FINDING THE ISLAND MOMPRACEM. THE PROBLEM OF MAPPING THE NORTHWEST COAST OF BORNEO FROM 16TH TO 20TH CENTURY by BIANCA GERLICH

FINDING THE ISLAND MOMPRACEM. 

THE PROBLEM OF MAPPING THE NORTHWEST COAST OF BORNEO FROM 16TH TO 20TH CENTURY 

by BIANCA GERLICH 

Abstract

This article deals with a case concerning the history of cartography of the northwest coast of Borneo. The island Mompracem appears conspicuously marked and continuously on European maps from the 16th century to the 19th century, but in various positions. Curiously, it is no longer shown on maps from the 20th century onwards. This article attempts to understand which map material is reliable in terms of the location of the island and to identify name. 

Mompracem, the island of the Malay freedom fighter Sandokan in the novels of the Italian Emilio Salgari, appeared on maps of the 16th-19th centuries under several variants (1) of that name, but on modern maps of the 20th century it is no longer found. In examining the three symbols (2) that stand for the freedom struggle of Sandokan, I have followed Robert Nicholl’s investigation, (3) that the island today is named Keraman. (4) Inspired by the questioning by Negro (5) who identified with Mompracem an underwater reef, I have now almost retrospectively dealt intensively with the problem of the localization of that island.

Robert Nicholl has dealt academically with the history of cartography of Brunei as well as the local names of and around the island of Borneo. He concludes that because of the location and the resulting strategic importance of the island Mompracem, which is marked on old maps even very large, the island must be the present island Keraman. Negro doubted this statement. As well as Nicholl he noticed that the location of the island was rearranged more and more to the west on maps over time. Negro, however, believes that the younger the maps in relation to the mentioning of the name of Mompracem, the more correct the material should be. 

Therefore he assumes the more westerly positions as the correct ones and identifies Mompracem as a place in the ocean which lies opposite of the coastal area between Muara and Kuala Belait in the present-day Sultanate of Brunei, namely the coral reef “Ampa Patches”. (6) An island is not there. In his opinion, Mompracem could have been sunk in the sea during the past 150 years or even, more simply, was always the name of a reef. Consequently, the question of the reliability of the maps arises as well as the reason for the various details regarding the location and the names. Mompracem appears first on Portuguese maps. Medieval European, Chinese and Javanese (7) sources do not mention this name. Also in connection with the visit of the Italian Ludovico da Varthema in 1507 in Brunei no records regarding Mompracem are known. 

The name is also not to be found on early Portuguese maps that have been created as a result of the first visits to Brunei, for example the map of Pigafetta (July 1521 in Brunei), or of Diego Ribero, which has been recorded on the basis of data collected during the voyage of Dom Jorge de Menezes in 1526. The maps, which have been created until 1540 and were based on travel material from the 1530s, are likewise rudimentary. These maps do not show the entire island of Borneo, but only the northwest coast. Only in the 1540s, when the maps got more accurate and complete, the name Mompracem appears in variants. (8) The Portuguese had conquered Malacca in 1511 and thereby interrupted the trade between Malacca and Brunei, so that they, wishing to reassume the trade in their own interest, travelled for their first time to Brunei only three years later. Years later, Brunei gained importance for the Portuguese as a holding station on the route to the Moluccas. 

After the visit of Dom Jorge de Menezes 1526, Brunei was regarded as a favorable route to Ternate in the Moluccas (Spice Islands). Only at the beginning of the 17th century, the Portuguese lost the spice trade to the Dutch as well as the city of Malacca in 1641. Thus the maps were created in the period in which the Portuguese were active and often on site in Brunei. According to Nicholl (1980: 181) the great progress of these maps in comparison to medieval ones was, that they were created by sailors for sailors. Important to them was not so much the artistic value, but the accuracy. For example, the first letter of a name stands exactly at the geographical phenomenon that refers to the name, even if it means the name had to be written on the head. (9) 

Nicholl describes the mapping by the Portuguese as “great dividing line ”(1980: 180) in comparison to the maps of Europeans who had come overland to Southeast Asia. These Portuguese maps are to be regarded as original and informative, because the sailors have not simply copied from existing material, but were trying to produce dependable maps to their compatriots to ease the way to the Moluccas. The spice trade was very lucrative, so that the maps were guarded as a great treasure so that no other European naval power could take over this trade. Nevertheless, it happened again and again that material has been revealed (10) and copied by other cartographers. 

