Barbosa seems to apply it to Sumbawa; Pigafetta and
Cavendish apply it to Bali, and in this way Raffles says it was still
used in his own day. Geographers were sometimes puzzled about it. Magini
says Java Minor is almost incognita.
(Turnour's Epitome, p. 45; Van der Tuuk, Bladwijzer tot de drie
Stukken van het Bataksche Leesboek, p. 43, etc.; Friedrich in Bat.
Transactions, XXVI.; Levchine, Les Kirghiz Kazaks, 300, 301.)
NOTE 2. - As regards the treasure, Sumatra was long famous for its
produce of gold. The export is estimated in Crawford's History at 35,530
ounces; but no doubt it was much more when the native states were in a
condition of greater wealth and civilisation, as they undoubtedly were
some centuries ago. Valentyn says that in some years Achin had exported 80
bahars, equivalent to 32,000 or 36,000 Lbs. avoirdupois (!). Of the other
products named, lign-aloes or eagle-wood is a product of Sumatra, and is
or was very abundant in Campar on the eastern coast. The Ain-i-Akbari
says this article was usually brought to India from Achin and
Tenasserim. Both this and spikenard are mentioned by Polo's contemporary,
Kazwini, among the products of Java (probably Sumatra), viz., Java
lign-aloes (al-' Ud al-Jawi), camphor spikenard (Sumbul), etc.
Narawastu is the name of a grass with fragrant roots much used as a
perfume in the Archipelago, and I see this is rendered spikenard in a
translation from the Malay Annals in the Journal of the Archipelago.
With regard to the kingdoms of the island which Marco proceeds to
describe, it is well to premise that all the six which he specifies are to
be looked for towards the north end of the island, viz., in regular
succession up the northern part of the east coast, along the north coast,
and down the northern part of the west coast. This will be made tolerably
clear in the details, and Marco himself intimates at the end of the next
chapter that the six kingdoms he describes were all at this side or end
of the island: "Or vos avon contee de cesti roiames que sunt de ceste
partie de scele ysle, et des autres roiames de l'autre partie ne voz
conteron-noz rien." Most commentators have made confusion by scattering
them up and down, nearly all round the coast of Sumatra. The best remarks
on the subject I have met with are by Mr. Logan in his Journal of the
Ind. Arch. II. 610.
The "kingdoms" were certainly many more than eight throughout the island.
At a later day De Barros enumerates 29 on the coast alone. Crawford
reckons 15 different nations and languages on Sumatra and its dependent
isles, of which 11 belong to the great island itself.
(Hist. of Ind. Arch. III. 482; Valentyn, V. (Sumatra), p. 5; Desc.
Dict. p. 7, 417; Gildemeister, p. 193; Crawf. Malay Dict. 119; J. Ind.
Arch. V. 313.)
NOTE 3. - The kingdom of PARLAK is mentioned in the Shijarat Malayu or
Malay Chronicle, and also in a Malay History of the Kings of Pasei, of
which an abstract is given by Dulaurier, in connection with the other
states of which we shall speak presently. It is also mentioned (Barlak),
as a city of the Archipelago, by Rashiduddin. Of its extent we have no
knowledge, but the position (probably of its northern extremity) is
preserved in the native name, Tanjong (i.e. Cape) Parlak of the N.E.
horn of Sumatra, called by European seamen "Diamond Point," whilst the
river and town of Perla, about 32 miles south of that point, indicate, I
have little doubt, the site of the old capital.[1] Indeed in Malombra's
Ptolemy (Venice, 1574), I find the next city of Sumatra beyond Pacen
marked as Pulaca.
The form Ferlec shows that Polo got it from the Arabs, who having no p
often replace that letter by f. It is notable that the Malay alphabet,
which is that of the Arabic with necessary modifications, represents the
sound p not by the Persian pe ([Arabic]), but by the Arabic fe
([Arabic]), with three dots instead of one ([Arabic]).
A Malay chronicle of Achin dates the accession of the first Mahomedan king
of that state, the nearest point of Sumatra to India and Arabia, in the
year answering to A.D. 1205, and this is the earliest conversion among the
Malays on record. It is doubtful, indeed, whether there were Kings of
Achin in 1205, or for centuries after (unless indeed Lambri is to be
regarded as Achin), but the introduction of Islam may be confidently
assigned to that age.
The notice of the Hill-people, who lived like beasts and ate human flesh,
presumably attaches to the Battas or Bataks, occupying high table-lands in
the interior of Sumatra. They do not now extend north beyond lat. 3 deg.
The interior of Northern Sumatra seems to remain a terra incognita, and
even with the coast we are far less familiar than our ancestors were 250
years ago. The Battas are remarkable among cannibal nations as having
attained or retained some degree of civilisation, and as being possessed of
an alphabet and documents. Their anthropophagy is now professedly practised
according to precise laws, and only in prescribed cases. Thus: (i) A
commoner seducing a Raja's wife must be eaten; (2) Enemies taken in battle
outside their village must be eaten alive; those taken in storming a
village may be spared; (3) Traitors and spies have the same doom, but may
ransom themselves for 60 dollars a-head. There is nothing more horrible or
extraordinary in all the stories of mediaeval travellers than the facts
of this institution.
