CELEBES go CELEBES
“At the same time,” (1640) “ there eame to Ternate ambassadors from the islands of
the Maeafas (Macassars), which lie west of the Moluccas about 60 leagues. These
islands (estas ilhas) are many, and extend in a direction north and south to the length
of 100 leagues. This island (esta ilha) resembles in form a huge grasshopper of
which the head stretches to five degrees and a half of south latitude, and constitutes
the Celebes (os Cellebes). This has a king of its own. The tail, which is next to the
Moluccas, crosses the equinoxial, and runs a degree north of it. These islands (estas
ilhas) are ruled by many kings, and have different languages, and separate rites and
customs. Commencing with the tail, the extremity of which is cut by the equator
there is the kingdom of the Bogis (Bugis). Its principal city is called Savito, which
is large, consists of storied houses, beautiful, but all of wood. There they burn the
dead, and collect the ashes in urns, which they inter in separate fields, where they
erect chapels, and for a year the relatives bring food, which they place on the tomb
which dogs, cats, and birds carry off. The viands thus placed, consist of such as the
deceased eat of while living. These people have no temples, but pray, looking up to
the skies with their hands raised, from which it may be seen that they have a
knowledge of the true God. The common people have but one wife, but the kings
three or four. Then comes the kingdom of Macaca. Its principal city is called Goa,
and here they inter the dead. Near this is another kingdom called Dirapa, its
principal town having the same name. The people of this country have the same
rites and customs as the Bugis, and their kings are relations. To the kings thus
named there are many petty princes subject. In these islands there is cotton,
copper, iron, lead, and much gold, made into bracelets for the women. There are
also red gems, which are made into ornaments, with sandal-wood and sapan-wood
and the people manufacture much good cloth of silk of many sorts. These islands
are rich in rice, legumes, fruits, and salt, and they have horses, elephants, common
fowls, sheep, buffaloes, deer, hogs, partridges, and all kinds of forest game, but no
oxen. They have ships of many kinds, some of them called pelang (Malay, a barge
or pinnace), which are fast.running vessels for war. They have others, called lopi,
which are for cargo, and still larger ones, which are called jojoga. All these people’
are of a tawny complexion, like the inhabitants of the Moluccas. The men are
well-made and handsome, but foul in their lives, and much addicted to heinous sin :
the women are handsome and laborious. All of these people that have fallen into
the hands of the Portuguese have been prisoners of war. Every year there is taken
of them for sale a great number to Malacca.”—Decade V. book vii. chapter 2.
There is some truth and much error in this description. The country of the
Bugis and the town of Savito are not on the northern, but the south-western
Peninsula. No such kingdom as Dirapa is traceable, and there is nothing but the
assertion of the writer to show that the elephant ever existed in Celebes. He refers
only to the northern and south-western Peninsulas, and most probably considered
the eastern and south-eastern to be islands like Boeton, Muna, Wowoni, and
Salayer. I t is evident, however, from his account, that the people of Celebes’ were
not yet converted to the Mahommedan religion, and it is probable, from their modes
of prayer, and the burning of the dead, that they professed some rude form of
Hinduism. I t is evident that the parties who furnished De Couto with his statements
derived their information, not by direct communication with the people of
Celebes, but through the Malays of Malacca or of the Moluccas, and this is shown by
the use of the Malay and not native proper names.
The accounts of the Portuguese historians may assist us.in offering some conjectures
respecting the name of the island. I t is one wholly unknown, even at present to
the natives of Celebes itself, or to the other people of the Archipelago, and indeed
has not the sound of a native word, being one which the former could not pronounce!
The island, in fact, has no native name any more than the other great islands. A
land, by the inhabitants of the Archipelago, is considered only in reference to' the
people who inhabit it, and no effort is made at a geographical generalisation which
would embrace the aggregate of many parts. They speak of the land of the Bugis
and of the Macassars, as they speak of the land of the Malays, of the Bataks of the
Javanese, and of the Sundas, and it is highly probable that Celebes was not’known
to its inhabitants to be an island at all, until it was ascertained for them by Europeans
The name of Celebes then was, in all likelihood, imposed by the Portuguese, and as
we have seen, they seem to have considered it rather as a group of islands than a
single island. I have no doubt, therefore, but that the last syllable of the word is aPortu-
guese plural. The rest of the word is by no means so certain, but it seems very probable
that the first syllable is the frequent initial and inseparable Malay particle Si in its
CELEBES 91
Portuguese orthography. This is frequently prefixed by the Malays to the names of
persons and to those of islets or rather of groups of islets, of which we have examples
in the islands Sbiru, Simalu, and Sipora, on the western coast of Sumatra. These
names may be literally translated, “ the blue,” “ the shame,” and “ the dissembling ”
islands. The chief difficulty is with the medial syllable, or principal word, which,
however, may be the Malay word lâbih or lebih, “ more” or “ over and above.”
