed that
night we played a game of cards, the recognised method of
spending a pleasant evening in the Dutch Hast Indies.
The company I cannot forget, for it struck me at the
time as perhaps the queerest mixture of nationalities it
had ever been my good fortune to be in. There was a
Chinese trader, a friend of Mr. Rijkschroeff, who made,
I fancy, a handsome income by peddling goods among the
native people of the mountain districts. His partner in
the game was the Arab Omar, who had driven me over
from Kakas in his gig. My friend and partner Rijkschroeff
was a Dutchman, born in the Indies, but nevertheless well
educated and intelligent. He had served as a soldier in
South Africa and Sumatra, and was full of stories and
anecdotes of the varied scenes of his life and adventures.
We four then—an Arab, a Chinaman, a Dutchman, and an
Englishman—sat down together to play at whist in the
little village of Kelelonde, situated in the heart of the pri-
mitive forest of the mountains of Celebes. We played
steadily until the early hours of the morning, and the end
of it all was that the Chinaman came off victorious. The
next morning Omar and the Chinaman went away, and I was
left alone with my kind host and the little party of native
plantation labourers. The village consisted of some eight or
nine houses, and a shed-like hut that was used for a school
on weekdays and a church on Sundays.
I do not propose to give a detailed account of my life
and experiences at Kelelonde. I was very weak and poorly
as
228 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. 1X
the greater part of the time I was there, so that my oppor-
tunities for investigating the natural history of the forests
were limited. The coffee garden is situated upon the moun-
tain slopes about a quarter of a mile from the village. The
path to it through the forest is extremely grand, the trees
being as tall and magnificent as they are in the forests of the
low-lying lands, and, owing, perhaps, to the greater humidity
of the climate, their trunks are even more richly covered
with parasitic ferns and orchids than they are elsewhere.
A coffee-plantation is formed by clearing the forest with
fire and axe, and then allowing a certain number of young
wild trees to grow again until they reach the height of ten
or twenty feet. These trees are for the purpose of protect-
ing the young coffee-trees from sun and heavy rain, those
most valued for this purpose being the common walantakka,
trees (Erythrina lithosperma) (17). The young coffee-trees
are planted in circular beds about six feet in diameter, which
are carefully kept clear of weeds.
The coffee berries are first of all allowed to germinate
in properly sheltered and protected places, and the young
seedlings, called the bibits, are then transplanted to the coffee
beds. It is said that if the radicle is able to grow straight
down into the soil, the tree will probably become a strong and
healthy one, but if it becomes deflected by a stone or root,
then the tree is usually found to be a poor one and liable to
disease. If the bibit shows itself to be weak and sickly after
twelve months’ trial, it is taken up and a new one planted
close to the same spot. A coffee bed is not abandoned until
it has been tried two or three times, and itis a curious fact
that very often after two or three failures the same bed will
support an exceptionally good tree. The coffee-trees are
allowed to grow to the height of six feet, and then the tops
are cut off, so as to strengthen the growth of the lateral
branches which bear the fruits.
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 229
The most favourable soil for coffee is the rich black vol-
canic ash that covers the mountain slopes in many parts of
North Celebes. Thetrees grow and produce fine large berries
up to 4,000 feet above the level of the sea. The finest and
largest plantations are in the Tondano district, at a height
of between 1,500 and 2,500 feet.
Until quite recently, coffee was a Government monopoly
in Minahassa. The plantations were chosen by and in the
charge of the Controleurs, all the labour being performed
by the natives under the direction of their local chiefs.
The Government paid the chiefs a certain price per pikul
for the coffee, sufficient to pay the wages of the labourers
and leave a small surplus for their own benefit, and then
it was brought down to the magazines in Manado and
shipped to Holland. At the present time there are a few
plantations held by private firms, but the majority of them
still belong to the Government. First-class Manado coffee
is said to be the finest the world produces. It certainly
commands a very high price in the Amsterdam market,
where the Austrian and Russian buyers compete with one
another to obtain it.
A few years ago Minahassa was quite free from that
terrible scourge, the ‘ coffee-leaf disease,’ but it has since
made its appearance in the southern districts, and notwith-
standing the efforts that are being made to stamp it out, it
is greatly to be feared that it will spread.
Besides the fungus disease, the coffee has many other
enemies. In the Kelelonde gardens rats and mice were a
great scourge. These rodents seem to have a fancy for
the succulent stalks of the berries when they are nearly ripe,
and they nibble at them until the berries fall. The large
long-haired black rat (AZus wanthurus) is one of the worst
offenders in this respect.
In every garden there are a certain number of ordinary
230 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IX
cats which have run wild, and these, it may be supposed,
have a tendency to keep the numbers of the rodents
down.
The natives are unfortunately very fond of cats, not
as pets, but as articles of food, and it is consequently
necessary to make a strict rule in every plantation that
the labourers are not allowed to catch and eat them.
Unless he knew beforehand the links in the chain of
argument, a stranger might be considerably puzzled should
he be asked to explain what harm it would do the coffee
if the natives were allowed to eat cats.
Kelelonde is about 4,000 feet above the sea, and it
takes its name from the mountain peak on the slopes of
which it stands. Mr. Rijkschroeff told me that Kelelonde
literally means ‘a canoe turned upside down’; but I must
confess that I could see but little resemblance to such an
object in the broad flat peak of the mountain.
The whole range is very volcanic. Hot-water springs
and sulphur deposits, found in many places in the district,
tell only too plainly the tale of the hidden fires; but, if
further evidence were needed, it could easily be found in
the fine old crater of the sister peak, where dwells the god
Saputan, the Vulcan of the Alfar’s mythology, whose mighty
hammer may be heard from time to time as he works in
his mountain smithy.
I stayed at Kelelonde about a fortnight without mate-
rially benefiting my health, and then returned in Omar's
gig to Manado.
Just before we came to Kakas we met a man waving
a large Dutch flag, followed by two others beating drums
and a crowd of natives. I asked Omar what the fuss was
all about. He told me it was a mapalu.
The mapalus are very interesting gatherings, and, as
they play an important part in the life of the natives of
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 231
these parts, I must ask for the attention of the reader while
I endeavour to explain their meaning. The mapalu may
be briefly stated to be a gathering of the natives to work
gratuitously in the fields of a neighbour—to sow, to reap,
or to dig for a member of the village community without
receiving any reward beyond a certain amount of food and
hospitality.
The mapalu system is so closely connected with the
idea of communal or tribal possession of the land, that it
will be well first of all to consider the laws of land tenure
of the Minahassers. It seems probable that in early times
the ancestors of the Malay races which at the present day
inhabit the peninsula of North Celebes were divided into
a number of tribes, or rather large family clans, each of
them inhabiting certain given districts with definite limits.
They lived upon the fish they caught, the produce of the
chase, and what fruits and roots they could gather in the
primeval forest. Every individual member of the clan had
the absolute and complete right to anything he could
capture or find within the limits of the district. There
was no division of the wild uncultivated land, but all the
members of the clan had equal rights to enjoy its benefits.
In time of war they joined together under the leadership
of the elder or chief to defend the common property, and
with one heart and hand they often fought together to
steal a portion of their neighbours’. With the development
of the territorial idea there came a rude form of agri-
culture. Portions of the forest were cleared and cultivated,
and new laws were introduced to regulate the possession of
the land thus opened up. It must have been at about this
stage in the history of their social development that the
simple family clans grew to be more complicated tribes. The
land laws were, however, still based upon the central idea
that the land belonged communally to the people, and they
232 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IX
conceded only certain rights of use and profit to individuals
and their heirs for ever under certain definite conditions.
We find, then, under those conditions of society that the
district was divided into (a) lands which had never been
opened up and cultivated, i.e. primitive forest, called talun,
and (b) lands which had at one time been cultivated, called
wiimaan, which were again divided into (1) lands which
were actually at the time in cultivation (wma); (2) lands
which had lain fallow for one or two years (rekat) ; (8) lands
which had lain waste for four, five, or six years, and were
yielding crops of young short wood (sawukaw) ; and (4) lands
which had lain waste for many years, and were already
covered again with large forest trees (kakaian).
All the members of the.tribe had equal rights over
all the talun, or primitive forest, in their district. In this
respect the noblemen and chiefs were no better off than
the humblest individual. It was never sold to members of
a neighbouring tribe, and could only be let to them for a year
at a time by the consent of all the people.
Every man could demand a portion of the forest to culti-
vate, and it then became his own private property, and
was inherited by his heirs. He could not make any claim
upon it unless he opened it up. No man had any claim
to any portion of the primitive forest he had not cleared
and cultivated. If any portion of the land remained un-
cultivated for many years after it had once been opened
up it reverted to the tribe.
In former times cultivated land was usually held com-
munally by families in the tribes. This was owing to the
prevailing custom that when a man who had opened up a
piece of forest land died, the real property was not divided
among his children, but descended undivided and com-
munally to them as the pusaka. Nowadays, however,
it is becoming much more common to divide the real
CH, IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 233
property among the heirs, and it then remains the private
property of individuals, or tanah pasini. But traces of
the old family system still remain in the custom of leaving
a small portion of the property communally to the heirs to
form a bond of union between the members of the family.
It must not be supposed that even in olden times
a man could seize upon any piece of forest that he
fancied, and forthwith commence to clear and cultivate it.
The choosing of the ground was always left to the agri-
cultural priests, who were guided in their choice by the cries
of birds. In modern times it rests with the administra-
tive chief under the Controleur to allot new land to the
people.
The pusaka, or land held as common property by all
the members of a family, was under the same kind of
control as the talun of the tribe. It could not be let or sold
; anyone without the consent of all the members of the
Bes and, furthermore, the tribe always retained the
right to forbid the families to sell or let their property to
persons of another district (98).
With this general conception of the unity of family and
tribal life running through all the laws of the people of
Minahassa, the system of the mapalus is perfectly con-
sistent. It must be a survival of the days when a man
regarded all the members of his village as his relations,
and was as willing to help them in their work and wars as
they were to help him. ‘We must be careful,’ said the
beautiful Mogogunoi to the King of Bolang, who wished
to abduct her, ‘for the whole population of the district
belongs to the family of (my husband) Matindas’ (see p. 310).
When anyone finds it necessary, then, to sow or reap or
plough his field, he does not hire labourers for a wage,
but he goes all round the district carrying a large Dutch
flag, followed by his sons or brothers beating drums (tifa)
234 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. IX
and gongs (kolintang). The men and women of his village
—tor field-labour is by no means restricted to the sterner
sex—come to join him, and, when there are enough of them,
they proceed with songs and laughter to the field, where
each one has his work allotted to him.
When the sun sinks to rest, and work for the day is
done, the merry party of free labourers repair to the house
of the owner of the field. A pig is killed for the occasion,
a sumptuous allowance of rice and sagoweer provided for
each guest, and the evening is spent in feasting, singing,
dancing, and general fun and frolic.
The social part of the proceedings in the evening is
no doubt considered by the younger people to be the most
important part of the mapalu. It is on such occasions
that the young maidens win the hearts of their faithful
swains; it is then they learn to dance, to sing, and to
recite; at mapalus they learn the gossip of the district.
All the old songs of love, romance, of peaceful agriculture
and terrible war are repeated, the legends of their ancestors
and the stories of their gods are recited, the village poet
reads his compositions, the musician plays his variations on
the bamboo flute, while the walians, or priests, sanction by
their presence the proceedings of the night, and secure the
blessings of the gods on the labours of the day.
When we reached Kakas Omar changed his horse and
brought with him a spare one for the journey. For the
first few miles our road ran between low marshy fields, where
several men and women could be seen up to their knees
in mud, sowing rice or trudging leisurely beside the buffaloes
that dragged the plough. Approaching the village of Paso
the road began to rise a little, affording pretty glimpses of
the surrounding country, but it was not until we had passed
Remboken and were mounting the hillside which leads to
the Tompusu Pass that the glorious panorama of the lake,
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 235.
the forests, and the mountains burst upon us in its full
magnificence. Nowhere in the wide world, I thought, can
there be a scene which equals this. The brightness of the
blue sky and the broad waters of the lake, bearing an image
of every fleecy cloud that crossed the arch above it, were each
perfect of their kind ; and then the green luxuriance of the
plains, the endless forests stretching over hill and dale, and
melting in the purple mists of the distant mountain-tops,
which stood like giant guardians of the land, together formed
a picture that no pen can adequately describe.
Everyone, however dull and emotionless he may be,
must at times be moved by noble scenery, and I know of
none which fills the breast with livelier feelings of hope and
happiness than does the mountain scenery in the tropics.
lt was on the crest of the crater of the Gedeh in Java, when
the rising sun first tipped the clouds below us with red and
golden crests, and then burst in all its glory upon the wide
expanse of rich and fertile fields of that happy land—it was
there I first experienced the feelings that were afterwards
to be repeated on Tondano lake.