The Portuguese guarded very closely the secrets of the Indies, and with good reason, for the profits of trade with Asia were enormous, and were another European power break their monopoly, they would be ruined, as in fact happened in the early seventeenth century, when the Dutch invaded their preserve. Maps were therefore closely guarded, and those published outside Portugal during the early part of the sixteenth century were based on material obtained deviously, mostly from navigators who had worked for the Portuguese, and had then defected to rivals. (Nicholl 1976: 96) This explains the existence of maps of other nationalities, such as those of the Dutchman Ortelius (1574) and of Wolfe/Linschoten (Amsterdam 1598), which have been created at a time when no Dutchman had been there and which bear Portuguese names, too. Only captain Oliver Noort was the first Dutchman in Brunei waters for several days around New Year 1600/1601 in the course of his circumnavigation.

Four of these 16th century Portuguese maps mentioning the island Mompracem were available to me, but there are other maps on which the island is also shown, just—as well as Labuan—without name. When comparing the four maps, it is striking that “Pulo Tigao” (Labuan) (11) is always the large northern island, whereas Mompracem is situated in the south or southwest to it. Both islands are consistently in front of the bay of Brunei. Smaller islands and points, indicating shallows, are located around these two islands. Mompracem was never located west of Muara.(12)

The sketches show the location of the islands very clearly: Mompracem is located fairly close to Pulo Tigao and other small islands, which are indeed found to be around Labuan. (13) The names of the island Mompracem vary: “Mopiasem” (1554), “Mōpalacā” (1560), “Mõpraçam” (1576) and “Mon Pratem” (1592). The map from 1554 comes from Lopo Homem, who was a known cartographer and in royal service. Another map of his son Diogo Homem of 1558 (Nicholl 1976: 116) also clearly shows the islands with the smaller neighboring islands, but does not show any names. 

In other Portuguese maps of that era, these islands are drawn without a name, the positioning of the islands is similar on all maps. Velho, who is responsible for the map of 1560 also worked like Lopo Homem for the king of Portugal, but moved to France and published his “Cosmographia” in Paris in the year of his death. Thus, in this way Portuguese maps were brought to other countries. Also the material of Bartolomeu Lasso was published in 1592 by the Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius, one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company. By the way, this map comes from the book “Itinerary” of Linschoten, who used the Portuguese material from Bartolomeu Lasso, recorded by Peter Plancius. Linschoten was known for releasing secret Portuguese material, which allowed the Dutch and the English “East India Company” in the following years to break the monopoly of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia. 

In 1595, he published the “Reysgheschrift vande navigation Portugaloysers in the Orienten”, which has been translated into German and English in 1598. There is also a map from him of 1598 (Jan H. Van Linschoten’s “Itenerario”, Amsterdam), which mentions “Mon Pracem” a map clearly based on Portuguese material, which also repeats the Portuguese names (e.g. “I. das Palmeiras”). The location of Mompracem corresponds with other previous maps. Another Dutch map from the 16th century comes from the Flemish Abraham Ortelius (1574), who has published the first modern atlas (“Theatrum Orbis Terrarum”) and has met with Gerardus Mercator in 1554, another well known Flemish cartographer, who has greatly influenced him. 

Ortelius’ map is very rudimentary and is also fraught with many errors, for example, the name “Chinabalo” (Mount Kinabalu in Sabah) is lying next to a group of islands south of Borneo, the Natuna island can be seen at a place where Labuan should be and “Mompiasti” lies roughly at the height of Gaya. Mercator also has shown Mompracem on a completely different place than the Portuguese and than Ortelius, too. While Linschoten could fall back on Portuguese original material through his association with Peter Plancius respectively Bartolomeu Lasso (so that the location of the island matches with the maps of Homem and Velho), there is no such connection known regarding Mercator and Ortelius. 

The island is located somewhere in their maps in Borneo, as well as many other places that are still known by its former name, have been drawn somewhere, where they are definitely not lying. It is possible that these latter maps are the reason of the disputed position of Mompracem on later maps, because some were based, of course, on the material of the relatively famous cartographer Gerardus Mercator. (14) While the Portuguese in the 16th century were regularly on site in Brunei, so that the records of their navigators were the basis for their cartographers, the navigators of other nations have not been in Northwest Borneo.

