it has a native, and not a Malayan, name, usi. All the names now given are native
words, and through them, therefore, a foreign origin for the goat cannot be traced.
In Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula there exists a species of antelope, the Antilopa
Sumatrensis, a denizen of the deepest recesses of the mountain forests; but I do not
thiuk this likely to be thesource of the domestic goat, although the Malays have no other
name for it than “the wild goat,” kabing-utan, and, notwithstanding its native names, it
seems more probable that the Hindus brought it from Southern India, than that it is
indigenous.
GOGA. The name of a tree very generally found in most of the Philippines
(Ensenada Philippensis), the woody filaments of which yield a soapy matter much
used in washing linen, and in the process of gold washing for the purpose of precipitating
the metal from the sand. It is a shore or littoral plant, formerly ranked
by botanists as an Acacia.
GOLD. This metal, in sufficient abundance to be worked, is found in the Malay
Peninsula,.Sumatra, the western and southern sides of Borneo, the northern and
south-western peninsulas of Celebes, and in a few parts of the great Philippine
islands of Luzon and Mindano. In none of the islands of exclusively volcanic
formation does it exist in such quantity as to be worth working. The qualities of
the gold vary greatly in the same country. Thus, on the western side of Borneo
there are reckoned to be twelve different qualities, designated by the localities which
produce them, and which range in fineness from 16 up to 22 carats. The finest gold
brought to market is that of the principality of Pahang, on the eastern side of the
Malay Peninsula, which brings a higher price than even that of Australia by better
than three per cent. The gold of the places mentioned is all obtained by washings,
and the metal has never been worked and scarcely even traced to the original veins.
It is mostly in the form of powder or dust—the mas-urai of the Malays, literally “ loose,
or disintegrated gold.” Now and then lumps of considerable size are found, but
compared to the nuggets of California and Australia, mere pebbles. The Prince of
Sambas, on the western side of Borneo, keeps as a curiosity a mass weighing
22 ounces, and lumps of double this weight are said to have been found. The
alluvial bed which contains the gold is found by digging a shaft to depths varying
from 15 to 60 feet. The miners of Borneo are the Dyaks or wild natives, the Malays,
■and the Chinese, and it is by these last that the mining is conducted with the greatest
effect. The mining of this people, however, is confined to Borneo, for in all the other
countries it is earned on by the natives of the country.
Attempts have been made to estimate the total quantity of gold produced throughout
the Archipelago, but all estimates, from the nature of things, can be no better
than conjectures. Some of the metal is consumed in the countries producing it in
trinkets; no record of the produce is anywhere kept, and much is clandestinely, or
at least not avowedly, exported. The produce of the western side of Borneo, by far
the largest, I have seen estimated as low as 52,000 ounces, and this by parties
reckoning the Chinese population of the same country, most of it engaged in gold
washing, as high as 125,000. On the other hand Sir Stamford Baffles estimated the
total annual produce of the western part of Borneo as high as 225,335 ounces, which
at the value of 31. 17s. the ounce, would give a total value of 867,5391. Mr. Logan
estimates the total produce of the Malay Peninsula at no more than 20,000 ounces.
I have never heard of any attempt at estimating that of Sumatra, Celebes, or the two
Philippine Islands. If all of them put together yield a million sterling’s worth, it
will certainly be their utmost produce, and even this will not exceed a twelfth part
of the produce of California or Australia.
Gold has, no doubt, been known in the parts of the Archipelago which now produce it
from the rudest and earliest times, and through early traffic must have soon been conveyed
to such as do not,—the islands within the volcanic band. In all the producing
countries it has a native name, and this in the Malay language, that of the most productive
prevails in all the non-producing ones. This name is amas, usually abbreviated
both in speaking and writing, mas; and it is the current one in the Javanese,
Bali, Sunda, Lomboc, and Floris. In the two first of these tongues there are two
Sanscrit synonyms, kanchana and rukmi, but they belong to the polite and recondite
dialects. In the language of the Bugis, whose country produces gold, we find a
native word, ulawang, and this is again the case in the language of the Tagalas of the
Philippines, where we have the indigenous name balituk, while in the language of
the volcanic Bisaya Islands we find the word bulawang, most probably a corruption
of the Bugis word.