The snowy fields and imposing precipices of the Nor-
wegian fiords, the bold and fascinating scenery of the west
of Scotland, the wild mountain ranges of the north of
Wales, grand and glorious as they are, did not affect me in
precisely the same way. It is perhaps the sense of vast
and unexplored resources in these lands of vigorous and
luxuriant growth, the prospect of a future for humanity in
these wild domains, a feeling that with all its misery and
troubles the world is not exhausted yet of things which lead
to happiness and prosperity, which makes the traveller’s
heart beat quicker with a sense of gladness as he gazes on
a scene like that from the Tompusu hill.
The sun was shining brightly as we harnessed the fresh
horse to the gig, and drove in tandem up the steep hill.
236 A NATURALIST IN, CELEBES CH. Ix
As we crossed the pass, however, we saw some heavy clouds
hovering over the fields around Tondano, and by the time
we reached Tomohon the rain came down in torrents.
During the worst part of this shower we were fortu-
nately able to take refuge under the roof of a little bridge
which crossed a rivulet. It often strikes people who visit
these regions for the first time as a strange thing that
all the bridges should be protected by roofs of attap, but
one can readily see the necessity for it. Exposure to the
cold and soaking rains and the burning rays of the tropical
sun would soon work irreparable mischief even to a well-
built wooden bridge. An ample roof of attap, although it
cannot defend them from insect pests, protects from the
worst effects of exposure to sun and rain, and keeps them
safe and sound for several years.
As we drove past the wild forests of the Tompusu Pass,
and then descended into the more cultivated plains around
Tomohon, I could not but deplore my lack of botanical
knowledge. Most of the trees, many of them strikingly
beautiful in growth and foliage, were absolutely strange to
me, and I cannot even indicate to the reader their position
in the vegetable kingdom. An oak tree (Quercus moluc-
censis) could be recognised, and a small tree with poplar-
like leaves, which I took to be Reinwardt’s Caruwmbium
populifolium. The difficulty which the naturalist has to
contend with in such a country as Celebes is that the
forests are composed of a large variety of trees belonging to
different orders, and it is only with the greatest difficulty
he can obtain specimens of the leaves and flowers for
identification. The forests are not mainly composed, as is
usually the case in Europe, of a number of trees belonging
to one or two species only, but it is really not an exaggera-
tion to say that every tree one comes across in the Celebean
forests is specifically ditferent to all its immediate neighbours.
CH. IX JOURNEY THROUGH MINAHASSA 237
A square mile of forest in Celebes is as a patch of turf
in England, composed of many different genera and species
belonging to widely different natural orders (11). The
reason of this may be that the soil and climate of the
mountain slopes in the tropics are particularly and equally
favourable for the growth of forest trees; and as the
struggle for existence in a given area is known to be more
severe between plants of the same species than between
plants which are not, the forests have in the course of time,
by a process of natural selection, assumed their present
heterogeneous aspect. It is only in areas where it requires
some special or extraordinary power of the trees to resist
unfavourable conditions that we find one species or genus
flourishing in large numbers in the same forest. Thus but
few trees in the world possess the power of resisting the
action of salt water; and consequently we find that the
mangrove forests are composed of, comparatively speaking,
few species, and in that respect offer a striking contrast to
the neighbouring forests on the dry land. It is, perhaps,
some exceptional power possessed by the pines, firs, oaks,
&c., to resist cold or heavy winds or to subsist on a poor
soil which has caused the paucity of species in the forests
of cold and temperate climes.
It is a curious thing that at present our knowledge of
the botany of North Celebes is very scanty. The orni-
thology and entomology of Minahassa have been very
thoroughly investigated by several competent naturalists ;
but since the time of Reinwardt scarcely a single botanist
has devoted himself to a study of the plants of this district.
Considering the unexampled facilities the colony offers for
quiet and uninterrupted work in natural history, and the
many forest-clad mountain peaks which probably support
a flora of exceptional interest, it is to be hoped that this
hiatus in our knowledge will soon be filled up.
238 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. x
CHAPTER X
MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS
Stone implements—-Cosmologies—Legend of the origin of sun, moon, and
stars—Story of Wailan wangko—Religion—Story of Warereh—List of
the principal gods—Spirits—Native prayers—Demons—Priests—Holy
birds —Fossos—Shamans—Giants—Story | Parepej—Story of Utahagi.
In the previous chapter I have referred to the marvellous
changes which have taken place in Minahassa since the
arrival of the Dutch colonists. Wars, assassinations, and
revolting savage customs have disappeared, and the people
have now become peaceful, industrious, and law-abiding.
Much of this improvement must be attributed to the
wise administration of the Dutch officials, but the burden
of the task has fallen on the shoulders of the missionaries,
whose heroic and self-sacrificing efforts to civilise and
educate the native population have produced results un-
equalled in the history of Christian missions. It is not the
native only, however, who owes a debt of gratitude to these
noble men, for our scholars are indebted to them for the
painstaking way in which they have collected and recorded
the myths, legends, anecdotes, and fables of the heathen
period, and thus saved from inevitable destruction a mass
of facts of ever-increasing interest and importance. I am
not exaggerating when I speak of the ‘ inevitable destruction’
of these things, for the rapidity with which savage man
forgets not only the myths and religions of his forefathers,
but even their customs and appliances, is really surprising.
The Indians of Guiana, for example, are ignorant of the
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 239
use and even meaning of the stone implements which were
actually used by their ancestors only three generations ago,
and Professor Haddon (30) has recently called attention to
the remarkably rapid pace at which the natives of Torres
Straits are losing all acquaintance with their former cus-
toms and weapons.
We have an example of this forgetfulness of the natives
of the weapons of their ancestors in the so-called lightning
stones (watu-ing kilat) of the Minahassers. These are un-
doubtedly stone implements that must have been used by
former inhabitants of the country, but are now said to
be found in bamboos which have been split by lightning.
In some districts they are wrapped up in dry leaves and
placed in a pot of water to cause rain (66), but by the
Tombulus and Mongondus they are used as preventives
against lightning (55). This shows conclusively that the
Minahassers have so forgotten the use of these stone imple-
ments as actually to attribute to them a supernatural
origin. We are, it is true, not perfectly certain that the
ancestors of the natives now living in this peninsula ever
used stone implements. It is more than probable that the
stone men did not inherit the iron weapons, but were
defeated, and possibly destroyed, by them ; but, nevertheless,
the Malay who conquered must have also seen and probably
felt the use of the stone weapons, and it really is remarkable
that he left no record of them in the stories or romances
he handed down to his descendants.
Not the least interesting of the many queer things
which seem to cast a halo of interest around the old stone
implements is the fact that so many races have considered
them to be in some way or another connected with the
thunderstorm.
Here in Minahassa we find them called lightning stones ;
in England, even to the present day, there are many good
240 A NATURALIST IN CHLEBES CH. X
country folk who firmly believe that the flint implements
that they from time to time find upon their fields are
thunderbolts. Strange as it may at first seem to many of
us, this is but one example out of many which help to sup-
port the view that the fundamental ideas of primitive man
are the same all the world over. Just as the little black
baby of the negro, the brown baby of the Malay, the yellow
baby of the Chinaman are in face and form, in gestures
and habits, as well as in the first articulate sounds they
mutter, very much alike, so the mind of man, whether he
be Aryan or Malay, Mongolian or Negrito, has in the
course of its evolution passed through stages which are prac-
tically identical. In the intellectual childhood of mankind
natural phenomena, or some other causes of which we are
at present ignorant, have induced thoughts, stories, legends,
and myths that in their essentials are identical among all
the races of the world with which we are acquainted.
The first series of beliefs I shall deal with are those
concerning the origin of the world, of mankind, and of the
heavenly bodies, and the current ideas concerning the
present support or basis of the world. In other words I
shall now briefly describe the cosmogony and cosmology of
the Minahassers.
The first legend is, or rather was, for most of the natives
are Christians now, current in the northern districts of
Minahassa.
It may be thought a very unsatisfactory explanation
of the origin of the world on account of the vague reference
in the beginning to Lumimuit’s home and parents, but
after all it is quite as good as any other explanation offered
by primitive man. The mind is finite and the universe is
infinite, and consequently it is necessary for man when he
attempts to explain universal problems to draw the line
somewhere. ‘The line is most generally drawn between the
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 241
god who made the world and his parents. It is so in this
cosmogony. It is so in many others,
The story of Lumimuut, then, is as follows:
When Lumimuut could walk she left her parents and
birthplace in a canoe, taking with her a handful of earth,
which she threw on the sea to the great god, saying, ‘If I
am indeed your offspring let a great land arise where I can
live.’ And immediately there sprang up out of the sea a
great land. The ground, however, was soft and slippery.
Thereupon she struck a great rock, which split in two,
and out of the split came forth Kareima. ‘ Whoare you?’
said Lumimuut. ‘I am the priestess Kareima,’ said
she. ‘But who are you?’ asked Kareima. ‘I am called
Lumimuiut.’ ‘How many people are with you ?’ asked the
priestess. ‘Iam alone,’ was the answer of Lumimuiit.
After some days Kareima said to Lumimuiit, ‘ Turn
your face to the south!’ While she did this the priestess
prayed, ‘O Cause of the east wind, fertilise this woman.’
Lumimuut, however, perceived nothing. Then, on the
command of the priestess, she turned to the east, to the
north, and finally to the west, and each time the priestess
prayed that the deity of the wind would fertilise her.
Her prayer was answered, and Lumimuiit by the god of
the west wind begat a son named Toar. When Toar grew
up Kareima took two sticks, one of the plant called tuis and
one of the plant called assa, and cutting them of the same
length gave one (tuis) to Lumimuit and one to Toar (assa)
saying, ‘See here are two sticks of the same length. Go
you, Lumimuut, to the right and you, Toar, to the left, and
whenever you meet anyone measure sticks. Then if they
are of the same length you are mother and son, but if one
is longer than the other come to me immediately at the
centre of the earth.’
Both went on their way, but after a time Lumimuiit
R
242 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. Xx
and Toar met without knowing one another, and on
measuring sticks they found that Lumimuiit’s stick was
longer than Toar’s, for the tuis stick had sprouted out and
grown. Thereupon they returned to Kareima, and when
she had measured the sticks she said, ‘ You are not mother
and son, therefore you must become man and wife. Be
fruitful and populate the earth.’ So Lumimuiut and Toar
became man and wife. They begat many children, ‘ twice
nine, three times seven, and once three.’ The ‘three’ are
the Pasijowan, of whom one was the priest Leleen at Waren-
dukan in the air, from the other two the people of Minahassa
trace their descent.
When these children had multiplied and spread over the
earth, Lumimuiit called them together at Pinahawéténgan,
and divided the country amongst them. One quarter in
the north-west she gave to the Tombulus, another quarter
in the north-east to the Tonseas, another in the south-east
to the Towtumaratas, and the fourth quarter to the Toutem-
boan (22).
This legend of the origin of the earth and its people is
full of interest to the student of cosmogonies. The story
of the conception of Lumimuit by the god of the west
wind, as Wilken (91) shows, exhibits traces of the very
common myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth.
Lumimuiit is the earth goddess, the fruitful mother of all
things ; the west wind is the one which brings the rain and
fertilises the earth.
The people of Minahassa seem to have kept very com-
plete genealogies, and traced their descent directly from
Lumimuit, the mother of all men. Wilken was able to
give the complete genealogy of Albert Waworuntu, the
Majoor of Sarongsong, and of Roland Ngantung, the Majoor
of Tomohon. These genealogies commence in precisely
the same way, and prove conclusively that, although the
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 243
custom has now changed, these people originally traced
descent through the mother.
Thus, commencing with Lumimuitt, we find in the
family tree of Waworuntu, that her daughter
Pasijowan by her husband Rumengan begat Kinaambangan,
Kinaambangan 3 Mokointempai begat Manembu ;
and then the genealogy changes, and the descent is traced
through the father :
Manembu by his wife Retawene begat Winutaan,
Winutaan +) Roror begat Pandeirot,
&e. &e.
And in the genealogy of Ngantung we find precisely the
same thing :
Pasijowan by her husband Palapa begat Rinengan,
Rinengan 4 Lumainang begat Rindengan,
Rindengan by his wife Intoring begat Menembu,
Menembu s Kinetar begat Waturijamassen.
In the cosmology of the Minahassers we find it mentioned
that the whole earth is borne by a pig belonging to the god
Makawalang, who dwells in the under-world. Earthquakes
are caused by the pig rubbing himself against the trees.
Another version of the story, however, says that the
world does not stand on the pig itself, but on a number of
piles, and the earthquakes are caused by the pig rubbing
himself against them (91).