The Maps of the 17th and 18th Centuries 

For a long time the only Dutch who visited Brunei waters was captain Oliver van Noort, but he has not visited the sultan in his city. After all, his ship “Mauritius” anchored from 26th December, 1600, to 4th January, 1601, in the bay of Brunei, during which he tried to enter into trade relations with Brunei, but failed due to supposedly hostile intentions of the Brunei Malays. In his French-speaking record of that journey (15) there is a map showing “Mon Pracem” by name. Van Noort has also taken over the Portuguese names, so it is not clear whether he has made his own map using the Portuguese material or even just copied Portuguese maps for his book. Van Noort also shows “Mon Pracem” as an island next to Pulo Tigao. The small islands (today Papan, Inu, Burong, Rusukan Besar and Rusukan Kecil) are to be seen, too, though not mentioned by name. The shallow waters around these islands are illustrated by means of points. Since all European visitors arrived in Brunei for the purpose of trade exchange, it is not surprising that the islands just off the bay have been worked out in great detail. The location of the island “Mon Pracem” on the map of Noort corresponds to the current location of the island Keraman.

With the beginning of the 17th century the Portuguese no longer visited the northwest coast of Borneo. Malacca fell to the Dutch in 1641, whose center, however, was in Batavia (today Jakarta on Java). Therefore, they preferred the route south of Borneo and they did not travel to Brunei anymore. Consequently, there is no Dutch eyewitness material from that part of the coast. The Dutch cartographers referred to existing material and supplemented it.

For Mompracem now two location possibilities can be seen: either the island lies directly to the south of Pulo Tigao or anywhere. This second possibility may be in the middle of the ocean or off the coast of Brunei south of Baram. The latter is the case in the maps of Jodocus Hondius (Joost de Hondt, 1563-1612) who has become known for—among other things—pushing the work of Gerard Mercator and making Amsterdam the center of cartography in the 17th century. In 1604 he bought the plates of the atlas from Mercator’s grandson. He revised the material, published it first in 1606, in the course of which he named Mercator as the author’s name and himself as publisher. This atlas series is known as the “Mercator/Hondius” atlas and has been translated, too. 

After Hondius’ death, his widow and his sons continued the publication of his work, later it came to the partnership with Jan Jansson, whose name appears on this atlas after 1633, so it was later known as the “Mercator/ Hondius/Jansson” atlas. It is not surprising that on maps of Mercator/Hondius/Jansson the name of the island Mompracem can be found in the middle of the ocean. Mercator’s material relating to the northwest coast of Borneo was not based on eyewitness account, moreover he had been in contact with Ortelius, who had drawn the island under the name “Mompiasti” totally out of place in North Borneo. Apparently Mercator has not known exactly what the name refers to. 

On his earliest map (1606) the name “Mon Pracem” is written in the middle of the South China Sea and it seems that it is rather the name for the sea. It is unclear on which geographical phenomenon this signature relates. Later, perhaps in the revision of Hondius and/or Jansson, there happened a change: the name moves a little further up to the island Keraman and comes very close to the position in the first Portuguese maps. Two maps from the 1625/26-publication of “Purchas His Pilgrims” shows the island in that position, one time it is called “Mon Pracem”, the other time “Mõ Pracem”, the last mentioned one refers very clearly to Keraman. Accordingly the larger island in the north is called by its Portuguese name “P. Tigaon”. (16)

A few years later the location of the island wanders again: The map of Jansonnius/Hondius of 1638 shows “Mopracem” back in the sea without a reference point, together with a dotted field (17) east of the signature, which, however, is not to be found on the other maps from Hondius. There can be found Portuguese names as well as Latinized ones. The map seems to be a patchwork of information. Here the location of the island Mompracem appears completely disoriented as on the first map of Hondius/Mercator from 1606. 

Since the name had been drawn on these maps very dominant, later cartographers could not ignore it. Even Kaerius (1632), Speed (1627) and Clüver (1661) wrote the name likewise in the South China Sea, it appears north of the Natuna Islands. Probably the delineation of the location of the island west of the dotted field goes back to Mercator and Hondius. The Frenchman Sanson d’Abbeville positioned “Monpracem” west of that field, just north of another dotted field, which includes four crosses, similar to the map of Jansonnius/Hondius (1638). Although the name and the dotted field keeps popping up on 19th century maps, no other cartographers of the 17th and 18th centuries, of whatever nation, seems to have copied this somewhat ambiguous position in the ocean or west of the dotted field.

The majority mentions Mompracem as the island south respectively southwest of Tigaon. Many show a dotted field in the south-western neighborhood of Mompracem. Most cartographers recorded the other islands around Labuan, though without naming them. Thereby Tigao and Mompracem are recognized as the largest and second largest island. Tigao is often drawn in the form of a rooster comb, i.e., with rounded peaks to the north, while Mompracem extends into an elongated shape from north to south, and indeed recalls the shape of Keraman, while Labuan looks more triangular, pointed to the north, and with two deep bays in the south. The mapmakers have created a typical image of this island group, which has already appeared on earlier maps.

