Check-bones; and with the usual long,
straight, jet-black hair of the Malayan races. In some of the
inland villages where they may be supposed to be of the purest
race, both men and women are remarkably handsome; while nearer
the coasts where the purity of their blood has been destroyed by
the intermixture of other races, they approach to the ordinary
types of the wild inhabitants of the surrounding countries.
In mental and moral characteristics they are also highly
peculiar. They are remarkably quiet and gentle in disposition,
submissive to the authority of those they consider their
superiors, and easily induced to learn and adopt the habits of
civilized people. They are clever mechanics, and seem capable of
acquiring a considerable amount of intellectual education.
Up to a very recent period these people were thorough savages,
and there are persons now living in Menado who remember a state
of things identical with that described by the writers of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The inhabitants of the
several villages were distinct tribes, each under its own chief,
speaking languages unintelligible to each other, and almost
always at war. They built their houses elevated upon lofty posts
to defend themselves from the attacks of their enemies. They were
headhunters like the Dyaks of Borneo, and were said to be
sometimes cannibals.