A similar belief to this occurs in the cosmology of many
of the Malay races of the Archipelago. Thus the Bolang-
Mongondus believe that the world rests on the horns of a
great buffalo, and whenever a fly settles on his ears he
shakes his head, and so causes the earth to quake (90).
According to the inhabitants of Roti island, the Niasers,
the Bataks, and even the Fijians, the earth rests upon
a gigantic snake. The Menangkabawan Malays of Mid-
B2
244 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. X
Sumatra believe that the earth rests upon an ox, and that
the ox stands upon an egg, which is borne by a fish, which
swims in the water contained in a stone cup (91).
This is the story of the origin of the sun, the moon, and
the stars (89).
‘Lingkambene lived at Kinupit with his daughter
‘Pandagian. During the celebration of the Mahatatamb-
ulelen it happened one evening that Pandagian remained at
home and took no part in the fun. Her mother rebuked
her for this, saying, ‘‘Are you satisfied to see only the
shoulders and backs of your friends who are amusing them-
selves with singing and dancing?” Then Pandagian arose,
went to her acquaintances and joined in the fun. When
the fun was over after midnight she returned home, but
found the ladder drawn up. Then she cried, ‘‘ Mother,
mother, let the ladder down’; her mother replied, ‘‘ Ask
your father.” ‘Father, father,” she cried, “ let the ladder
down”; he replied, “Ask your grandfather”; but her
grandfather bade her ask her grandmother. Her grand-
mother referred her to her eldest brother, but, as he would
not help, she besought in turn her younger brothers, her
sisters, her uncle, her aunt, and so on through all her
family. Receiving no help, she laid some leaves one upon
the other, and began to pray, saying, ‘‘O Rimasa, lower
the ladder for me. O Rimasa, lower the ladder for me.”
After she had said this three times she heard a noise coming
from above like the sound of golden chains, and saw a golden
chair suspended by golden chains lowered from the sky.
Having seated herself on the golden chair she prayed, “ O
Rimasa, take me on high.” Having reached the height of
the windows of her parents’ house, she cried out, ‘ Parents,
grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncle and aunt, none of
you would help me ; now I have no longer need of you, remain
where you are.”
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 245
‘When she had reached the top of the house she again
cried out words to the same effect. Then the whole family
came out from the house deeply distressed at seeing her
carried away on high, and cried, ‘““O Pandagian! come
down again; here are nine pigs that shall be slaughtered
for you.” Then she answered, “It is too late, too late, I
have no more need of them,” and as she said this she rose
higher and higher in the air, until at length she disappeared
from sight.
«When she arrived at the heavenly village Kasendukan,
her hands and her feet were bound together, and a stick of
the Lahendong tree passed through them, and thus she
was carried to the river and there washed.! Then she was
killed, roasted, scraped, again washed, cut open and her
entrails removed—treated, in fact, just like a slaughtered
pig. But all this painful treatment redounded to her honour.
For from her forehead and face arose the sun, from the
back of her head arose the moon (the spots on the moon
are the wounds she had on her head), her right eye became
the star of the year, her left eye the star Pamusis, her heart
the morning star, her liver became the three stars, her
lungs the seven stars, and her body, which was chopped into
fine pieces, became the other stars. The glow-worms received
their lights from the scraps that fell from the chopping-
block.’
In many of the legends of the people of Minahassa, we
find traces of the influence of the Catholic priests. This
influence seems to have caused in many cases both a change
in the names of the heroes and a considerable modifica-
tion in the character of the legends.
The following legend is an example of this (22): ‘ The
1 This is a method of binding pigs, which was formerly employed in
Minahassa. A picture in the narrative of the voyage of the ‘ Astrolabe ’ (78)
shows a babirusa pig bound in this way.
246 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. X
empung”® Wailan wangko was alone in the world. Then an
island became visible which rose from the water. A coco-
nut tree was cast upon the island, and a tree grew there
called Mahawatu. Then the empung Wailan wangko took
the coco-nut tree which had been driven ashore and broke
it in two, when lo! a man came out, whom.the god called
Wangi.
‘Then the god Wailan wangko spoke to Wangi and
said, ‘You remain now upon the earth whilst I climb into
the tree Mahawatu.” Then said Wangi, “It is good.” But
Wangi considered with himself, and climbed up into the tree
Mahawatu and said to the god, “‘I have come to ask Wailan
wangko why I must remain all alone upon the earth.”
‘Then the empung answered him and said, “‘ Go back
again and take some earth and make two figures, one a
man and the other a woman.” This Wangi did, therefore,
and both the figures were human, and they could walk
about, but they could not speak. When this was done,
Wangi again climbed into the tree and asked the empung
Wailan wangko, “How now! both the figures are well
made but they cannot speak.”
‘Then the empung Wailan wangko said to Wangi, ‘ Take
this ginger and blow it into the skulls and ears of your
figures that they may speak and give them names also; to
the man you shall give the name Adam, and to the woman
the name Ewa.”’’
The Wailan wangko of this myth is the great god of the
southern districts of Minahassa. He is generally nameless,
the ‘I am that I am’ of the Alfar, the Almighty Lord who
made the Earth. He is sometimes represented as sitting
in a tree on an island from the principal event in the
above legends (23).
* «Empung’ literally mzans a grandfather, and is used as the generic
name for the gods.
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 247
It is a curious circumstance that whilst in the northern
districts the principal deity and her first offspring are re-
presented as women, in the southern districts both the
Wailan wangko, the great god, and the miraculously formed
first human being, Wangi, are both men.
It should be noted, however, that in the story of Wailan
wangko no attempt is made to trace any blood-relationship
between him and Wangi, nor between Wangi and Adam and
Ewa, so that the natives of the southern districts do not trace
their descent from the first gods as they do in the north.
From this fact, and the undoubted traces of some
Christian influence, it seems probable that the story of
Wailan wangko has been profoundly modified within com-
paratively speaking modern times, that, in fact, some of the
teachings of the old Catholic priests have become grafted
on to the native myth, and some of the names of the native
heroes changed to those of the Hebrew scriptures.
The religion of the Minahassers was a differentiated
form of animism. They believed not only that certain
trees, rocks, waterfalls and other objects were possessed of
souls, but also in a number of free wandering spiritual forms
of various ranks, powers, and capabilities for good or evil.
There is little reason to doubt that the origin of the
religions of savage races may be traced to a form of fetich-
ism, a belief that every natural object with which the
savage came into daily contact possessed a soul or fetich.
These fetiches were the cause of the growth, the flowering
and the fruiting of the trees, the sound of the waterfall, the
dangers of the rocks, and the perils of the mountains. It
was the belief in them which caused, under certain circum-
stances, the tabu of the South-sea islanders, and the same
thing occurs in Sangir under the name ‘pilih,’ and in
Minahassa and Bolang Mongondu under the names ‘ lii’ or
‘ poton.’
248 . A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. X
A further advance was marked by the introduction into
their spiritual world of the spirits of deceased chiefs who lived
for ever, not in the form of the fetiches of places so much
as in the form of wandering ghosts haunting the scenes of
their former triumphs and experiences. Then, when men
began to record with greater accuracy their genealogy, their
remote ancestors were elevated to the rank of powerful gods
dwelling in the heavens or the under-world, to whom prayers
must be said and sacrifices offered to avert disasters and
secure blessings, and a crowd of lesser deities and spirits
introduced from some of those who were more recently
deceased.
It was in this stage of religious belief that the mission-
aries found the people of Minahassa. They believed in a
series of ancestral ghosts of the rank of first-class gods, in
a crowd of lesser deities, protecting spirits and demons and
a few fetiches connected with certain holy trees, the forests,
dangerous or prominent rocks and cliffs, noted waterfalls
and streams and other natural objects.
The principal god of the natives of the northern dis-
tricts was Lumimuut, the universal mother of all men; and
next to her came her first-born children, the twice nine
group of the Makaruwa sijow, the thrice seven group of the
Makatélu pitu and the three Pasijowan.
These were the principal empungs or gods. Most of
them dwell in four villages in the heavens called Kasosoran,
Kalawakan, Kasendukan, and Karondoran (89). In for-
mer times it appears the gods were not exclusive, but
would at times leave their heavenly abodes to walk amongst
mankind on earth. The following legend of the bold bad
Warereh explains the reason of their latter-day exclusive-
ness (58):
‘Once upon a time the Lokon was very much higher
than it is now, in fact so high that it reached into the
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 249
heavens. In those days the gods frequently turned their
steps earthward to walk amongst mortals, and rich blessings
ever followed in their footsteps.
“«T wonder what it is like above there in the dwell-
ings of the immortals?” said the proud and inquisitive
Warereh.
‘His curiosity gained the mastery over his prudence,
and he went to the Lokon to see. Higher and higher he
climbed over the rocky and difficult ground, untilat last he
reached the top and gazed on the noble mansions of the
heavenly choir. Prouder than ever he returned to earth
and boasted of all he had seen. But he always wished to
make the ascent again and gaze once more on the pleasant
places of the gods. At last he was discovered and the
immortals swore to be avenged. But Warereh fled and hid
himself in the mountains for a long time. Eventually he
felt a superhuman strength in his limbs and dared to
venture forth to meet the angry gods.
‘Armed with a terribly long sword he hastened to the
mountain, and with one lusty stroke the top of the Lokon
was cut off. Taking it up on his shoulders he carried it
beyond the Tonsea and set it up as the mountain which is
now called Klabat. Not satisfied with this exploit, he tried
another stroke, and the portion he cut off he threw into
the sea near Wenang (the modern Manado), and there it
remains to this day as the Manado tuwa Island.
‘The punishment for his misdeeds, however, speedily
followed. Shunned and hated by all men, he had to pass
the remainder of his days in solitude.
‘Ever since the time of the bold and wicked Warereh
the immortals have lived their lives apart from mortals, and
the blessings which followed on their footsteps are sought
by men in vain.’
According to another legend (89), it was the Klabat
250 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. X
mountain that was formerly the way from the earth to the
heavenly village Kasendukan. ‘ In olden times, there was no
rice in Minahassa, but a certain man, Tuleng by name, heard
a rumour that this cereal was grown in Kasendukan, so he
paid the gods a visit to see if he could persuade them to
sell him a few seeds. After several fruitless attempts to
buy them, he at last decided to steal some. He succeeded
in doing this, and brought the stolen grains to earth. When,
afterwards, the dwellers in Kasendukan heard of the theft,
they determined to kill Tuleng; but before they had started
for this purpose, Sumanei, the brother of Tuleng, succeeded
in cutting off the top of the Klabat and thus effectually
frustrated the immortals in the execution of their fell de-
sign.’
It must not, however, be supposed that all the empungs
dwell in the heavenly villages. Thus, the Makawalang
dwells in the under-world, Saputan dwells in the volcano of
that name, Rumengan dwells in the Mahawu, and Pinou-
toan up the Lokon.
Other gods of considerable importance were : Muntuuntu,
in some places recognised as the chief of the gods. He
seems also to have been the guardian of the gate of the
heavenly village Kasendukan. Lembej was the distributor
of riches. The empung Totokai was the patron of the
head-hunters. Tingkulengdeng, the herald of the will of
the gods, and Mualongan, the empung who combated the
evil spirits or sakits (16).
One of the most important of the gods was Mandej
(22), the first-born of the Makaruwa sijow. He dwelt at
Lamperan in Tomohon, and had the control of agriculture.
He was born at Tuiir-in-tanah, literally the “tree of the
earth,’ and had one true wife Rawembene, by whom he begat
five children, Reko, Menso, Runtulumingkan, Runturu-
mosok, Porong nimiles.
CH. & MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 251
The agriculturist always found it of the greatest im-
portance to pay due reverence to Mandej, and on every
important occasion to give great fossos or feasts in his
honour.
In the neighbourhood of the fields the priests placed
holy stones about a foot in height, upon which the little
quadrangular altars or paposanan rested, and anyone who
violated those holy places, or neglected to bring to them the
necessary offerings, was liable to bad fortune, violent sick-
ness, or even death.
Of the minor spirits, we find two well-marked classes,
the empung-rengarengan, who were the protecting or
household gods, and the demons—se sakit—the evil spirits
of sickness and bad luck. Each man had an empung-
rengarengan, who was born with him and grew up with
him, who accompanied him on all his journeys, and was
ever present to protect him against injury, evil spirits and
sickness. The empung-rengarengan literally mean the gods
of the same age (91). As Wilken points out, they correspond
very closely with the ‘ genii’ of the Romans.
These guardian spirits are constantly referred to by
the natives for protection and advice, and are appealed
to in their prayers after the true and mighty gods.
Some examples will serve at the same time to illustrate
this point and to show the character of the native prayers.
O empung é wailan! O empung-rengarengan! Turuan-ei
u lalan karondoran, wo tija u lalan kaengkolan.