Most of the maps from the 17th and 18th centuries show the location of the island Mompracem next to that of the island Tigao in the tradition of Portuguese maps of the 16th century. Only a few stand in the tradition of the maps of Mercator/Hondius and Ortelius, in which it has come to confusions. After the glory of that famous cartographers such as Blaeu, Hondius, and Jasonnius faded in the Netherlands, another family filled the gap, forming something like a monopoly. Johannes van Keulen established himself in Amsterdam, created nautical charts and sold them. His family was very much involved in the world trade with the Dutch East India Company. 

He bought the maps of his colleagues who were famous before him and created a five-volume atlas (“ZeeAtlas”) and a navigator book (“ZeeFakkel”), also in five volumes. Both were produced in several languages and were considered soon as standard works of its kind. His son, Gerard, and later his grandson, Johannes, took over the well-functioning company. In 1743, this grandson was appointed as the “official mapmaker of the Dutch East India Company,” which was a confirmation of the fact that the company van Keulen had provided for years the East India Trading Company with maps. Until the dissolution of the East India Trading Company in 1799, the family van Keulen kept this title. After the cartographers as Hondius, Jasonnius, and others, this family was the most important with respect to the mapping of the Malay archipelago. Their maps based on old, bought up map material and also on the experiences of the sailors in Indonesian waters.

Johannes van Keulen, the grandson of the founder, added the “ZeeFakkel” a sixth volume, in which heretofore secret maps of the East Indian Archipelago were published. Thus Johannes ended in 1753 the work of his grandfather. We owe that same grandchild two maps that are very interesting and important regarding Mompracem. Johannes van Keulen namely mentions it twice in one map (Monpracem and Monpraly), and that consistently in his both maps. (18) The map “Nieuwe Afteekening van’t Eyland Borneo” shows complete Borneo and represents “Pulo Tigaon of Victoria I.” (Labuan) in typical rooster comb shape opposite of the bay of Brunei. South of it lies in the typical elongated shape the island “Monpracem”. 

From Pulo Tigaon extends out on both sides of Monpracem the dotted field, well-known from other maps, that extends opposite from today’s Tanjong Ladi to Tanjong Baram. In this field “Monpraly” is written. The other map is titled “Nieuwe caart strekkende van Banca langs de kusten van Malacca, Siam, Cambodia, Cochinchina, als meede een gedeelte van de eylanden Lucon, Borneo” and shows Southeast Asia. Here the name “Monpracem” is written into the shape of the island of Labuan, while the name “Monpraly” in turn is surrounded by the dotted field, however, in the very north of the field, so that Monpraly could also refer to the island Keraman which lies next to that field. 

“P. Tigaon” is a small island lying north of Labuan on this map. Johannes van Keulen has probably noticed the discrepancies in regard of the location of the island Mompracem on the maps of his predecessors, namely that in the majority of the maps “Monpracem/Mon Pracem” refers to the island south of Tigao, while in a few maps the name was written west of the dotted field, and does not refer to an identifiable island. So perhaps van Keulen has recognized this when in one map he has named the island Keraman as his predecessors as “Monpracem”, but has called the shoals in the neighborhood with a similar name (Mompraly). Unclear, but very interesting is that on the second map the island Labuan is clearly marked with the name “Monpracem”. 

Perhaps van Keulen was confused, because on some older maps only the name “Monpracem” appears, namely Ortelius (1574), Kaerius (1632), Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville (1651), Clüver (1661). Maybe his data was based on the inconsistencies of the maps that have been made before him, but the reason for his doing so can not be solved here. It should be noted that the most important map manufacturer for the second half of the Dutch East India Trading Company era created maps that show twice name variants of Mompracem.

Malacca fell in 1824 to the British, who were now present as a second power in Southeast Asia. The treaty from the same year should resolve the dispute over territory in Southeast Asia. Now the British received the Malay Peninsula, the Dutch all the territory lying south of it. The northwest of Borneo, so far not occupied by the Dutch or any other European power, was not named explicitly in the treaty, but this area became a British sphere of influence with the acquisition of Sarawak by James Brooke in the 1840s and the annexation of Labuan in 1846 by the British. 

