MAN 262
Panav Cebu, Negros, Samar, and Leyte. But close to the great and fertile island of
Luzon, and parted from it only by a narrow channel, is that of Mindoro, mountainous,
destitute of volcanic formation, and sterile. Its most advanced inhabitants are
fugitives or other settlers from Luzon, its own inhabitants consisting of squa 1
savages. Between Luzon and Mindoro lies the small but fertile island of Inarm uque,
which in fact forms part of the province of Mindoro. I t is about one-eighth part of
the size of Mindoro, but has an industrious and docile population of double its
amount. The great island of Mindano is partly of sedimentary and plutonic and partly
of volcanic formation. The northern portion of it seems generally sterile, but parts of
the southern are fertile, and in these have sprung up the Mindano and Lanun nations,
who have attained a considerable amount of civilisation, while the sterile southern
portion is inhabited by innumerable very rude tribes. The large island of Palawan
wholly of sedimentary and plutonic formation, and eminently sterile, and the consequence
is, that all its inhabitants are even in a more abject condition than tne
^Onefact is°certain, whether as regards the Philippine or Malayan Archipelago, that no
considerable indigenous and independent civilisation has ever originated m a small
island: and independent of the sterility, which is their normal condition, the reason
seems obviously to be, that they afforded no room for the growth of a nation of
sufficient strength to secure its own independence, and hence to afford the security
and leisure indispensable to the pursuit of the arts of peace. I t is only in the large
and fertile islands of Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and Luzon, that phonetic writing, the
highest proof of advancement, has been invented. Many0of the smaller islands of
both Archipelagos are not even inhabited at all, and some very considerable ones,
on account of their sterility, a r e peopled only by rude tribes, as Gilolo, Boeroe, Ceram,
and several of the islands between the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, which included
Singapore before it was occupied by ourselves. .
The subsidiary or accessory causes which contributed to raise the indigenous *
civilisations to the point to which they had reached on the arrival of Europeans, |
were, the possession of iron, of cereal corn, of the larger domesticated animals, an
intercourse or intermixture with strangers more civilised than the natives. Without
the possession of iron no nation of the Malay or Philippine Archipelago has attained
any respectable amount of civilisation. All of the nations that have possessed the
art of phonetic writing, have also possessed a knowledge of this metal. The same
may be said of bread-corn, in this case rice, which in these regions has the same rank
with'wheat in temperate ones. I t is the universal bread of all the civilised nations from
Sumatra to Celebes and Luzon. Those tribes that live on sago, which embraces
the wide region east of Celebes, including New Guinea, are either illiterate, 01 rude
and savage, whether belonging to the Malay or Negro race. The cause is obvious.
Sago is produced with little labour, and this of the rudest description: it is for the
countries in which it grows the lowest quality of farinaceous food on which man can
subsist; it has little exchangeable value, and holds out no inducement to its consumers
to ameliorate their condition by the practice of economy. The yam, the batata, the
b a n a n a , a n d the bread-fruit labour under similar disadvantages.
The possession of the larger domesticated animals, seems equally indispensable as
iron and cereal corn to civilisation. All the nations, therefore, which were found in
a state of considerable advancement,—all that had attained the art of writing, were
found in possession either of the ox or buffalo, or both. Some of the natives of
Sumatra were found in possession of the buffalo only, and such was the case also,
even with the most civilised of those of the Philippine Islands; but the M^ays and
Javanese were in possession of both these animals, and even of the horse. The rude
and unlettered tribes, on the contrary,—the consumers of sago or of farinaceous roots,
were like the inhabitants of the South-Sea Islands in possession only of the hog and
d o g , a n d therefore without any animals adapted for labour.