O mighty gods! O protecting spirits! Show us the right
way, and turn not from us.
O empung é wailan! O empung-rengarengan! Kuman wo
mélép wo lumema—Pikipikian an sakit, wo kelu-kelungan ung
kelung ijow watu ;—wo jajo-ajo mange witisi Lokon telu katuaan
wo kalakawir nami.
O mighty gods! O protecting spirits! at, drink and chew
252 A NATURALIST IN CHELEBES CH. X
the betel-nut. Turn away sickness and protect us as with a
shield of stone. May our lives be as long, and our years ag
lucky, as the three Lokons (28).
The last part of this prayer refers to the three crests of
the Lokon mountain, whose crowns are as bald as an old
man’s head.
The evil spirits or demons are called se sakits. They
are the cause of all disasters, sickness and mischief. They
are powerful, wicked and vindictive ; but, as the following
legend shows, they are not devoid of some of the elementary
principles of fair play.
The place where Kakaskassan now stands with the
Lokon mountain on the west, and the lofty peak of the
Rumengan on the east, was in olden times the abode of
the gods. It is a wide and extensive plateau, admirably
suited both for agriculture and for residence. The ground
is fertile, water continually flowing, and the climate is
invigorating and healthy.
No wonder then that a band of our forefathers chose this
spot for rest and peace, and in time raised a magnificent city
inhabited entirely by Tombulus.
This was Kenilo, of wide and proud reputation amongst
the ancients and feared by all the neighbouring tribes on
account of the mighty deeds of the thousands of her
braves.
Notwithstanding her glory and her deeds of war, there
was one enemy who was a terror to both old and young.
He struck his blows both by day and night, and no one
could withstand him.
This enemy was—se sakit—of the race of demons. He
brought sickness and death to the camp, and, although the
elders were consulted about leaves, and barks, and roots,
nothing could be found to resist him. Kiolor the chief was
at last roused to anger, and called all his warriors together
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 253
to try to remedy the evil; but when they arrived and he
wished to count them, he was embarrassed, for the number
was so extremely large. In order to form an approximate
estimation of the numbers of his host, he adopted a method
which has been in use from the oldest times. A large
waringin tree was felled in full leaf, and then as they passed
by every warrior plucked one leaf from it. Only a portion
of the warriors had done this when the supply of leaves came
to an end, so the remaining ones each took up a handful of
earth and threw it on the ground. Before the counting was
over a mountain of earth had arisen from the plain.
Such a great multitude could well engage in conflict
with any enemy, however cunning, so when everything was
prepared they challenged the sakit to commence the war
wherever and whenever he pleased.
The enemy, notwithstanding his bloodthirsty nature,
was not without a certain pride, and before beginning the
conflict he gave them a piece of salutary advice.
‘It is not possible,’ se sakit cried, ‘ for you to combat
with us here as if we were like men. We can see you, and
you cannot see us, 80 that the combat would not be fair and
we should most certainly win. Go therefore out in the
open plain and wait until you see the assa (a species of
reed) trembling, and then you will know by that sign that
I am present and you can wage war on me. Moreover the
best weapons you can use are not your swords, but the rere
(leaf-stalks of the seho—a palm).’
Thereupon Kiolor commanded the people to gather the
reres, and when the warriors were all armed with these
the host started out once more to meet the enemy. When
the sign was given the Tombulus fell to, and with shouts
and screams they thrashed the waving reeds. At last drops
of blood appeared on the rere and the assa, and then Kiolor
knew that the sakit had been struck.
254 A NATURALIST IN CHLEBES CH, X
At last, the people grew tired of trying to murder one
sakit and turned homewards, whilst the sakit fled away to
bring the news of his defeat to the others.
But now followed the vengeance of the sakits.
That night scarce a house in the camp was free from
mourning, for of the thousands that had fought the fight
not atenth part remained alive, and thus the splendour and
renown of Kenilo passed away.
And now follows the moral of the story, ‘ Henceforth,
No! There shall be no more fights between men and
the sakits. In future men shall look for comfort only to
the gods, and, by duly honouring and propitiating them at
feasts, hope to check the power of the demons (28).’
In a religion such as this, with a formidable array of
deities and spirits, whose wills have to be made known from
time to time to erring humanity, we have, as might be
expected, a number of priests, who officiate at the feasts
and religious ceremonies, and act as mouthpieces of the
gods.
In early times it was only the members of the oldest
families who officiated at the services, but with the gradual
distribution of the clans over a wider area, and the increase
in the number of ceremonies and liturgies, priestcraft
became a profession, practised only by those who had given
a considerable time to the study of the gods and their
ceremonies.
In the northern districts the priests were chiefly men,
but in the south they were principally women. The chief
priests were the walians, whose duty it was to preside over
the fossos, to lead the singing-declamation of the names of
the gods and their history, to teach the young, to advise
and help the sick, to maintain the holy fire, and to officiate
at all ceremonies of a religious nature. As a symbol of
their office, they carried a notched stick, by which they
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 255
could reckon the number of days since the last fosso, and
the time the next was due. In payment for their services
they received large presents of rice, flesh, linen, pottery,
and other things, so that they frequently became the richest
as well as the most influential people of the tribe.
The minor priests were the Tounahas, whose business
it was to listen to and note the cry of the birds, for the
guidance of the hunters; the Teterusan, the chiefs of the
braves or headhunters, who played an important part in
many of the fossos; and the Potu-usan, or elders, who were
consulted upon the mysteries of religion, the meaning of
the extraordinary cries of birds, the tracing of poisonings
or thefts, and on other occasions (28). The Mawasal
(89) was the priest who presided over the funeral cere-
monies. He made a small sacrifice for the dead, gave
him half a betel-nut to chew, threw the rest of it away,
and drove away his spirit with a sword. His services were
paid by a gantang of rice (84 lbs.). The Weeres was also
a funeral priest. He recounted the ancestral histories on
the last night of the mourning. The Menanalinga was the
priest who listened for the cries of birds. His help was re-
quired at the commencement of wars, and at the selection of
sites for new fields and houses. The Tumutungep looked
after the opening of the rice fields. The Leleen was the
peculiar priest of the rice fields actually in cultivation.
His work commenced a month before the seed was sown,
and ended when the grain was garnered. He sowed in every
garden of his division the first seeds, and gathered the first
ears when the rice was ripe.
The principal holy birds were the Totonbara or Bakeke,
the foreteller by day (Phaenicophaes calorhynchus), the
foreteller by night (EHudynamis melanorhyncha), and the
‘year bird’ (Cranorrhinus cassidix).
The fossos, posos, or feasts of the Minahassers were so
256 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. xX
numerous that it would be only wearisome to the reader if
I were to attempt to give a list of them. They were given
not only in honour of the gods and to secure good fortune in
war, or in more peaceful pursuits to drive away sickness end
secure the blessings of good health and worldly prosperity,
but on the opening of every new field or garden, the build-
ing of a new house, and, in fact, upon every occasion that
offered itself. Some of the feasts lasted from twelve to
fourteen days, and during the whole of that time all work
was ata standstill, and the whole population gave them-
selves to the dancing, singing, feasting, playing, scrambling
or praying that composed the fosso.
The following account of a feast at Sondei is given in
the ‘ Life of Riedel’ (58) :
‘The man who had arranged the feast was one of the
richest men in the country. Shortly before he had bought
at great cost a third wife, who was quite thirty years
younger than himself. Fourteen days after the wedding-
feast she had run away, in order to try and gain for her
parents a repetition of the sum of money her husband had
paid for her. This had made him so angry that he had
struck her, and, a divorce following, he was obliged to con-
tent himself with his other two wives, one of whom was
already an elderly matron.
‘Shortly afterwards his son was killed by head-
hunters in the forest, and his second wife became sick unto
death.
‘Then the walians threatened him with the anger of the
gods, and said that unless he gave a fosso other and greater
disasters would follow.
‘This he had now done to save the life of his second
wife.
‘The feast was in full swing and had already lasted
four whole days.
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 257
‘In front of the house of the feast-giver there was a
quadrangular footstool made of bamboo, and to this a cord
was attached, decorated with flowers and leaves, which
stretched to a neighbouring tree. This was to allow the
gods to come down from the tree to receive the offerings.
Within the house were all the friends and relatives of the
old man, attired in holiday costume, and in the midst of
them were several walians, of whom one was obviously
the chief. The chief priest danced about on two planks
like a lunatic, singing the while, and swaying bunches of
palm leaves hither and thither. I was told that he was
possessed of the god Lembej, and had been in that
condition already five hours. At last, he fell exhausted to
the ground. ‘He is now dead,” cried the spectators.
Four other walians covered him with a cloth, and the
people said that they should now see a wonder—that they
would cut off a piece of his tongue. It is true that they
showed a piece of red flesh which they threw into the
air and caught again, but in a moment I could see that
it was only a piece of a cock’s comb. Then one of the
walians swung a censer calling upon the god Lembej, in a
mumbling tone, to give him back his life, and then they
began to whistle for his soul to come back again.
“But the soul seemed to be still unwilling to hear them,
for the chief priest, stupid with sagoweer wine and heavy
with sleep, snored aloud.
‘At last he awoke and sprang up, but for a consider-
able time remained as if he weredumb. Afterwards, amidst
smoking and singing, the missing piece was fastened on
to his tongue again. He then chewed betel for a while,
and finally raised his voice to thank the gods for his de-
liverance.
‘All this time the sick woman lay upon a mat in a
corner, but nobody troubled about her. She was in the
8
258 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. X
last stage of consumption. In the evening there was a
great feast, and later the gongs and kolintangs were heard,
and the people began a shameless dance.
‘The following day the sacrificial feast came to an end.
Nine pigs were slaughtered with much ceremony, and a piece
of the heart of each of them was placed by the priests upon
the altar, that the gods might bless the giver of the feast
with long. life, sound health, and many children. There-
upon each of the walians received one pig, and the chief
walian two, and the evening was spent by all in the
grossest forms of debauchery.
‘The following morning the woman was dead.’
The central idea in the above is that the priest acts as
the mouthpiece of the god Lembej. He works himself up
in a condition of hypnotism by monotonous songs, the
powerful perfume of incenses, and the regular swaying of
his limbs. When he is in that state it is supposed that
his own spirit has fled, and is replaced by the spirit of the
god. When the god leaves him he falls to the ground like
a dead man, and the other priests have to coax back his
own soul by whistling for it, as one would for a dog. It is
quite possible that during a considerable part of the cere-
mony the walian is really in a state of unconsciousness,
and that he is afterwards quite ignorant of what he has
been saying or doing as the medium of the god. He is in
a mesmeric sleep, and performs in that state, and without
knowing it, a series of antics, similar to those he has seen
performed by other priests on like occasions, and utters the
same incoherent and unintelligible sentences that have been
handed down from generation to generation.
Amongst illiterate races language probably changes
very much more rapidly than it does amongst the literate
ones, and it is quite possible that within a few generations
a language may become so altered as to be quite unintelli-
CH. x MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 259
gible even to the direct descendants of those who originally
spoke it. Now, we find it mentioned that amongst many of
the Malay races the language used by the Shamans or
mediums is quite unintelligible to their audiences. We find
this to be the case amongst the Bataks, the Olo-Ngadjus,
the Buginese, and the Malays of Malaka (92). Amongst the
Minahassers I was told by several authorities that the lan-
guage used by the walians was frequently not completely
understood by the people, owing to the use of many words
which are now no longer spoken. oe
This is quite consistent with the view that the utter-
ances of the priest, when supposed to be possessed of the god-
spirit, are merely repetitions of phrases used by the older
priests, and in no way, either consciously or unconsciously,
the real thoughts or opinions of the man who utters them.
The wild and senseless antics of the Shaman during the
utterances have frequently been compared to the tricks of a
lunatic. How is it that such grotesque performances should
be regarded as a part of a solemn religious ceremony ?
The reason for this can only be discovered by a comparative
study of the various forms of Shamanism found throughout
the world, and this leads us to believe that the antics of
the walian are really derived from the antics of real
lunatics. Among the ancient Egyptians, many Arab
tribes, the ancient Greeks and Russians, and many savage
races of the present day (92), lunatics and idiots are held in
high honour, as being specially favoured by the gods; and
those who suffer from the many forms of hysteria and
epilepsy are believed to possess the gift of prophecy. We
can readily understand, then, why it is that the Shamans,
when they wish to be possessed of the spirit of the god,
work themselves up into a hypnotic state resembling
epilepsy or the different phases of lunacy. It may be
going too far to say that the office of the priest was origin-
82
260 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. x
ally held by the lunatic, but it is nevertheless true
that many of the actions and gestures of those who act
as mediums between the gods and mankind may be dis-
tinctly traced to the unconscious movements of the mentally
afflicted.
