tribes. Among the nations of Celebes, the most
warlike of the Archipelago, the women appear
in public without any scandal; they take an active
concern in all the business of life \ they are consulted
by the men on all public affairs, and frequently
raised to the throne, and that too when the
monarchy is elective. Here the woman eats with
her husband, nay, by a custom which points at
the equality of the sexes, always from the very same
dish, the only distinction left to the latter being
that of eating from the right side. At public festivals,
women appear among the men ; and those
invested with authority sit in their counsels when
affairs of state are discussed, possessing, it is often
alleged, even more than their due share in the deliberations.
The present sovereign of the Bugis state of
Lawu, in Celebes, is wife to the king of Sopeng,
another Bugis state, but the king of Sopeng does
not presume to interfere in the affairs of the state
of Lawu, which are administered by his wife, its
own proper queen. The wife of the respectable
Macassar chief, Kraing Lemhang Parang, is sovereign
of the little state of Lipukasi, and has the
reputation of being one of the first politicians of
Celebes. I saw this renowned lady at Macassar
in 1814. She appeared to be about fifty years
of age, and had all the appearance of intelligence and.
resolution. Not many days before I saw her, she had
presented herself among the warriors of her party
drawn out before the enemy, upbraided them for
their tardiness in the attack, in lofty terms, and
demanded a spear, that she might show them an
example. Encouraged by her exhortations, it appears
they went forth, and gained an advantage.
Celebes is not the only country of the Archipelago
in which women are raised to sovereign authority.
There is hardly a country of it in which
women have not at one period or another of their
history sat on the throne; and it may be remarked,
that the practice is most frequent where the
government is most turbulent.
In Java, the* rank of women is not so distinguished
as in Celebes, but they are treated, notwithstanding,
with much consideration, without
coarseness, brutality, or neglect; and maltreatment,
to the extent of personal violence, is equally
unknown to the Javanese, and all the other tribes.
The Javanese women are industrious and laborious
beyond those of all the Archipelago, but their
labour, instead of being a slavery imposed upon
them by the men, becomes, through its utility
to the latter, a source of distinction. Their
faculties, indeed, exercised in the various branches
of domestic and agricultural economy, in
which they are so often employed, places their
understandings on many points above those of