Intercommunication with strangers, although not the primary cause of the civilisations
of the two Archipelagos, contributed largely to increase them. I he communication
in these cases was effected not by invasion and conquest, but by
commercial intercourse and partial settlement. The earliest strangers who contributed
to the civilisation of the Indian islanders, of which we have any evidence,
were the Hindus, and the extent of their influence is testified by language, religion,
architectural monuments and inscriptions. Java was the chief seat of this influence,
the popular language of which contains in 1000 words, full 120 which belong to the
lan(mages of the Hindus. Religion and Commerce were the principal channels
through which this influence was exercised. Thus we find the following religious
terms to be Sanscrit,-a god or deity, religion prayer, heaven, infernal region to
which many others of the same class might be added In this class may be mcluded
terms connected with the kalendar, and even a well-known Hmdu epoch. Of commercial
terms we find such words as price, profit, capital, ship, and emporium, to be
all of Hindu origin, while the names of such objects as copper, quicksilver, sugar,
black-pepper, cotton, silk, indigo, camphor, aloes-wood, nutmeg, pearl, and pearlother*
foreigners who have contributed to promote the civilisation of the
Indian islanders, are the Arabs and other nations of Western Asia, converted by
them The effects produced by these have been, not through the medium of the
Javanese, but of the Malays, whose language contains a far larger proportion of Arabic
than any other of the Archipelago. This nation indeed has even adopted the written
character of the Arabs to the abandonment of its own, and has been the chief instrument
in propagating the Mahometan religion among the other nations and tnbes.
But the Malays and Javanese stood themselves in' the relation of strangers to all
the other nations of the two Archipelagos, and communicated to them, according to
their opportunities, more or less of the civilisation which they had themselves
attained, whether native or derived from foreign sources. I t was through them, and
not by direct intercourse with Hindus or Arabs, that Hindu and Arabian improvement
was communicated to the other tribes. This is testified by the Hindu and
Arabic words found in their languages being always the same,—by these being used
in the same sense, although differing from their original meanings in Sanscrit and
Arabic, to the extent even of copying errors, and by the proportion of such foreign
words diminishing in proportion to distance from Java and Sumatra. Thus in the
case of the Sanscrit language, while in the popular tongue of Java there are in'1000
words about 120, in the principal language of Celebes, there are but 17, and in that
of Luzon 2. Beyond this they disappear altogether.
But the greatest improvement which has been imparted by the Malays and Javanese
to the other nations, has been derived from their own native resources. This is
proved by an examination of language, from which it will be seen that the proportion
of Malay and Javanese is always largest in the neighbourhood of Sumatra aud Java,
and is constantly decreasing as we increase our distance from them. The degree
in which imitation as to the form or meaning of words obtains holds the same proportion.
Thus, in the language of Bali there are in 1000 words, 470 that are Malay
and Javanese; in the principal language of Celebes only 226; while in the chief
tongue of Luzon, the number falls as low as 22.
Among the words communicated by the Malays and Javanese to less civilised tribes
are the numerals; some terms connected with the kalendar, as year and month; the
names of the domesticated animals, as of the hog and buffalo; of cultivated plants, as
rice and the yam; of all the metals, except gold; of utensils and weapons, and terms
connected with trade. These observations apply more especially to the more cultivated
languages of Celebes and of the Philippines, and show the extent to which the
people speaking them are indebted to the civilisations of the Malays and Javanese.
Tribes less civilised than those just referred to, have received into their languages
similar, although smaller infusions, of the languages of the Malays and Javanese, the
influence of which have even penetrated to the languages of the South Sea Islands,
and to the languago of Madagascar. Thus, we have in the Polynesian dialects,
the numerals, the names of the coco-palm, of the sugar-cane, of the yam, and of the
Taro or Caladium esculentum. But the names of the domesticated animals of the
South-Sea islanders are not to be traced to the Malayan languages, nor had any of
the metals known to the Malayan nations reached the Polynesian. Indeed, the
proportion of Malayan words in the Polynesian languages, does not at the utmost
exceed 20 in 1000.
In the language of remote Madagascar, we find the names of four cultivated plants
to be Malayan, namely, rice, the coco-paim, the yam, and capsicum pepper; but the
names of the domesticated animals have not this source; and iron is the only metal
bearing a Malayan name. The proportion of Malayan words, the minerals included,
is nearly the same in the Malagasi as in the Polynesian languages. These facts have
been stated elsewhere, but for convenience are here repeated.
Two examples of the direot effect of the commercial intercourse of strangers in
civilising the people of the Archipelago deserve to be specially quoted, namely, Malacca
andthe Molucca islands. The first of these, although established in a barren land, which
drew all its supplies of food from what was a remote oountry to its semi-barbarous inhabitants,
Java, yet became from its central position, and by sheer virtue of commerce, one