Besides true supernatural beings, such as the gods,
spirits and demons described above, we have evidence to
show that the Minahassers also believed in giants, hob-
goblins, and fairies.
Of the race of giants Parepej] is perhaps the most
famous. He is described in the following legend (22) :
‘Many years ago there lived a man in the mountains,
named Parepej. He was a man of extraordinary strength
and courage, and the pride of his native town Remboken.
The people there had never any fear of war or feud, for
Parepej, their great and powerful champion, was always with
them to decide the fortunes of the fray. Remboken might
well look to him for aid, for he was of the race of giants,
and all men paled and fled before his sword. His head was
in the middle two feet broad, and his arms, like the banana
tree, bore ten dread fingers which spread fright and conster-
nation amongst those who gazed upon them. His feet were
as long as banana leaves, and as they trod the earth they
made it vibrate as beneath the fall of heavy weights,
frightening both friend and foe. Now, in the time of
Parepej a war broke out between Remboken and Tomo-
hon because the giant was always encroaching on his
enemies’ territory, robbing them of anything he could lay.
hands upon, devastating their possessions, and causing
great grief and sorrow to the people of Tomohon. For a
time no one dared to attack a giant one sweep of whose
sword would annihilate ten ordinary men; but at last
Tomalin, to the great joy of the people of Tomohon,
determined to avenge his people and kill the giant. But
CH. & MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 261
such an undertaking could not be heedlessly begun. First
of all they must carefully train their hero, and give him the
fat of the land. Day by day Tomalin waxed stronger and
braver, and joyfully anticipated the combat. He swore to:
humiliate the giant and set his people free.
‘ Now followed proofs of the hero’s strength and agility..
First he struck at the soft banana tree, and with one blow
his swift and glittering blade cleft through the stem and
buried its point in the ground. Then they selected
another pisang tree, smaller in size but of harder wood.
This Tomalin with gigantic force also cleft in twain, and
his sword once more was buried in the earth. Next they
chose the seho tree, whose wood is as hard as that of
any tree. With breathless anxiety the people watched
this proof of his strength, and great was their joy and
admiration when the sword went again through the stem,
and the seho tree came tumbling to the ground.
‘Lastly, he had to cleave a bamboo filled with the gumutu
of the seho tree, a feat which was to be the crown on his
former exploits, and a sign for the people to go to war.
This, to the astonishment of everyone, he successfully
accomplished, and the people felt prepared to face the
enemy.
‘ The crowds shouted at every proof of Tomaliin’s strength
and agility, the gongs sounded, and copious draughts of the
divine sagoweer wine raised their spirits to enthusiasm.
‘It was then determined to commence the war, the field
of battle was chosen, and the people anxiously awaited the
result. It was agreed that it was better to let the war be
decided by a duel between Parepej and Tomalin than to
fill the battlefield with dead bodies and with blood.
‘ The night hung heavily on the slumbering earth when
gongs and drums announced the commencement of the
battle. Parepej the strong, dreaming only of victory,
262 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. X
knowing no fear, afraid of no danger, eame bellowing and
snorting at the head of Remboken’s united bands.
‘Who was this who ventured to measure swords with
him? What mortal dared to defy the giant Parepej who
was feared alike by friend and by foe ?
«The two heroes, both of them eager for the fray, eyed
one another with curiosity for some time.
‘«« What earth-worm dares to put himself in front of
me?’’ said Parepej. ‘“ Whatdo you want, youdwarf? Iam
ashamed to fight with anyone I can crush like I can crush
you. Cannot I annihilate you with the end of my finger ?
One of my feet will cover the whole of your body. I will
trample you to the dust. Out of my sight, you dwarf, or
the hour of your death has come.”
«“T know very well,” said Tomalun, “that Iam smaller
than you are; but I am not afraid either of your bellowing
voice or your sharp sword, for you must learn that my arm
has also shown its strength, and the virtue of my sword has
been tried. It is true your fame has resounded from afar,
and I am small and insignificant; but look up at the
Kios yonder, a mountain which is small and light but still
plucky 7
‘ The ruse succeeded. The giant was taken off his guard.
A javelin pierced his foot, and with terrible rage the
monster tumbled to the earth. With lightning speed the
glittering steel cleft through Parepej’s neck, and the point
of it was driven into the earth.
‘Then Remboken fled and Tomohon shouted. The
battle was decided. Louder and still louder came the
praiseof Tomalun—the hero who had delivered his people.’
From Bolang Mongondu we have also the following
story of a giant-killer (90) :
‘At the beginning of his reign, Loloda-Mokoago, King
of Bolang, decided to pay a visit to the Sultan of Ternate,
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 263
and sailed for that purpose from Kema in a canoe accom-
panied by seven braves.
‘The Sultan of Ternate received him with great honour,
and held a cock-fight for his pleasure. On the second day
a combat was arranged between the champion warriors of
the Sultan and Loloda. The champion of the Sultan was
named Pata-besi. He was a giant in size, of revolting
aspect and covered with hair. He was already famous for
his skill and bravery in many battles. Heavily armed with
a huge sword he came forth to meet Loloda’s champion,
a slight, active little man named Banton, who was armed
only with a small dagger.
‘The appearance of Banton and his little weapon caused
laughter amongst the assembled multitude, and the people
foresaw an easy victory for the Sultan.
‘The giant, with a certain oriental politeness, invited
Banton to commence the fray, “For,” he said, “if I begin
I shall not give you a chance, but shall cut you in two with
the first stroke.” Banton, however, refused, and the giant
commenced by swinging his huge sword. Three times he
swung it, but on each occasion Banton avoided the stroke.
When it was Banton’s turn to attack he made one spring
and pierced the giant with his dagger on the right side,
so that he died before the eyes of his humbled Sultan and
the astonished multitude.’
The following story (41) shows a belief in goblins: ‘ An
ape, a buffalo, and a wéris (a bird) were friends. One day
they went down to the sea tofish. They were very success-
ful and came back laden with spoil. The fish were put
into a hut to dry, and the first night the wéris was
told off to watch. In the course of the night a great
goblin or adjiganti, a fine strong creature, all covered
with hair, came and ate up all the fish. The two friends
were very angry when they came back the next morning
264 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH, x
and found the hut empty, and, to prevent a repetition of
their loss, the second night they set the buffalo to watch.
When the adjiganti came the buffalo fought valiantly, but
he was defeated, and was found the next morning with his
horns sticking in the ground. On the third night themonkey
took the watch. The adjiganticame at the usual hour, nine
o’clock, and was much struck with the appearance of the
guard who was sitting with his hands on his hips, showing
his teeth. ‘ How is it, my friend,” said the adjiganti, “that
you have such small loins and that your teeth are so white?”
“Well,” said the ape, “itis easily done. All you have to
do is to tie yourself up to a tree with fresh young rattans,
so that you cannot move, and then you can polish up your
teeth until they shine like mine.”
‘The adjiganti determined to try the experiment, and
allowed the monkey to tie him round the waist to a tree,
so that he could no longer move. Then the monkey scoffed
at him and said, “Well, my friend, how do you like the
fish this evening ?”’
‘When the friends returned to the house the next morn-
ing they found that the adjiganti was caught at last, so the
buffalo pierced him with his horns and the wéris picked
out his eyes.’
There are several stories in Minahassa which contain
references to certain heavenly nymphs of the race of angels.
It is, perhaps, hardly correct to call them fairies, on account
of their relationship to the gods of Kasendukan.
The following story is current amongst the Bantiks.
‘While Utahagi and some other heavenly nymphs were
bathing, a certain Kasimbaha stole the clothes which gave
her the power to fly. When the nymphs had finished
bathing they all flew away with the exception of course of
Utahagi, who could not find her clothes. Kasimbaha then
came forth and asked her to become his wife. She consented,
CH. & MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS 265
but warned him to be careful of a single white hair which
grew on the crown of her head. Kasimbaha seems to have
paid but little attention to this warning, for after a time,
either accidentally or purposely, he pulled it out. Sud-
denly a great storm arose with thunder and lightning, and,
when it had cleared away, Utahagi had disappeared.’
The above is but a brief réswmé of the story of Utahagi,
as told by Graafland (22).
The following is another form of the same taken from
the writings of Van Doren (13):
‘A certain man named Walasindouw, who dwelt at Ajer
Madidi in the Tonsea district, nine miles from Kema, was
the owner of a field there which he had planted with yams.
One day, when he came to work as usual, he was very
much astonished to find that a number of his yams had
been stolen, and, as he could not imagine who it was that
could have done the deed, he determined to keep watch by
night to discover the thief. Whilst he was watching, there
came nine women down from heaven, and these he en-
deavoured to retain. But eight of them returned im-
mediately on high; one only he managed to capture by her
clothes. It happened that this one was the youngest, and
when she was in his power she asked forgiveness of him
(for the theft), pleading that she was a child of heaven.
‘Walasindouw, being unmarried, immediately made her
his wife under the following conditions : That he was never
to open a rice pot she had brought with her nor measure
its capacity, and that she was never to clean his head, for
as soon as the rice-pot was opened, or if, in the cleaning of
his head, a single hair fell upon the ground, then would
she return immediately to heaven.
“Some time after this, when coming from the bath,
Walasindouw pressed her to clean his head, and whilst
doing this a hair of his head must have fallen to the ground,
266 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. X
for she suddenly disappeared, leaving behind her a little
son. Walasindouw was inconsolable over his loss. He
wept day and night, and prayed incessantly that he might
be taken up to heaven.
‘One day he saw a fly with yellow eyes, and he besought
it to take him and his child to heaven. The fly, in
answer to his request, told him that it would be willing to
help if he could find no one else to do so. Finding no
one, after long searching, he persuaded the fly to carry a
rattan for him towards the heavens. The rattan was
not long enough, however, and the fly and rattan were
driven about by the wind. ‘The fly, however, returned
to him, saying, ‘‘This attempt has failed; nevertheless
I believe I can bring you and your child to heaven yet.
When we get there be on your guard, for you will see
all the nine sisters, who are so much alike that it is im-
possible to tell one from the other. Take care, therefore,
that you hold fast to the one upon whom I shall settle,
for she is the mother of your child.” Walasindouw and
his son were then carried heavenwards by the fly, and
when they came to the house containing the nine nymphs,
the father watched carefully to see upon which of them
it would settle. As soon as the fly had alighted on one
of them, Walasindouw handed over to her the child, and
she immediately gave him the breast. After he had been
suckled for a time, God came’ (this is perhaps Muntuuntu)
‘and said to Walasindouw, “You have behaved badly,
for you have not followed my command (that you should
never allow your wife to clean your head). Go now and
cut down a seho tree, hollow it out, and make it into a
water-butt.”’
‘Walasindouw did this, but, having no implement to
hollow it out, he used a parang for the purpose, and, as
soon as the butt was ready, he filled it with water, threw
CH. X MYTHOLOGY OF THE MINAHASSERS .— 267
in the parang, and brought it to God. Then God said to
him, ‘ You are not one of those who know how to obey my
orders. Return now to the earth.” ’
This concludes the account of Walasindouw’s experience
in the heavenly village. The narrative of his subsequent
adventures upon earth does not present incidents of any
particular interest or importance.
268 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
CHAPTER XI
CUSTOMS. OF THE MINAHASSERS
Marriage customs—Infant betrothal—Courtship—wUse of the betel-nut in
courtship—The harta or dowry—Laws of inheritance—Shunning the
parents-in-law—Teknonymy—Divorce—Adoption of children—Compari-
son of the marriage laws of Minahassa with those of other parts of the
Archipelago—Birth customs—Makehet—Sickness—Death—Burial cus-
toms—Driving away the spirit.
No stupy of the ethnology of a race of meen can be con-
sidered complete without reference to the customs attend-
ing betrothal and marriage, and the laws which regulate
the inheritance of property and titles. In many respects
these branches of the subject open up fields for research
and speculation unequalled in interest and importance
throughout the vast. range of human customs and cere-
monies.
We are fortunate indeed in possessing in the works of
the distinguished Dutch. writer, Wilken, a very complete
summary of our knowledge concerning these customs
among the races of the Malay Archipelago, and in the
following pages I am greatly indebted to him for much of
the information I have gathered concerning the marriage
rites. and customs of the people of Minahassa. I do not
propose, however, entirely to confine myself to the Mina-
hassers, but, by bringing forward some of the knowledge
we have gathered, about these customs amongst the people
who inhabit the neighbouring districts and the other islands
of the Malay: Archipelago, to indicate to the reader the
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 269
lines of evolution along which we may suppose the Mina-
hassers have travelled in arriving at their present social
condition.
