population of one small district of this country, not exceeding 50 square miles, at a
million, or 400 inhabitants to each mile; but as this far exceeded the populouBness
of the best inhabited parts of Java in his time, the estimate seems evidently greatly
in excess. Still, there can be no doubt but that the valleys of Menangkabo are
cultivated and peopled to a degree unknown in any other part of Sumatra.
Of the history of Menangkabo no details are known, and most probably none
exist. No time is assigned for its foundation, nor is it even known when or how its
inhabitants were converted to the Mahommedan religion. Some European writers
have, notwithstanding, described it as having been once a great and powerful empire
of which the rule extended over the whole of Sumatra, an assumption for which
there is not a grain of evidence, native or European. It may be safely asserted, indeed,
that the Malays have never attained that degree of civilisation which could have
enabled them to acquire and to hold together so large a dominion, especially in a
forest-clad country like Sumatra, and of which, independent of rude tribes, the more
advanced nations alone amount to five in number, speaking distinct languages, and
having different customs. De Barros tells us that when the Portuguese arrived in
India the sea-coast of Sumatra was divided into no fewer than nine and twenty
distinct independent kingdoms, and as he furnishes a list of them, we can see that all
but one of them were Malay. As to Menangkabo, it is not included in the number,
and mentioned only as a country that furnished some gold, and was famous for its
manufacture of arms, a reputation which it still maintains.
With local advantages of soil and water, it is certain that Menangkabo must have
attained an amount of population and power beyond the less favourably circumstanced
Malay States, and this would naturally induce the latter to look up to it with
respect, and make it a point of pride to trace their origin to it. I t seems however
more than probable, and indeed to a certain extent admitting of proof, that the natural
advantages of Menangkabau were promoted by the intercourse and settlement of
strangers. I take these strangers to have been Javanese, already imbued with some
portion of the civilisation and religion of the Hindus, and most probably finding
their way from Palembang, where they are still settled, and have been so imme-
morially.
The names of persons and places afford evidence of the presence of the Javanese.
Thus by one set of legends, the founders of Menangkabo are represented to have
been two brothers, called Papati-si-batang and Kayi Tumangung. The first word
in the first of these names is Sanscrit, with a Javanese prefix, and signifies lord, and
the last is Javanese, meaning the shaft of a spear. Both words in the second name
are Javanese, the last of them borrowed by the Malay, but the first the title of a
class of Javanese nobility, and signifying “ respectable,” and unknown to the Malay.
According to another legend found in the manuscript translated by Dr. Leyden, and
which he called “ Malay Annals,” the founder of Menangkabau was a personage
called Sang Sapurba, represented to have come from Palembang, that is, from a
Javanese colony. The name is a mixture of Javanese and Sanscrit, the first part of
it being a Javanese title prefixed to the names of gods and ancient kings, and the
last the Sanscrit word purba, “ first,” with the abreviated Javanese numeral “ one”
prefixed. Another party concerned in this supposed adventure is called Sang Nila
Utama. The first word here is that just explained, and the two last are Sanscrit,
signifying in their order, “ blue” and “ excellent.”
The evidence afforded by the names of places is perhaps more satisfactory. The
name of Menangkabo itself may perhaps be Javanese, for the two words of which it
is composed are capable of being rendered without alteration in that language, “ the
victory of the buffalo,” that is, it may be presumed, the victory of the buffalo over
the tiger, such being the usual result of the contest between these two animals.
The first place in which the fabled brother founders established their government, is
called Prayangan. This is Javanese and not Malay, and signifies “ place of wood-
spirits or fairies,” and still exists as the name of an extensive region of Java. The
name of the mountain Marapi, signifies a volcano, and is the Javanese but not the
Malay form of the word. Binggit is the name of another mountain, and this word
which signifies a puppet, or marionnette, is exclusively Javanese. A place in the
country of Menangkabo, is called Ayar-angat, it may be presumed, from the existence
of a thermal spring, for this is the native name for one. The first word in
this case, is modem Malay, signifying water, but is also found in the ancient language
of Java: the last is exclusively Javanese not Malay, signifying “ hot.” Pagarrayung,
the name of a district of Menangkabo, has its first part common to the Malay and
Javanese, but its last wholly Javanese, being the name of a species of aquatic grass,
and the entire word meaning literally fence, or inclosure made of the grass in question.