The Dutch protested, of course, but this partition remained, especially as even the British North Borneo Company got a foothold there in the second half of the 19th century. After the Portuguese in the 16th century, it were thus only the British who were able to make maps on site due to experience. Even before 1824 there were sporadic visits by British individuals, such as the Dalrymple expedition in the north of Borneo at the end of the 18th century. Thomas Forrest (1776) has written a report on this voyage. On his map the name Mompracem is not mentioned, neither on the many maps of those British men who had been on site (Earl 1834, Lay 1839, Cree 1845, Keppel 1846). 

There are still maps from the 19th century, where the island is indeed recorded, but their authors have not been in Southeast Asia and the maps were made in the tradition of the maps of the previous centuries. For example, Pinkerton has published a map in 1813, which shows the islands “Pulo Tiga” and “Monpiacem”, both typically lying next to each other, with the dotted field around them, and the two smaller islands lying to the south which correspond to the islands Rusukan Besar and Rusukan Kecil. 

Likewise, there are maps showing Mompracem in the position west to the dotted field, as if it is not an island, namely, Cary (1806), Thomson (1817), Hall (1830), Arrowsmith (1844), Radefeld/Meyer (1844). In these five latter maps the abundance of names for smaller islands, shoals and reefs, that are located off the coast of northwestern Borneo, is striking, for example: Volcano I, Krenpel, I. Wahle, Slakenburg, 5 Comades, Kirton, Euphrates. Sporadic occurrences of these can be found before, for example in the maps of Coronelli (1689), Senex (1721), Le Rouge (1748), Guillaume de L’Isle/Albrizzi Girolamo (1750), D’An-ville (1751) and Van Keulen (1753). In the second half of the 18th century these mentions per map increase, then they were copied by other authors, until they finally appear massively on maps in the 19th century. 

The name Mompracem now appears somewhere written between these many names, which may point to the uncertainty of mapmakers, to which geographical phenomenon they should assign this name, since there were discrepancies in the earlier maps. (19) It is often not recognisable what the name should refer to. For this phenomenon concerning the multitude of names, which is of course not to be found on older maps, there is an interesting contemporary source by the British James Hunt (1812) who has been on site: It is here necessary to observe, that all the rocks and shoals laid down on this coast do not exist at all; such as Volcano Island, the Byhors, Kren-pel, the whole Slykenburgh, five Comadas, &c. Having beat up this coast twice and carefully surveyed the whole, I can declare a finer and clearer coast does not anywhere exist. The old chart, published by A. Dalrymple, is much more correct than the recent ones. The numbers of immense drifts and floating isles hereabouts must have given birth to all these imaginary dangers. (20)

Present maps of that part of the coast also do not list these lots of names. Most cartographers of the 19th century seem to have created their maps on existing materials, and perhaps incorporated the information, which was available in travel reports. If Mompracem was mentioned on their maps, then mostly at that strange place beyond the dotted field. The manufacturers of the 19th century maps did not know what to do with the name Mompracem and because of the different information in the maps handed down, the position of the island was sometimes west of the dotted field, sometimes close to Labuan. Especially the material of those map manufacturers who were not on site and only considered the island because it was always shown on old maps, is not conclusive regarding a specific determination of the location of the island.

Discussion 

Negro’s thesis that the younger the material, the more relevant it is to determine the location of the island Mompracem, is not correct after the examination of the maps of the 16th-19th century. The maps of the 17th-19th century, which show “Mompracem”, are copies which date back up to the Portuguese maps from the 16th century. The more new the maps are, the more likely errors were made with the positioning of that island. The location west of the dotted field did not appear in the maps of the Portuguese. Thus, due to reliable maps Mompracem can not be identified with the Ampa reef.

Moreover, Mompracem is marked on many maps with an abbreviation for the word “island”, which does not support Negro’s assumption that Mompracem had always been a reef. In this context, he tries to explain the name etymologically: “Ampa” could have arisen from the name “Mampracem”. However, he shows in his book even a map on which the Ampa River clearly can be seen (2011: 197), and, actually, in front of it in the sea the Ampa patches are to be found, so it is more likely, that the coral reef got its name from the river. Even the diving club “Panaga Divers,” which organizes trips to the Ampa patches, is of the opinion that the reef has been formed because of river sediment deposits:

The weight of the sedimentary deposits from the Baram River had formed the Ampa and Fairley fields, also squeezed the underlying shale eastwards into a topographic high. This shallow feature on the seabed was firm enough to encourage the growth of corals over the present day Ampa Patches and the neighbouring 50 km² of reef system. (21)