Many difficulties beset the path of the evolutionist who
attempts to work out the development of human customs ;
for man is a wandering animal, sometimes migrating in
thousands from place to place, driving before him the
original possessors of the soil, or sometimes straying in
smaller parties, which ultimately amalgamate with the
primitive inhabitants. In consequence, we find in almost
every race fusions of physical structure, language, and
custom which verily try the patience of the ethnologist
to unravel.
We have evidence for believing that the Malays
migrated at some period before the Christian era from
Southern Asia. This migration alone must have had very
considerable effect in modifying their language and social
customs. The Malays of Java and Sumatra were pro-
foundly influenced by the adoption of Buddhism in the
third and fourth centuries a.p., which gave way before a
flood of Mchammedanism in later times.
Mohammedanism has made its influence felt all over the
Malay area, and even the Christianity of the earlier Roman
Catholic priests has left its marks in the legends and songs
and probably also the customs of these people.
It is no easy task, then, to pick out from the maze of
customs and ceremonies those which are characteristically
Malay, and separate them from those which were adopted
from the primitive inhabitants they conquered and sup-
planted, or from those which have more recently been
introduced from continental Asia and from Europe.
In the following pages I have collected together many
of the most important ceremonies and laws connected with
the matrimonial institutions of the people of Minahassa.
B70 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
The introduction of Christianity is exercising in modern
times a very considerable modifying effect upon them, but
enough remains in the writings of travellers and mis-
sionaries to build tp a fairly complete account for the
consideration of English readers. In the neighbouring
states, it should be remembered, the people still remain
in a very wild and uncivilised condition, and, by the study
of the few scraps of information we possess about their
marriage ceremonies, we are able to fill in many of the
missing chapters in the history of the people of Minahassa.
Commencing with the first signs of matrimonial contract
in the lives of the people of Minahassa, we find a curious
and interesting custom, in some districts only, called the
Pesendeen (22). This is a sham marriage ceremony held
in honour of the sham nuptials of children of from five
to nine years of age. The Pesendeen must not be con-
founded with true child-marriage, for, on the conclusion
of the feast the children return to their parents, and
are perfectly free, when they reach maturity, to marry
whom they please. True infant-marriage is a custom
which is found, not only in British India, but also among
several of the Malay races, such as the Bataks, Sundanese,
Menangkabawer Malays, Atjeans, and others; but in all
these cases the marriage is binding, and not a mere
ceremony. When a Pesendeen is held, the two families
come together in the house of the bride’s parents. She is
dressed in a kabaia and sarong of a pattern as elegant and
gorgeous as can be provided, and the little bridegroom is
dressed in a kabaia and trousers of a colour as red as
possible. Then the parents commence the business of the
occasion by a long talk over the dowry of the bride and
other necessary details, and after this the religious part of
the ceremony is performed. The gods are humbly invited to
be present ; their praises are sung, and they are besought
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 271
to pour down on the young couple all the blessings of
life—good luck, health, wealth, and, of course, many
children.
Now the young pair take some cooked rice with a piece
of pork or chicken and put it on a plate saying, ‘ Kat gods!’
Then they go down to the river as if to bathe, but in fact
only just make their feet wet, and finally the young bride-
groom takes a piece of wood, some sagoweer and a sword,
while the bride takes some food for pigs, some wood and
greens as symbols of worthiness and independent position
in the married life.
When this part of the ceremony is concluded, they go
into the house and dine together. The following morning
they again go down to the water, and go through the cere-
mony which is called ‘seeking for a mouse’ together (see
p. 276). The fosso lasts five days after this, drums are
beaten, kolintangs sounded, and the time is passed in
eating, drinking, dancing and other festivities.
It is the general opinion of those who have written
about this sham infant-marriage that it must formerly
have been a true and binding one; but it may be that in
this ceremony of the Minahassers we have after all rather
a precursor than a successor of strict infant marriages. It
is a generally recognised axiom of sociology that every
custom has been developed not by any sudden change
but by a slow and gradual process, a building up, in
fact, of modification upon modification until the variety
is produced. Natura non facit saltum is as true when
applied to the laws which govern social progress as it is
when applied to those which govern animal and vegetable
life.
During the change, then, from a state of society with
no infant marriages to a state of society in which there
are, we must suppose there have existed a number of
272 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
intermediate stages gradually leading up to the form in
which we now find it.
It is possible that a sham marriage ceremony such as
the Pesendeen of the Minahassers may have been one of
these; or, to put it in other words, in the course of the
development of the binding infant-marriage, there was a
series of stages in which an arrangement between the
parents of two children to protect them from the disgrace
of remaining unmarried throughout life gradually as-
sumed the formalities of a true marriage contract similar
to those of the Pesendeen.
True courtship or love-making does not of course take
place in Minahassa until after the Pesendeen. It is, in
fact, the preliminary to true marriage. It may take
place between young men and maidens who have pre-
viously been joined together in the Pesendeen, but it
is always strictly an affair of the heart and not in any
way dependent upon the consent or even wish of the
parents.
Two young people meet at the mapalus, and over the
feasting and singing become interested in one another and
fall in love. Then follows the courtship, which is not
supposed to be open and above board, but is nominally at
least carried on in secret. It consists in nocturnal visits
of the young man to the young woman’s house, visits
which, although frequently attended by immorality, are not
necessarily so, and are often perfectly decorous and
formal.
The young woman prepares a mat for her lover, and
after dark he comes to visit her. The parents are of course
aware that their daughter is thus receiving a visitor, and
are indeed proud that she should be so sought after; but
at the same time they warn her to be cautious. The lover
departs again before daybreak in order that there may be
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 273
no gossip in the village about their engagement until all is
settled. These visits extend over some weeks, and at last
one morning he remains until the day has broken as a sign
that the engagement may be formally announced (22).
We find many references to this custom in many of the
mapalu love songs. Here are some of them:
‘Tuminting-o tare mej satengah polon-o-lah
Mange polon-na-mej sambe lumamo irojor.’
‘The clock has struck the half-hour’ (5.30 a.m.?); ‘she
wakes her friend that he may go down’ (before daylight without
the neighbours seeing him).
And again :
‘ Lalej-o kimukuk eh tare mej se kodko rei pinolon-na ;
Karengan en wanamo tena ni lalej kanaraman.’
‘The cocks have crowed—and (she has) not waked (me).
Certainly there is an agreement with (a friend) to whom she is
long accustomed.’
This means, if I rightly understand Graafland’s trans-
lation of it, that the young man believed there was another
lover in the habit of visiting her whom she did not wake
before the cock-crow, and consequently he was ashamed to
be seen leaving her house after daybreak.
The betel-nut plays an important part in courtship in
Minahassa, as it does all over the archipelago.
When the young Minahasser falls in love with a young
woman, he sends her a prepared betel-nut. If she accepts
it, it is taken as a sign of encouragement, and the young
man sends an emissary asking her to send him one. If
she refuses to do this, or sends him one which is not
prepared for chewing, then it is a sign that he is rejected ;
but if she wishes to become his wife, she sends him a well-
grown nut with the necessary ingredients, and the lover
knows that he is accepted.
274 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
Thus the word ‘to court’ is in Tombulu language
pahaleyaleijan lemaan and in Tompakewasch pangileng-
uekkan tenga, which means ‘to continually ask for betel-
nut of one another ’ (94).
We constantly find the betel-nut mentioned in the love
songs and romances :
‘ Ajohan-o-mej tetengaan sambe eh rumojoro
Aku rumojor-o mange-mo witi walenamij.’
‘Give me the betel-nut box, my friend, and I will go.
I will go below, and I will go to our house ’ (22).
And in the songs I have quoted on pp. 808, 804 we
find the stanzas:
‘Place one half of the young betel-nut you have cut in two
in my mouth, and my feelings will be always well towards
you.’
‘If a man could fly like the wind I would take this betel-nut
out of my mouth and send it to him.’
Before leaving the subject I will quote a passage from
the writings of Mr. Spencer St. John to show how common
is the custom of nightly visits during courtship, and the
important part the habit of betel-chewing plays in the love
affairs of the Malay races.
Speaking of the Dyaks of Sarawak he says (71):
‘ Besides the ordinary attention which a young man is able
to pay to the girl he desires to make his wife, there is a
peculiar testimony of regard which is worthy of note. About
nine or ten at night, when the family is supposed to be
asleep within the mosquito curtains in the private apart-
ment, the lover quietly slips back the bolt by which the
door is fastened on the inside and enters the room on tip-
toe. He goes to the curtains of his beloved, gently awakes
her, and she, on hearing who it is, rises at once, and they sit
conversing together and making arrangements for the future
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 275
in the dark over a plentiful supply of sirih leaf and betel-
nut, which it is the gentleman’s duty to provide. If, when
awoke, the young lady arises and accepts the prepared
betel-nut, happy is the lover, for his suit is in a fair way to
prosper, but if, on the other hand, she rises and says, ‘‘ Be
good enough to blow up the fire,” or ‘“‘to light the lamp,” then
his hopes are at end, as that is the usual form of dismissal.
Of course, if this kind of nocturnal visit is frequently re-
peated, the parents do not fail to discover it, although it is
a point of honour among them to take no notice of their
visit, and if they approve of him matters take their course ;
but if not they use their influence with their daughter to
ensure the utterance of the fatal ‘Please blow up the
99
.
fire
When the courtship is satisfactorily concluded, and it
is decided that the girl shall be definitely asked in marriage,
then, with the parents’ consent, a day is fixed upon which
they shall meet together to discuss the harta, or price that
is to be paid by the young man for his bride.
As a preliminary to this, a present of nine betel-nuts,
nine sirih fruits, and some gold or silver ornaments has to
be sent to the girl. In the olden times of the head-hunters,
a fresh human head was an indispensable preliminary to
any marriage negotiations; but this abominable practice
was effectually stamped out by the Dutch Government
many years ago. It is probable that this ghastly present
was intended not only as a proof of personal bravery on
the part of the young hero, but as a promise that in the
world of spirits the young bride would have at least one
slave to wait upon her (102). The harta was in former
times usually paid in land, houses, sagoweer trees, pigs,
cloths, &c. Nowadays it is often paid in money, one
thousand guilders (84l.) being about the highest harta
known (22).
m2,
276 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
At the appointed time the members of the young man’s
family repair to the house of the bride, bringing with them
the harta, and after that comes the bridegroom himself.
They mount the steps of the house and take their places
at a long table in the principal room, the bride and byride-
groom sitting side by side at one end of it. At first every-
thing is very stiff and formal. Food is served, but not a
word is spoken by the young couple; not a muscle of their
faces moves, not even a stray glance passes from one to
the other.
Then comes the priest, who takes a piece of betel-nut
and solemnly chews it for some time with the sirih and
lime; this he removes from his own mouth and puts it
into the bridegroom’s mouth, who continues the process for
some time and passes it on to the bride.
When this is done the walian gives the bride and bride-
groom rice and pork to eat and sagoweer wine to drink, and
the official part of the ceremony is concluded. At this
moment the couple retire to the nuptial chamber, while the
guests amuse themselves by feasting, drinking, and singing,
and the priest implores the empungs to pour blessings on
the happy pair.
When the wedding-breakfast is over, the bride and bride-
groom, together with all the guests, repair to the house or
village of the bridegroom, and the night is spent in merry-
making. The following morning the marriage fosso com-
mences, and lasts in some cases for many days, the dura-
tion of the fosso depending to a great extent upon the
resources of the host. In the course of the fosso the fol-
lowing ceremony is usually performed. The priest takes
the young couple to the boundary of the district, and sticks
a piece of bamboo in the ground, saying, ‘ Here is a mouse.’
Then they arrange themselves around the bamboo, and the
priest says, ‘Your riches shall be as innumerable even as
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 27H
the hairs of this mouse.’ Other ceremonies of a similar
kind are gone through in the course of the marriage
fosso.
The Alfur of Minahassa was in olden times undoubtedly
a monogamist; the occasional occurrence of polygamy in
later times was a degeneration from the old customs brought
about perhaps by Mohammedan influence.
It should be noted here that amongst the Minahassers
there was no law of exogamy—that is to say, a man was not
forbidden to marry a member of his own tribe. This is
a fact of no little importance; for in many savage countries
throughout the world the laws of exogamy are very strict.
As a general rule, he did marry within his own tribe—
for example, the Toulours, i.e. the inhabitants of Tolian,
Tolimambot, Remboken, Kakas, &c., usually married
Toulours, but at the same time there was no strict rule of
endogamy, and a man might marry out of his tribe if he
liked (22).
The marriages, moreover, were true ‘ deega’ marriages ;
the woman invariably followed the man after marriage to
his village and his house. At the beginning of the century
the young couple lived with the parents of the bridegroom
in one of those large houses capable of holding two or three
hundred persons to which I have already referred, but in
later times the newly married people soon retired into a
house of their own.
