Through Central Borneo An Account Of Two Years' Travel In The Land Of The Head-Hunters Between The Years 1913 And 1917 By Carl Lumholtz
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Modjopahit
Enclosed The Region Round The Present Soerabaia In East Java, And It Was
Easy To Reach Borneo From There, To-Day Distant Only Twenty-Seven Hours By
Steamer.
These first settlers in Borneo professed Hinduism and to some
extent Buddhism.
They founded several small kingdoms, among them
Bandjermasin, Pasir, and Kutei, also Brunei on the north coast. But
another race came, the Malays, who with their roving disposition extended
their influence in the coast countries and began to form states. Then
Islamism appeared in the Orient and changed conditions. Arabs, sword in
hand, converted Java, and as far as they could, destroyed temples,
monuments, and statues. The Malays, too, became Mohammedans and the sway
of Islam spread more or less over the whole Malay Archipelago. With the
fall of Modjopahit in 1478 the last vestige of Hindu Javanese influence in
Borneo disappeared.
The Malays established sultanates with the same kind of government that is
habitual with Mohammedans, based on oppression of the natives by the
levying of tribute with the complement of strife, intrigue, and
non-progress. In the course of time the Malays have not only absorbed the
Hindu Javanese, but also largely the Bugis, who had founded a state on the
west coast, and in our time they are gradually pushing back the Dayaks and
slowly but surely absorbing them. The Chinese have also played a prominent
part in the colonisation of Borneo, having early developed gold and
diamond mines and established trade, and though at times they have been
unruly, they are today an element much appreciated by the Dutch in the
development of the country.
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