A review of the ethnological investigations in the Dutch Indian archipelago / by J.C. van Eerde.

  • Eerde, J. C. van (Johan Christiaan), 1871-1936.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A review of the ethnological investigations in the Dutch Indian archipelago / by J.C. van Eerde. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Section 2. The ethnography of the Dutch Indian Archipelago is as old as the descriptions of its inha])itants, in so far as these were written down hy strangers. For long before the peoples of the Archipelago acquired nniversally the art of writing, now practised almost everywhere hy means of various characters, their peculiarities had heen observed hy foreign merchants and navigators; some knowledge of these peculiarities was spread further and recorded hy the writers of antiquity or written down l)y the foreign visitors themselves. Considered from this point of view, we have already ethnographic indications in the accounts of the Alexan¬ drian geographer, Claudius Ptolemaeus, of the second century A.D., relating to the five Barnsai-, the three Sabadeihai- and the three Sindai Islands with their cannibals (Geeini, Researches on Ptolemy’s Geography of Eastern Asia 1909, p. 427). This is quite in accordance with the powerful impression made hy man-eating on the more highly civilised mind. In addition to this cannibalism, noted as a remarkable fact, we find mention of the occurrence of gold, in the fertile Jahadios with its western capital, the Town of Silver. About the same time the Ramayana, refer¬ ring to Hanuman’s search for the stolen Dewi Sita, was already able to mention this same gold and silver island, Jawadwipa, resplendent with seven kings. Hence in these ancient times accounts reached countries far across the sea, of cannibals, of the working of noble metals, the planting ot rice, and the political institutions of certain portions of the Indian Archipelago; later the gold island (Sumatra), the rice island (Java) and the gem island (Borneo) were distinguished as the three most important. In addition to these accounts which found their way west¬ wards, foreigners from the east who were acquainted with the art of writing, and especially the Chinese, made mention of the peoples of the Indian Archipelago. Since the beginning of the 5^^^ century we have the account of the voyage of Fa-Hian and the annals of various Chinese dynasties which have been compiled and translated from Chinese sources by Geoeneveldt in his “Rotes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacca.” After the 7^^^ century there is I-tsixo’s “Record of the Buddhist religion as practised in India and the Malay Archipelago” (Takakusu, 1896) and in 1225 A. D. Chau-Ju-Kua was able to give quite a number of details concerning the Indian Archipelago in his “Book of the Description of Foreign Countries” (Hirth and Rockhill, 1912). Simultaneously with the Chinese, the Arabs also furnished infor¬ matie]! which may be found in the Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum” (De Goe.te 1889), the “Relations des Voyages faits par les Arabes”