A Line Across One Corner Carried My Daily-
Washed Cotton Clothing, And On A Bamboo Shelf Was Arranged My
Small Stock Of Crockery And Hardware:
Boxes were ranged against
the thatch walls, and hanging shelves, to preserve my collections
from ants while drying, were suspended both without and within
the house.
On my table lay books, penknives, scissors, pliers,
and pins, with insect and bird labels, all of which were unsolved
mysteries to the native mind.
Most of the people here had never seen a pin, and the better
informed took a pride in teaching their more ignorant companions
the peculiarities and uses of that strange European production - a
needle with a head, but no eye! Even paper, which we throw away
hourly as rubbish, was to them a curiosity; and I often saw them
picking up little scraps which had been swept out of the house,
and carefully putting them away in their betel-pouch. Then when I
took my morning coffee and evening tea, how many were the strange
things displayed to them! Teapot, teacups, teaspoons, were all
more or less curious in their eyes; tea, sugar, biscuit, and
butter, were articles of human consumption seen by many of them
for the first time. One asks if that whitish powder is "gula
passir" (sand-sugar), so called to distinguish it from the coarse
lump palm-sugar or molasses of native manufacture; and the
biscuit is considered a sort of European sago-cake, which the
inhabitants of those remote regions are obliged to use in the
absence of the genuine article. My pursuit, were of course
utterly beyond their comprehension. They continually asked me
what white people did with the birds and insects I tools so much
care to preserve. If I only kept what was beautiful, they might
perhaps comprehend it; but to see ants and files and small ugly
insects put away so carefully was a great puzzle to them, and
they were convinced that there must be some medical or magical
use for them which I kept a profound secret. These people were in
fact as completely unacquainted with civilized life as the
Indians of the Rocky Mountains, or the savages of Central Africa-
-yet a steamship, that highest triumph of human ingenuity, with
its little floating epitome of European civilization, touches
monthly at Cajeli, twenty miles off; while at Amboyna, only sixty
miles distant, a European population and government have been
established for more than three hundred years.
Having seen a good many of the natives of Bouru from different
villages, and from distant parts of the island, I feel convinced
that they consist of two distinct races now partially
amalgamated. The larger portion are Malays of the Celebes type,
often exactly similar to the Tomóre people of East Celebes, whom
I found settled in Batchian; while others altogether resemble the
Alfuros of Ceram.
The influx of two races can easily be accounted for. The Sula
Islands, which are closely connected with East Celebes, approach
to within forty miles of the north coast of Bouru, while the
island of Manipa offers an easy point of departure for the people
of Ceram.
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