Marriages were in fact permitted between all persons
except those who were very nearly related to one another,
such as between brothers and sisters, uncles and nieces,
or aunts and nephews, between cousins or combinations
of these relations. It is said (58) that in olden times
in the southern districts of Minahassa, in the neighbour-
hood of Tonsawang, even these marriages were not for-
bidden, and that father and daughter, mother and son,
278 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
brother and sister frequently lived together in bonds of
matrimony.
The fact that many of the Minahassers trace their descent
from the union of Lumimuit with her son Toar shows at
least that they did not at one time regard such unions with
any great aversion.
I have said above that marriage was permitted between
all persons except near relations; but nevertheless it must
be remarked that marriages between persons of different
rank were not favoured, nor generally approved.
We have numerous instances of this in the songs and
proverbs of the people (94) :—
Ja wasiang kantare um paparondor meiilewo an suleng um
bakan sombor.
The wasan (a hard wood) (is) excellent for the props of the
rafters, (but it) has become bad by the supports of the young
wakan (a soft wood).
Meikatijon witum panga pera.
He or she has been seized by a withered bough.
Kentur u Manado wo u Lembeh masuat uman ej owej!
saanah masungkud-o makentur-o rombu-rombunan ej owe].
The Manado mountain and the Lembej are of the same
height; if they were joined together they would become a great
mountain.
The first of these proverbs refers to a marriage between
persons of different ranks in society, the second to a
marriage of a man or woman with a slave, the third to the
union of persons of the same rank.
The laws in Minahassa regulating the inheritance
of property are rather complicated and difficult to under-
stand, on account of an important change which has taken
place in recent years in the tenure of possessions. In olden
times, when the family held communal possession of the
land and other properties (pusaka), the laws of inheritance
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 279
were simple enough, for the pusaka was not divided upon
the death of any member of the family, nor did it in any
way change hands. It was somewhat like our family heir-
looms or entailed property, with this important difference,
that no portion of it could be sold or otherwise disposed of
without the consent of all the members of the family.
With self-acquired property it was naturally otherwise.
Upon the death of a man or woman this was divided into
two equal parts; the widow or the widower received one
half, and the other half went to the heirs.
The house belonged exclusively to the man; it was
never regarded as a part of the pusaka, and it always
became, after his death, the property of his heirs. If the
woman helped her husband in the building of the house, she
received a certain compensation for her claim to it. This
was sometimes paid in money, but more usually in land.
There was an interesting difference between the division
of the self-acquired property of chiefs and of common
people which should be noted here. When the wife of a
chief died, he received not a half but two-thirds of the
property which belonged to her (96), the heirs getting
only one-third.
Of all the curious customs of savage races there is none,
perhaps, which has excited more interest, and indeed amuse-
ment, than the practice of ‘Shunning the mother-in-law.’
Many people can call to mind the well-known picture which
has been copied into nearly all the books of anthropology of
the Kaffir warrior hiding behind his shield as he passes by
his mother-in-law, who is crouching on the ground with her
face down. The same custom in various stages of complexity
and simplicity occurs among many of the wild races of
mankind throughout the world. In Minahassa it is posan—
that is to say, forbidden—-for a man to mention the name of
his parents-in-law. If by accident he does so, he spits
280 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
upon the ground and says, ‘I have done wrong,’ so that
his body, particularly his nose, may not become covered
with ulcers and boils. If it should be necessary for him to
refer to or to call his father or mother-in-law, he will,
perhaps, use half the name, or use another name of a
similar meaning. Thus for Wenas he will say ‘We’; for
Mainalo, ‘Maina’; for Waworuntu, ‘Wawo’; or instead of
using the word wawo, which signifies ‘above’ in the same
name, he will use another word of the same meaning, such
as natas. If his mother-in-law’s name be Sijowan, then
he says for ‘ Sijo,’ which means ‘ nine,’ ‘ Kehana’ (amiss),
or if her name be Ngisa, for the word marisa (Spanish
pepper) he says ‘Ngumetnget’ (hot or sharp) (89). I can
find no evidence that the Minahasser shuns or avoids his
parents-in-law in any way than this. He has no hesitation
in conversing with them, nor hides his face from them, nor
shuns their presence. The custom is probably on the eve
of total disappearance, and this formality about the men-
tioning of proper names is the last phase of a custom which
was at one time much more prominent in its details and
strict in its observance.
Dr. Tylor (77) has shown that there is now sufficient
evidence to prove that customs such as these originated in
the times and tribes where the husband lived in the house
of his wife’s parents. In such conditions of society the
husband was not a member of their family, and he was
always either ceremonially or actually ‘cut’ by them, and
was expected in return ceremonially or actually to cut them.
As I shall endeavour to show at the close of this chapter,
we have reason for believing that it was the custom of the
Minahassers many years ago for the man to reside in the
house of his wife’s parents, and we are justified in supposing
that the ‘avoidance’ rule was much more strictly adhered
to then than it is in modern times.
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 281
Of considerable importance in connection with the
development of marriage institutions is the strange but
very widely distributed custom known by the name Tekno-
nymy (77), or the naming of the parents after the children.
This is a common practice in Minahassa, and is distin-
guished by the very extraordinary fact that after the birth
of the first child, not the father only, as is usually the
case, but both parents take its name. If, for example,
the child’s name is Wangko, then the father drops his own
name, and is afterwards known as Si-ama-ni-Wangko, the
father of Wangko, and the mother, Si-ina-ni-Wangko,
mother of Wangko (99).
This custom can also be traced to the days when the
husband lived in the house of his wife’s parents. As I
have previously mentioned, he was not at first recognised
as a member of their family; they shunned him when he
came to visit his wife, turned their back upon him, and
would not mention his name. On the birth of a child,
however, he became ipso facto a blood relation of a member
of their family (the child), and they began gradually to
recognise him more fully. He was thenceforth known to
them not by his own name, but as the father of the child.
When in the course of generations it gradually became
the custom for the wife to live in her husband’s family, this
practice remained as a survival of the older system; and,
the wife being now a stranger in her husband’s family,
the custom originated of the mother also taking the name
of her child.
Divorce, which is an impossibility amongst tribes with
deega marriages and a strict law of exogamy, is common
amongst the Minahassers, where there is no law of exogamy.
A man may readily obtain a divorce without any better
reason than that he has fixed his heart on another woman.
The woman, on the other hand, sometimes runs away in
282 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
the hope that her husband will pay another harta for her
recovery ; if he does not, then they are divorced, and the
original harta has to be returned. The children, when a
divorce takes place, join either their father or mother
according to their choice (22).
If a married couple are not blessed with children, or
even if they are, they sometimes adopt the children of
other people. This custom is called maki-oki, maki-uran,
maki-anak, &c., according to the district, but each term
signifies the same, namely, ‘to recognise the child” A
child so adopted becomes a member of the family of the
foster parents in every respect but one, i.e. he or she is
allowed to marry with his or ber foster parents’ own children.
The adopted children work in the fields, have their share
of the common property of the household, and inherit the
estate just as the ordinary children do (22).
It is of very considerable importance in connection with
marriage laws and customs to consider the relative position
of the man and the woman in the married life.
Certain features in the social conditions of Minahassa
have led some travellers to adopt the erroneous view that
the wife leads a life little better than that of a slave
to her husband, but this is by no means the case; the
woman is, and probably has been for many generations, on
a footing of equality with her husband. It is true that she
performs hard manual labour in the rice fields, and carries
heavy loads of garden produce or long bamboos filled with
wine or water, but all these duties she performs as an
ordinary member of the family, whose business it is to
work upon the communal estate the family possesses.
It might seem also that the harta which is paid by
the bridegroom for his bride is of a similar nature to
the price paid for a slave, a beast of burden, or any other
piece of property. The harta, however, should not be con-
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 283
sidered as a ‘ price’; it has rather the nature of a ‘ com-
pensation’ paid to the bride’s family for the loss of one
of its working and child-producing members.
As a proof that woman in Minahassa is not the slave
that some travellers have supposed her to be, we have the
evidence of Heer Tendeloo (72), whose long life and labours
amongst the people give him the right to speak upon this
subject with authority. He says with no uncertain voice
that in Minahassa the woman is not considered to be
inferior to the man, but that in all household affairs and
matters concerning the interests of the family and its
property her opinion is always taken as at least equal to
that of her husband’s. Even in such a simple matter as
the sale of an egs, Heer Tendeloo found that it was
necessary for the husband to consult his wife before a
bargain could be struck. This equality in position of the
man and his wife may be seen not only in many of the
legends and stories of Minahassa, but also in the terms
which are used in poetry and everyday conversation for
the trusted wife. She is called lamulutu, the cook, or
tumetemu, the stamper (of the rice), in reference to her
household duties, in legends and in songs; tetenden, the
support, or again, mahatamu, the nurse, as regards her
children, or as regards her husband kasende, his companion
at the table, but never do we find her mentioned as a
person of inferior rank or quality in the house (94).
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything,
said Petrachio of his wife. The social system of the Alftirs
of Minahassa entirely excludes the possibility of the husband
regarding his wife in such a light.
The condition of affairs in Minahassa is fortunately
284 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
so peaceful and quiet that we can hardly judge of the part
that women would play in the politics of the country, but
in some of the legends we have evidence which shows that
in the ‘ good old times’ women played a part in the affairs
of war and of the state.
We have seen then that in Minahassa the marriage laws
are based on a system of patriarchy with cognate relation-
ship and inheritance. The man marries whom he pleases,
either within or without the tribe, brings his wife to live
in his house, and the property after his death is divided
either between his widow and children in fair proportions
or is inherited as common property by the family he leaves.
Titles and dignities descend from the father to the eldest
son, and genealogies are traced through the males.
Was this always the system in Minahassa? Have we
any evidence to bring forward to show that the system
which now prevails, or rather prevailed at the time when
the Christian missionaries first appeared upon the scene,
was the original system of these Minahassa folk? The
evidence that is forthcoming is definite and conclusive
enough to prove that it is but a modification of an earlier
and more primitive system which traced descent through
the female line. I will give just two examples of the kind
of evidence that guides us in these speculations. In the
first place we find that the Minahassers of the northern
districts trace their descent from a woman, Lumimuit, and
that in the genealogies descent is traced in the female line
for at least two or three generations (p. 248). This shows
undoubtedly that they have received their cosmology from
a people who were in the habit of tracing their descent
habitually through the female line. Then again, the name
for the family is sanatotoan, which literally means those
‘who have sucked the same milk,’ a term obviously ignor-
ing the man as the head of the household. It probably
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 285
arose at a time when the man followed his wife and
lived in her house, as he does at the present in the neigh-
bouring Sangir islands, and in the kingdom of Bolang Mon-
gondu.
These facts, and many others which could be produced,
prove then not only that patriarchy was not the original
system in Celebes, but that matriarchy was; yet there still
remains considerable doubt as to the way in which the
change was brought about, and what the intermediate stages
were.
In order to throw some light upon these doubtful points,
we must consider some of the well-marked types of mar-
riage systems which are found in other parts of the archi-
pelago.
First, let us consider a prominent characteristic of what
may be called strict matriarchy. Such a system is found
amongst the Malays of the Padang highlands in Sumatra.
Each district (negari) is divided into a number of villages
(kota), and each village contains a number of family clans
(sukus), each of which lives in a single large house called
the kumpulan rumah. In most districts there is a very
strict law of exogamy, it being considered little short of
incestuous for a man to marry a member of his own suku
or family clan. Upon marriage the man leaves his own
clan and goes to live in the kumpulan rumah of his wife’s
clan, which after a time recognises him as a member.
Any titles and property he possesses do not descend to
his own children but to the kamanakan, i.e. his sister’s
children, and on the death of his wife he inherits none of
her property, nor is he allowed to exercise any control over
his own children (95).
Let us turn now to a case of strict patriarchy with
exogamy. Such a system is found amongst the Bataks.
Here we find that the children belong not to the mother’s
286 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
clan but exclusively to the father’s. Upon marriage the
woman leaves her own clan and becomes for the rest of her
life the property of her husband, and on his death of her
husband’s family. She can neither hold nor inherit any
property or title, and is in many respects little better than
a slave in her husband’s family. When her true husband
dies she becomes the wife of his brother as a matter of
course, or if he has no brother, she is appointed by the
chief to be the wife of some other member of the marga.
Wherever we find a strict patriarchal system with the
law of exogamy, we also find traces of the ‘capture’
customs; thus amongst the Bataks the bridegroom steals
into the village of his bride, and runs off with her, leaving
behind him something as a sign that the capture has been
effected. The sum of money paid to the bride’s parents
should be considered rather as an indemnity to the parents
for the insult of the capture than as an actual price paid
for the bride.