Another argument of Negro is that the island Keraman automatically would belong to the “Rusukan” archipelago which appears on the maps of the 19th century. Furthermore, he says, because Rusukan and Mompracem were mentioned in one map, Keraman could not be Mompracem. But Keraman is not automatically part of the Rusukan archipelago. The two Rusukan islands lie in fact very close to Keraman, but are much smaller than Keraman. If anything, they all would rather belong to an archipelago called Keraman, as seen by a researcher on site in 1886. He has called these three islands the “Kuraman Islands”. (22) This argument of Negro seems pretty constructed. (23)

Problematic is—in my view—the translation of the name “Keraman” which is offered by Raiola (1975: 204), namely: “the island that disappears”. He says that the locals have converted consciously the name “Mompracem” in “Keraman” because they have observed how the island would be removed slowly due to sea currents. (24) Due to his prognosis the island would disappear altogether in 60 years (about 2030). But at least in the last 150 years the island has not lost much of its size or changed its form. Belcher (25) has recorded it on a detailed map of Labuan (1844) very precisely. It still looks like today—2012.

Perhaps this deduction is based on the fact that the island appears much larger on earlier maps. Concerning this early maps Nicholl said, the island had been drawn so great because it had a strategic importance for the Portuguese:

Obviously Mompracem was of importance, even though it was a minute island lying close to the south-west point of Labuan. Its importance was navigational; it was the point at which vessels turned east to enter Brunei Bay. (26)

This may explains why the name Mompracem appears sometimes alone on maps, which also could have been a reason why van Keulen, who has worked with so many maps, assigned the name “Monpracem” to the island Labuan.

The Meaning of the Names Mompracem and Keraman 

The names Mompracem and Keraman do not appear simultaneously on any of these maps. With the appearance of the British in North Borneo the name Mompracem is no longer mentioned, neither on maps of the British, who have been there, nor in their records. On the other hand the name Keraman is mentioned, namely from the middle of the 19th century. 1845 the island “Caroman” is listed in “Sailing Directions: From St. Pierre’s to Borneo Proper” (= Kinabalu to Brunei) in the “Singapore Free Press”. (27) The date of this entry suggests that it was Brooke or someone of his fellow captains, who has listed this name. He even stayed a few times during this period in Singapore to meet with the Vice-Admiral Cochrane. (28) His friend Capt. Mundy, moreover, mentions the island by name and assigns it geographically correct:

The westernmost island is called Kuraman; the others near it are the Great and Little Rusukan. (29)  Also in the “Constable’s Hand Atlas of India” of 1893, “Kuraman”, “Little Rusukan”, “Burong” and “Daat” are shown on the Labuan map of the “Straits Settlement” (Plate 59), just as they geographically lie today. (30) It remains to note that the name Mompracem in the 19th century appears only on maps that are based on older maps but not on those that are newly created, while Keraman is mentioned as a place in written reports and later turns up on new maps. The fact that both are not named simultaneously is no coincidence, because both names actually come from the same root word and refer to the same phenomenon concerning that island, and from this follows that Mompracem/Keraman is one and the same island.

The Malay word “keram” means in its verb form “mengeram”: “lock up”. According to “Kamus Dewan” (1993: 596), “keram” is synonymous with “peram”, which means in the verb form “berperam” also: “lock yourself up” (Kamus Lengkap 1990: 779: “sich einschließen” in German language).

The verb “memperamkan”, which is composed of the prefix “me(m)-”, the root word “peram” and the suffix “-kan” means, according to “Kamus Indonesia Inggris” (1990: 421): “keep fixed to one place”, and also refers to the breeding of birds (“memperam”: “brood”, “pemperanan”: “hatching”/“brooding”/“hatchery”).

In fact, the name appears on old maps often in two parts (Mon, Pracem). The prefix “me-” will become “mem-” when a “p” follows, and may have sounded for Europeans on the spot as the possessive pronoun of Romance languages (in the meaning of “my”), particularly because the “e” was more pronounced like an unstressed “e” (phon “ə”). “Mõ” or “Mon” often appears for that prefix in the name. The second part of the name is “Pracem”. (31) In Malay, the “e” is spoken very briefly, so “peram” actually sounds like “pram”. The “c”, followed by an “e”, sounds in Portuguese like a voiceless “s” (“ç”) and is somehow problematic, but it appeared not in all word variants. The Portuguese have written down the name by hearsay, which naturally has caused errors. 