Pulo Salâbih would, then, signify “ the islands over and above,” and in their explanations
to the Portuguese such a vague name may have been given by the Malays,
which with the Portuguese plural would approach to the word Celebes. We have a
somewhat similar proceeding in the Cellates of De Barros, which he gives as the
proper name of a people inhabiting the islands at the eastern end of the Straits of
Malacca, and “ whose vocation,” he says, “ it was to rob and fish ” (cuyo officio he
rubar y pescar.) The word thus fabricated into the name of a nation is the Malay
word sâlat, “ a strait or narrow sea,” with the Portuguese plural, the people referred
to being no other than the roving Malays spread over the coasts of the Archipelago, to
the present day, and known as the Orang-laut, “ men of the sea,” or Orang-sâlat, “ men
of the straits/’
That the people of Celebes had an early intercourse with the Malays and Javanese,
and that they received from them some portion of their civilisation, is sufficiently
testified by the evidence of language. Of the Bugis, the most copious and improved
of the Celebesian languages, about one-fifth is either Malay or Javanese. Among
words of these languages we find the names of such cultivated plants as rice, the
yam, the sugar-cane, the mango, and the mangostin, but not the banana or the
cocoa-nut, or the sago-palm, or the bread-fruit. All domesticated animals bear Malay
or Javanese names, except the buffalo. The greater number of tools, implements,
and weapons, but not all, have the same origin. Thus, saw, adze, knife, shears,
file, chisel, sword and bow are Malayan, but not spear, javelin, shield, dagger, and
hanger. Iron, tin, and silver are Malay and Javanese, but not gold. In the terms
connected with the useful arts, while spin, thread, weave, shuttle, sew, nail, bolt,
plank are Malayan, house, door, lime, and cloth, are native.
Language alone testifies that the more cultivated of the nations of Celebes had a
slight tincture of Hinduism, but to judge by the form, sense, and identity of the
words, evidently through the Malays and Javanese. Thus the words religion, worship,
adoration, fast, ascetic devotion, heaven, infernal regions, deity, spiritual guide,
goblin, and soul, are either Malay or Javanese, or Sanscrit through them. Independent,
indeed, of theological terms, there are a good many Sanscrit words indicating
progress in civilisation which have found their way into the Bugis, through
the medium of the Malay and Javanese, such as cotton, copper, pepper, sugar, nutmeg,
indigo, diadem, fortress, &c., &c.
When the Portuguese first visited Celebes, they found a few foreign Mahommedan
settlers a^Gk>a, the chief town of the Macassar nation, but the natives as yet unconverted.
This was in 1540. The king of this state is said to have adopted Mohammedanism
about the year 1603, but his people generally not until 1616. This great
*n K g manners of the people of Celebes did not begin, for the Macassars were
K I I l I l C0nver^s> until a whole century after the Portuguese had been in occupation
oi Malacca and the Moluccas ; nor, indeed, until some years after the arrival in the
Archipelago of French, Dutch, and English. This fact proves how small had been
the intercourse of the western nations of Asia with Celebes, down to so late a period
as the beginning of the 17th century; especially when it is recollected that most of
the Sumatrans had been converted four centuries before, and even the Javenese near
a hundred and forty years.
_ The Dutch began to carry on some trade with Celebes as early as the year 1607
but did not enter into political relations with its princes until 30 years later, when
i ««e f°™ed a treaty with the leading state of the island, the Macassars of Goa. In
ibbU, they conquered the Macassars, and expelled their allies, the Portuguese. The
period which has since elapsed of near two centuries, has been one of long, frequent
u ° r y 'I ar!’ enSa?ed in> as the results prove, for no other purpose than thé
estaousnment of a profitless supremacy, substantially nominal. I t is certain that the
occupation by an European nation of such a country as Celebes, with a scanty popu-
le^^. fishermen, traders, or, still worse, of savages, can not only not be
must t>e wasteful. In such a state of society there is no real land-
W - a S r 7 n0 land"t a ! neither is there a population by wealth or
¡ p K l l contribute revenue by indirect taxation : hence, the means of obtaining
e ue su cient to maintain the expensive establishments of an European nation,