Gold has never been coined for money in any part of the Archipelago, except
Achin, where there is a small coin of it worth about 1«. 2d. called a mas, after the
Malay name of the metal. Gold-dust has been, however, used as a medium of
exchange, and occasionally is so still. The natives have even an empirical skill in
the art of assaying gold. This however they have acquired from the T&lugu settlers, as
may be seen by the name and character of the scale, called mutu, and divided into
10 degrees, the fineness being ascertained by the touchstone. A small colony, indeed,
of this people still professing Hinduism, and whose special calling it is to assay gold,
still exists in Malacoa.
Gold ornaments of considerable beauty are made by most of the civilised nations
of the Archipelago. The neck chains of Manilla are examples of very delicate workmanship,
and the filagree work of the Malays of Sumatra is still more remarkable.
In all these cases what is most striking is the beauty of the work compared with the
rudeness and simplicity of the workmen and their tools.
GOLO. The name of an island forming p art of the province of Batangas, in the
island of Luzon. It is about three leagues in length, and half a league in breadth,
mountainous, but thickly inhabited. Its coast is surrounded by rocks and shoals,
and very difficult of access.
GOMUTI. The palm (Borassus gomuti), to which Europeans have given this
name, derived from one of its products, is one of importance, second only to that
of the coco in the rural economy of the Asiatic Archipelago, from one extremity
of it to the other. It. takes the place of the Tal or Borassus flabelliformis of
the continent of India. I t is readily distinguished from other palms by its thick,
rough, and wild aspect. Its favourite locality is the dry uplands of the interior, and
not like that of the coco-palm, the vicinity of the sea. Its chief and most valuable
product is its sap, obtained by bruising and cutting the inflorescence. From this
liquid, and not from the juice of the cane, is made nearly all the sugar consumed by
the natives, while the sap itself, which runs rapidly to the vinous fermentation, is
their chief intoxicating beverage. The sap, however, is not the only product of this
palm which is put to use. Between the trunk and the fronds there are found three
different useful materials, a black horse-hair-like substance, which makes the best
cordage of the western islands of the Archipelago,—a fine cottony substance, which
makes the best tinder and is exported for this purpose, and strong stiff spines, from
which are made the pens of all the nations that write on paper, with the arrows for
the blow-pipe of the rude tribes that still use this weapon. The pith furnishes a
sago, although an inferior one. The seeds have been made into a confection, while
their, pulpy envelope abounds in a poisonous juice, a strong infusion of them being
used in the barbarian wars of the natives. This is the fluid to which the Dutch gave
the appropriate name of “ hell-water.”
The Gomuti palm appears to be a peculiar product of the Asiatic Archipelago, but
of many parts of it. This is to be inferred from its having a distinct name in each
language, and all its names being native ones. Thus, in Malay, the name is anau, in
Javanese, aren ; in Amboynese, nawa; in Macassar, monchono ; and in Mandar, akel.
It is the palm which the Portuguese have called sagwire, and the Spaniards saguran,
both words probably derivatives from sago. The different parts of the tree have also
their separate native names in each language: gomuti, the name of the species
adopted by botanists, is the name in Malay for the material of the cordage above
mentioned, and not of the tree itself.
GOOSE. The goose has been domesticated, although in very scanty numbers
in the western islands of the Archipelago. Here there exists no wild species, and
from this circumstance, and its Sanscrit name angsa, sometimes corrupted gangsa,
there can be little doubt of its origin being Hindu. It has been stated that the goose
will not breed or even lay eggs in Manilla and its neighbourhood. This is, I believe,
an undoubted fact, but no reason has been assigned for it, and it is singular that
such should be the case when all other kinds of poultry thrive to a remarkable
degree. A similar fact has been observed with respect to the turkey in Singapore.
It will not only not multiply but even live in that island, although hardy and prolific
m Java and the Philippines.
GORONGTALO. The name of a country on the southern side of the northern
peninsula of Celebes, and of the gulf which lies between that peninsula and the
eastern. (See C e le b e s and Mendano).
L