Mostly they have attempted to reproduce local names, but sometimes they have used their own Portuguese names, such as “I de S Maria”. Like in this example, names of people from the field of religion often were chosen. While the Portuguese, of course, have written down the names in their own language correctly, this does not apply to the native names. Especially from Mompracem there are many variants. If they had given this island a Portuguese name, it would have been handed down over a long time in this form constantly, such as “Monte de S Pedro” (Mount Kinabalu), or “I dos Ladrones” (Balabac), because native speakers should know their own language very well and should recognize the names written down by their compatriots. But there are very different forms of the name Mompracem in the 16th century (“Mopiasem”, “Mōpalacā”, “Mõpraçam” and “Mon Pratem”), so it is unlikely that something in this name is of Portuguese origin. (32)

In my view, the name of the island derives from “memperam (-kan)” and was heard some 200 years later as “keram(-an)”—with the same meaning. The suffix “-an” is a major Malay suffix which nominalizes words.

Two British sources of the 19th century support this derivation: Captain Belcher, a friend of Brooke, who was tasked to look for coal in Brunei and Labuan, drew a detailed map of the area of Labuan (1844, see map in Appendix 4), which contains an error in relation to Keraman. Here the island is called “Burong”, which means “bird” in Malay, but today another fairly small island, lying off the south-west bay of Labuan, is called “Burong”. Belcher called this one “Ampae”. The shape and position of Belcher’s “Burong” is exactly today Keraman, and that of Belcher’s “Ampae” is exactly today Burong. He may have confused these islands, but the other information is correct, it corresponds exactly to the shapes, names and locations: “Gr. Roosoocan” (Rusukan Besar), “Little Roosoocan” (Rusukan Kecil), “Enoo” (Inu), “Coolin Papaan” (Pulau Papan) and “Daat Island” (Pulau Daat). Belcher has perhaps heard anything of the natives concerning this island, which has led him to call the today island Keraman “Burong” because this island is known as a place for birds. Here a special kind of birds is breeding.

A second source sheds light on the matter: Guillemard (1886), who has published a travel book on the voyage of the “Marchesa” mentions the name Kuraman in connection with a rare bird:

The bird (Megapodius lowi) seems to be chiefly confined to the Kuraman Islands, at the south-west end of Labuan, although its nests are occasionally found on the main island. (33)

This species is called the Tabon megapode bird ( Megapodius cummingii). (34) It is outstanding in the bird world with its enormous nest mounds, which can be several meters high and in which the eggs are buried in the middle of it. Certainly not only the Europeans in the 19th century have discovered that those birds build their nest on that particular way at this island. In the 16th century, probably the local pilots of the Portuguese have told them the name of this island for what it is: a breeding place for these striking birds, with their huge nest mounds. The observation of birds and their omens in relation to the world of men have played always a major role for the local population. The Portuguese then probably tried to reproduce the name like they have heard it in spoken language. It may also be no coincidence that the neighbouring island is called “Burong” (= bird). “Mompracem” (“mem-peram (-kan)”) indeed has become “Keraman” (“keram-an”), but the meaning is the same.

In the first version of his novel La Tigre della Malesia(later Le Tigri di Mompracem) Emilio Salgari has used maps, which were based on older sources, not on the British ones. Probably he has worked with the map of Hermann/ Stulpnagel (1870), (35) which lists among other things so adventurous names like “Freundschaftsklippe” (= “friendship cliff ”) and “Seepferd” (= “Sea Horse”) and many small islands, which Hunt has already seen as product of imagination in 1812. Here the name of the island Keraman emerges as truly “Mompracem” (with the “m” after the “o”) as well as “Romades” (which was used by Salgari) instead of Comades. Mompracem lies as far away from the island of Labuan, as the position suits the description in the novel. Keraman does not appear.

In the 1908 published novel La riconquista di Mompracem the names “Mompracem” and “Karaman” are both mentioned (Salgari 1984: 112). Negro (2011: 97) takes this as an evidence that these islands must be two different islands. It is to be questioned if Salgari has written this book itself. (36) Whoever has written the book, may have taken a current map for help when mentioning—just once—Keraman as a navigational aid. There is no map that shows both Mompracem and Keraman. Salgari probably did not know that the name of Mompracem was now Keraman. For him Mompracem was that distant island, which due to faulty maps of former Dutch cartographers as Ortelius, Mercator and Hondius moved gradually to those exposed place far west of Labuan. Later cartographers have simply copied the maps over the centuries and made mistakes.

Some map manufacturers even have noticed this error and they have tried to take this into consideration by mentioning Mompracem twice: as an island and as a shoal (van Keulen), or by placing the name somewhere among other fanciful names of various shoals and reefs, and in doing so, even writing down that they were unsure. Only under the name Keraman the island was placed back in the proper position where the Portuguese in the 16th century already knew to put Mompracem: a few miles southwest of Labuan. Actually, it has never really changed its name.

