Volume 1

Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China and the Indian Archipelago : second series / [published by Reinhold Rost].

  • Reinhold Rost
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China and the Indian Archipelago : second series / [published by Reinhold Rost]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the skin, and throw the pieces into a pot to boil; as soon as it is done, each eats up silently in the dark the portion he has got hold of. This is the way in which these people manage to live.1 The principal weapons of the Mantras are the lance, the parang (a kind of sword), the kris (dagger), and the sumpitan. This last instrument of destruction, the sumpitan, or sarbacane, called tumiang by the aborigines, is a hollow tube five or six feet in length, composed of two bamboos, of which the exterior or sheath is called tagur, and the interior anak-tumiang, or “ son of the sarbacaneC The tagur is decorated with diagrams ; it is generally painted yellow at the top and white at the bottom. At the tabu, or mouth of the tumiang, the Mantra inserts a light arrow,* a few inches long, its pointed extremity being dipped into a poisonous gum ; then, bringing the tumiang to his mouth, with a mighty blow sends the arrow flying fifty or sixty feet; and it generally hits the mark. The poison, which is procured from the milky juice of a full-grown tree, called hipo-batang, and is mixed with certain roots, is very deadly; in a few minutes the monkey, squirrel, birds, and cats die. On man its effect is doubtful, and on fowls it has hardly any effect at all. The savage does not take the trouble to cut out the piece of flesh which is pierced by the arrow, and is generally of a bluish tint.2 In their general character the Mantras are good-natured and artless; they are gentle in their habits, and inoffensive ; and their features at once inspire in the heart of the European a feeling of confidence, which is always refused to the Malays. The European, on his side, is sure to gain their goodwill in a very short time, if he proves himself good, gentle, easy of access, and interested in them. Timid, diffident, and conceited in the extreme, they are not naturally very communicative ; they seem to have no idea of the delights of friendship. With them, each one lives merely as if he were alone in the world, and troubles himself very little about his neighbour, who is often a relation. Like most Asiatics, the Mantras are indifferent, indolent, lazy, loving rest better than anything else; thus hardly bold, hardly enterprising enough to procure themselves a life of luxury; even if they see the advan- tages of it, they have not energy enough to set about striving for it; hence the misery which devours them on a rich soil, that calls for nothing but a little labour to be fertilized. But if it is the question to go to the forest, they are at once as if transformed. Alone, without any other weapon than the sarbacane, a pike, and a dagger suspended from the girdle, they penetrate into 1 [“ Journal of the Indian Archipelago,” vol. i. p. 254]. * After having inserted the arrow in the tabu, a little touchwood must be put in; without this precaution the arrow will not travel far. 2 [Favre, “Account of the Wild Tribes inhabiting the Malayan Peninsula,”' p. 62, ffi]
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