Linto is the name of another district of the same country, the word having no signification
in Malay, but in Javanese meaning I exchange or barter,” probably from its
being the site of an established fair or market. Jambi is the name of a Malay state
and of a large river on the eastern side of Sumatra. The word is the Javanese for
the areca palm, and is equivalent to pinang in Malay. Madang and Koripan are the
names of towns or villages in the south-eastern part of Sumatra, and are evidently
taken from the names of the seats of two ancient principalities of Java. Then we
have Preng and Trap, Javanese words signifying “ bamboo,” and “ command or
order” for the names of two rivers, and we have Bino signifying “ day” in Javanese,
for the name of a river islet. Bafiu, the Javanese for water, or river, we find in
Bafiu-asin, Salt-river, the name of the most westerly of the four branches of the
Palembang river as it debouches in the sea. Again, we have the name of the
country of Palembang itself, correctly Palimbang, a word derived from the
Javanese verb limbang, which signifies “ to drain off a fluid.” The complete word,
probably here abbreviated, would be Palimbangan, of which the sense would be,
the vessel or place from which water or other fluid is drained off, and, no doubt,
has reference to the subsidence of the inundation, in the territory named, one of the
most striking phenomena belonging to it. In the countries of the Bejang and
Sarawi, as if on the road from Java to Menangkabo, we have equally decisive evidence
of Javanese settlement in the names of places. A lake with a district to which
it gives name, is called Banu, which in Javanese signifies water or a lake. Another
district has the name of Padang-ratu, which in Javanese signifies “ king’s plain
and a third is Surabaya, the name of a province of Java, a word half Sanscrit and half
Javanese, signifying “ heroic difficulty.” Indragiri, mountain of Indra, and Indra-
pura, city of Indra, are examples of names of places entirely Sanscrit, and Bumi-agung
and Gunaug-raja, “great land” and “ king’s mount,” of those in which the two languages
are combined. These Sanscrit and Javanese names, it should be remarked, are frequent
only in the south-eastern part of Sumatra, or that which is in proximity to Java-
Better evidence, however, than even these words, of the presence of the Javanese
in Menangkabo, exists in actual monuments of this people. Sir Stamford Baffles, in
his visit to it, found a stone inscription in the ancient character of Java, exactly like
those he had been familiar with in that island, and accompanied as he was by learned
Javanese, he could not well have mistaken the writing for any other character.
The inscription was on a slab of basalt, and my friend Dr. Horsfield who accompanied
Sir Stamford, showed me a fac-simile of the writing which leaves no doubt of
its identity with that of Java. I t is remarkable that when the Portuguese became
first acquainted with Sumatra, a tradition of the former presence of the Javanese
still prevailed among its inhabitants. There is a passage in De Barros to this effect
worth quoting, “ The people of the coast as well as of the interior,” says he, “ are of
a tawny colour, have flowing hair, are well proportioned, have a goodly aspect and
are not of the appearance of the Javanese although so near to them. From this fact it
deserves to be noted how so small a distance may change the nature of things.
And more especially, as all the natives of Sumatra are called by the common name
of Jauiji (Jawi), for it is held by Sumatrians as certain that the Javanese had once
been masters of this great island.” Decade 3, Book 5, Chap. 1. The word Jawi
here employed belongs still to the Malay, and implies a mixture of what is partly
native and partly foreign, a sense in which it is especially applied to the language as
now written.
About the year 1807, there sprang up in Menangkabo a new and conquering
religion, being a professing reformation of the Mahommedan. I t is called that of the
Padris or Binchis, names given to the parties who first propagated it, and who were
three native pilgrims recently returned from [Mecca. The first name mentioned is
evidently the Portuguese designation of theBoman Catholic ecclesiastics, and the last is
an abbreviation of Korinchi, the district in which the reform first sprang up. The
converts to the new sect were called by the Malays orang-putih or “ white men,”
in reference to the dress they wore. The following account is given by Mr. John
Anderson of this singular religion, the only original one that has ever been known to
have sprung up within the Archipelago. “ The Binchis,” says he, writing in 1822,
“ are the chiefs of a religious sect in the kingdom of Menangkabo in the interior of
Siak, who have been gradually extending their power and their influence during the
last twelve or fifteen years. They are most rigorous in preventing the consumption
of opium, and punish with death all who are detected in this indulgence. They
prohibit coloured cloths of any description from being worn, and allow only pure