Let us now consider a third type of marriage laws,
namely, that which is found amongst some of the Dyaks of
Borneo. It is a system of ‘ beena’ marriages without any
strict rule of exogamy. Amongst the Dyaks we find large
houses inhabited by some 250 to 300 people. Newly
married couples do not go to live in a new house of their
own, but a compartment is set apart for them in the house
of the bride’s parents.
Both the husband and wife possess their own property,
and on the death of either of them it is inherited by the
children. If either of them dies before there are any
children, then their parents inherit the property.
Among the Dyaks of Sarawak we find, however, the
idea of common property similar to that we mentioned
when dealing with the Minahassers. Husband and wife
and children work together on the land belonging to the
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 287
family, and share the benefits of it equally. On the death
of the woman, the widower remains in the house of her
parents until the funeral feast is over, and then the pro-
perty which is left (when the expenses of the feast have
been paid) is divided into two equal portions ; one half goes
to the widower and the other is divided among the children ;
if there are no children it goes to the next of kin of the
deceased woman. On the death of the man, however, the
whole of the estate remains as the common property of the
woman and her children, but if there are no children it
is divided into two halves, one of which is retained by
the widow, the other going to the parents of the deceased
man.
The children of the Dyaks are not considered to belong
exclusively either to the father or the mother, and upon the
death of the latter, although they would naturally remain
in her family, they can choose which family they will
belong to, the father’s family or the mother’s family.
This system is evidently a modification of the strict
matriarchy found amongst the Padangers in Sumatra, the
modification having arisen probably from a slackening of
the laws of exogamy.
An important thing to note, however, is that in some
cases the man does not follow the woman; but if he is of
higher rank, or the only support of aged parents, the woman
is obliged to come and live in his family.
A system very similar to this existed within recent
years in the kingdom of Bolang Mongondu; but it has
been rather corrupted of late years by the influence of
Islamism (90).
Less modified than this is the system found in the
Nanusa archipelago and in the Talaut islands. In Nanusa
and many parts of the Talaut islands we find the large
houses similar to those in Borneo, the marriages are truly
288 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
‘beena’ marriages, and there is no very strict law of
exogamy. Unfortunately we have not at present very
much information concerning the laws regulating inherit-
ance of property, but we find in some places that the
children, when their parents are divorced, can choose the
family to which they will afterwards belong (85).
We have good reasons then for believing that the mar-
riage institutions of these people are in a very similar state
to those of the Dyaks of Borneo. In Sangir we find a
modification in that the houses are smaller, and the rajahs
and some of the nobles do not marry on the ‘ beena’ principle,
but bring their wives to their own homes. The smaller
houses mean that the young married people start indepen-
dent establishments, and that the idea of the clan, bound
together by the ties of a common mother, is gradually
becoming weaker.
The system we find in Minahassa which I have described
at the beginning of the chapter is, I believe, a direct out-
come of a system allied to that now found in some parts
of Borneo. In Minahassa it has exhibited a tendency to
become more patriarchal in character, in Borneo to become
more matriarchal.
Some authorities believe that the patriarchal system of
Minahassa has been derived from a stricter patriarchy with
exogamy, such as we find among the Bataks, the Timorese,
and others.
There can be little doubt that the change from a strict
matriarchy to a strict patriarchy has in many tribes taken
place by the introduction of the custom of capture mar-
riages. The change may be seen in operation in some of the
Malay tribes at the present day. ‘In the Babar archi-
pelago the men follow the women and live in their houses.
The children also belong to the wife’s family. If a man is
rich enough he may marry seven wives, all of whom remain
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 289
in the houses of their parents. Aman who has many wives
is respected. The robbery of a wife from another clan isan
honour, and the children follow the father with or without
payment of the fine attached to the deed. Smaller or
weaker clans even demand no fine. In the Kesar and
Wetar island groups a like state of things appears, the
maternal system being the recognised rule, but always
liable to pass into the paternal system by capture, which
brings wife and children into the husband’s hands’ (64).
Now, although it is very probable from this and from
other considerations that the practice of capturing wives
was the cause, in some parts of the archipelago, of the
change from the ‘beena’ to the ‘deega’ form of marriage,
from the genealogies being traced through the female line
to the male line, we are by no means justified in supposing
that this was the only cause. I will not now enter into all
the arguments which might be brought forward to support
this theory, but merely indicate that in the Alfurs of
Minahassa we have races which at the present day have
deega marriages, never having passed through the stage
of capture marriages. The cause of the change with them
was, I believe, primarily due to a breaking down of
the strict observance of the rules of exogamy, but it is
difficult to say what causes led to this. Furthermore, I
believe that, when we have more information about
the matrimonial institutions of the Talaut and Sangir
islanders, we shall find that many if not all the stages in
the process are now existent among those people.
But what reasons are there for supposing that there never
was a strict patriarchal system with exogamy in Minahassa?
In the first place, there are no traces in the ceremonies,
legends, or fables of such a custom. Now, as Maclennan
has shown, capture marriage remains as a formal ceremony
in very many races of the world long after its true origin
U
290 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
and meaning is lost or forgotten (43). It would indeed
be strange, if capture marriage had been formerly a common
practice, among the ancestors of the present Minahassers,
that no trace of it remains in any of their numerous cere-
monies, stories, myths, and legends which have been
brought to light. Moreover, the position of woman in
strict patriarchal families is a definite one. She is little
more than a slave in the household, she possesses no
property, has no claim upon the children, and cannot under
any circumstances claim a divorce. She is in fact nothing ~
more nor less than a portion of her husband’s property.
Such a position is one from which woman cannot free
herself for countless generations. In fact, it seems that
when a race of people has once regarded its women in
such a light it is never afterwards able to replace them on
the same platform as the men. Even in England and in
other European countries, women are not considered to be
capable of taking the same part in politics, in the pro-
fessions, and in many other phases of social life as the men.
Why? Because in the dim and distant past, a past which
is revealed to us only in the shreds and patches of ancient
history and in relics, our ancestors had capture mar-
riages, and their family life was strictly patriarchal. It
is not an exaggeration to say that there are comparatively
speaking very few women in Europe at the present day who
hold anything like the same position in the family and in
the State as the women of the Pueblo Indians of America,
the Padangers of the highlands of Sumatra, or the Dyaks.
The fact that in Minahassa the wife is on an equality
with her husband in the household, and in commercial
matters, and very probably was at the commencement of
the century in affairs of State as well, points to another line
of evolution of their social institutions than through the
strictly patriarchal one.
CH, XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 29%
The details of the marriage ceremonies all lead to the
same conclusion. The first part of the feast takes place,
and the marriage is consummated, not in the husband’s
village, as it was in ‘capture ’ times, but in the house of the
wife’s parents. The naming of the father after the first-
born child, and the fragmentary survival of the custom of
avoiding the parents-in-law, are relics probably of old
matriarchal times, and tell against the supposition that
there ever was a patriarchy with strict exogamy in N.
Celebes.
How, then, are we to suppose that the changes were
brought about ? The evidence afforded us by the neighbour-
ing tribes of Bolang Mongondu, Sangir, Talaut, and Nanusa
seems to indicate that, soon after the law of exogamy broke
down, the custom came in that the wives of rajahs followed
their husbands ; that this was later extended to the nobles,
and from them it gradually spread to be the custom among
all the common people of the tribe. Perhaps we have hardly
sufficient evidence before us at present to prove that this
was the true story of its evolution, but it seems more
probable than the supposition that the Minahassers ever
passed through an epoch of striet patriarchy. Further
investigations of the marriage institutions of the people of
the northern peninsula of Celebes and of the outlying
islands might give to anthropologists a clue to the solution
of this interesting problem.
The birth of a young Minahasser is made, as might be
expected, the occasion for general rejoicing among the
friends and relatives:of his parents; and a fosso is, of
course, given, when the name he is to bear is given him, his
horoscope cast, and every precaution taken to protect him
from the sakits or devils seeking to injure him.
Two or three days after birth the first part of the fosso
is given; this is called ‘irojor si okki’—the bringing down
bia
292 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. xi
of the child, that is, from the room in which it was born
to the ground.
Three or four walians come, and the child is brought
‘down, and then either bathed or its head only slightly
damped by the female attendant of the woman who has just
been confined. It is considered to be a very unlucky sign if
at this point anyone sneezes ; but, nevertheless, the luck can
be restored if the priests and nurse take the child back again,
chew betel for a little while as if nothing had happened, and
then start afresh, saying, ‘ Now it is another day.’
When the bathing ceremony is over, the pig is brought
out which is shortly afterwards to be sacrificed and eaten.
The child is then made to kick with its tiny feet the pig
three times, that the gods may know that the sacrifice is
made on its behalf. In some districts the mother also kicks
the pig three times, but this is not universally the custom.
The child, its parents and a few relatives are now taken
to the river by a female walian, who brings with her some
fire, a coco-nut husk, and an oily nut called kemiri (the
seed probably of a species of Hernandia). With her golden
cord of office round her neck, she carries the child into
the river, and, taking the kemiri out of the coco-nut husk,
dips them both into the river, just damps the child’s fore-
head with the water, and rubs it with the oily nut. When
this is done she throws the fire, the husk, and the kemiri
into the water, muttering a formula for the exorcism of the
evil spirits. The party next return to the house, the gong
and kolintang are sounded, and a great noise of rejoicing
and congratulation arises. :
The pig is then killed and roasted whole, but it is not
eut open until it has been allowed to cool for about three
hours, and in the meanwhile the chief priest relates the
names of the greater and lesser empungs, and gives an
account of their deeds and prowess.
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS. 293-
The heart of the pig is next examined with great care,
and the fortunes of the child are told. If the signs are
good, and the child is a little boy, the priest prophesies for
him great strength and bravery, wealth, and prosperity ;
if it is a little girl, beauty, many lovers, and a handsome
harta when she is married.
The feast concludes with the usual dancing,. singing,
feasting and general frolic (22).
The name is given to the child by a walian as he places
in its mouth a little cooked rice and pork, which he holds
between his finger and thumb.
In the districts of Passan and Ratahan the child’s head
is submitted to a process of flattening called in the
Bentenansch dialect ‘taleran.’ A week or so after birth,
a board, surrounded by folds of linen, is fastened tightly to
the forehead, and every morning when the child is bathed
the bands are loosened and immediately made tight again,
so that the forehead gradually becomes very consider-
ably flattened. This process lasts from fifty to sixty
days (97).
A process of head-flattening similar to this exists in
many parts of the world. The Chinese, many races of
North American Indians, Mexicans, Peruvians, and Poly-
nesians are known to have practised manipulations of their
infants’ heads for many generations, and even in Western
Europe the cradle-board has not long been given up.
The next ceremony in which the young Alfar has to
take part is the initiation into the secrets of the makehet,
or the mode of obtaining the wine from the sagoweer palm.
This he must learn when he is about twelve months old,
or the gods will lose their interest in him, and he will never
reach maturity or be lucky in life. When the time has
come, the little boy is dressed up like a full-grown man,
and bears in miniature the empty bamboo he is to fill with
294 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES CH. XI
wine, a knife to hack the ‘tree, a little ladder to climb it,
and arms to resist any head-hunting savages who may be
lurking in the forest. The walian, his father, and one or
two friends or relations take him to a sagoweer tree they
have found in the forest, and the ceremony begins. The
priest hangs the bamboo on the tree, places the ladder
against it, and lifts the child three times, making his feet
touch the steps of the ladder. He then gives the child
back to his father, and runs through the names of the
gods, and finally the whole party returns to the village, where
a fosso is given in honour of the occasion.
The little Minahassa maiden does not learn the makehet,
but nevertheless a ceremony is held for the girls of about
the same age at which they are initiated into their household
duties (22).
The next incident in the life of the young Minahasser
is the teéteken or circumcision. The operation is performed
in the depths of the forest by the father and uncle, but is
not made the occasion for a feast (100).
Of courtship and marriage I have already spoken, so
that the only remaining event of importance in the life of
these savages is, to use a hibernicism, death and burial.
But perhaps it would be as well, before dealing with funeral
customs, to mention a few facts concerning the native
treatment of disease.
Most diseases are, as I have indicated already, attributed
to demons or sakits, and the cure for them depends upon
the success the walian has in fighting the sakits and calling
back the true spirit of the patient. Many others are
treated with decoctions and infusions of roots, leaves, and
fruits of plants, some of which have undoubtedly consider-
able therapeutical value, but others are of little or no use
at all.
Since the settlement of Europeans in the country,
CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSERS 295
native medicines have to a certain extent given way before
the more powerful and satisfactory patent medicines im-
ported from Holland and England, and native doctors
have been replaced in many districts by Malays, who have
received a government training in medicine in Java, and
are commonly known as doctor jawa. Nevertheless, there
are at the present day many educated and well-informed
persons living in the Dutch settlements who prefer to leave
the treatment of their ills to uneducated natives.