NOTES

* For a regrettable typographical inconvenience, the present article came out on n. 2 of 2011 without the maps attached and Bibliography. The Journal apologizes to its readers, offering them here the correct version.

1. The first mentioning in the material I have used is “Mopiasem”, the majority named the island “Monpracem” and in the 18th/19th centuries there were some maps on which the island was named “Mompracem”. See list of map material in Appendix 5 where the name variants of the island were listed. I will call the island “Mompracem” hereafter.
2. Gerlich 1996, Gerlich 1998.
3. Nicholl 1976: 104.
4. The island Keraman (or Kuraman) belongs to Malaysia. It is part of the “Labuan Marine Park”, which was developed between 2001 to 2005, and offers possibilities of a gentle nature tourism with appropriate facilities. In 2004, there were independence aspirations of a small group of emigrants from Brunei.
5. Negro deals with the location of the island Mompracem, among others, in his book. He compares the old maps with satellite projections and from that, he attempts to determine the position of the island Mompracem. Unfortunately there is a lack of bibliographical information. An examination of historical maps itself is missing entirely.
6. See map in Appendix 1.
7. Broek (1962: 131) shows a map of Borneo based on Javanese chronicles of the 14th century; parts of Borneo were at that time under the reign of Majapahit. See Nicholl 1980.
8. Raiola (1975: 186) mentions a map from 1545 as the first one, on which Mompracem can be seen. It comes from a Portuguese who remained anonymous and is due to Raiola to be found at the museum in Vienna. He also shows a map of Lopo Homen from the year 1554, on which the island is named “mopiasem”.
9. Incidentally, this circumstance facilitates the identification of the island Mompracem in contrast to later maps, where the name sometimes had been inserted at any place and for decorative purpose. In the Portuguese maps it can be seen exactly to which island the name refers, because there the first letter is to be found.
10. That was the case for example in the aforementioned map of Diego Ribero from 1529, which was smuggled out of Portugal. (Nicholl 1976: 99)
11. Hereafter Labuan will be denoted by its old name “Pulo Tigao” which has been used until the 19th century, also in variants. Sometimes there was confusion with the still so-called “Pulau Tiga” in the bay of Kimanis. Thus, for example, Blair (1773) and Kitchin (1787) attempted to make a difference, they named Labuan as “Western Tigan” and Tiga as “East Tigan”. “Pulo” = “pulau” which is the Malay word for “island”.
12. Sketch Fig. 1: Lopo Homen (1554); Fig. 2: Bartolomeu Velho (1560); Fig. 3: Fernao Vaz Dourado (1576); Fig. 4: Bartolomeu Lasso/Petrus Plancius (1592). The sketches of Figures 2, 3 and 4 are details from those of Nicholl (1976: 118 ff ). All maps (i.e. the parts of the maps that show Mompracem) that are mentioned in this article, are to be found in Appendix 5. There they are listed in chronological order.
13. See the current map in Appendix 2.
14. Hondius was actually very interested in revaluing the work of Mercator, see also page 39.
15. “Voyage faict autour du Globe Terrestre, par Olivier du Nort d’Utrecht”, Amsterdam, 1602.—Oliver van Noort has made the 4th Circumnavigation (from 02.07.1598 to 26.08.1601). Before he arrived in Brunei, he had lost three of his four ships. He has inspired many of his compatriots to travel to the East.—For his map see Appendix 5.
16. Another map from Mercator’s “Insulae India Orientalis”, which was published by Cloppenburgh in 1632 and has been worked out—like the most maps of that edition—by Pieter van den Keere, shows the name of “Mon Pracem” under the name “Pulo Tigaon”, but again in the middle of the ocean. Though, the name seems to refer to the small island south of Pulo Tigaon.
17. Dotted fields are to be found already on earlier maps, but southwest of Mompracem (Lopo Homen 1554, Linschoten 1598). Points represent shoals on Portuguese maps.
18. The maps are dated by the Dutch Maritime Museum (Amsterdam Schepvaartsmuseum) with 1753. Broek (1962: 143) is uncertain in his dating of the Borneo map with 1740.
19. Thus, on a map from that time which is shown in the magazine Airone(February 2003: 86) the words appears: “The situation of these Islands is uncertain”, see Appendix 5, map no. 52. The mapmakers were well aware that there were problems with the localization of these many names.—The map of Cran (1900), which is the last map known to me mentioning “Mampracem”, is a good example for the many names that fill the space of the ocean almost completely.
20. Hunt, J. “Sketch of Borneo, or Pulo Kalamantan”. In: Keppel 1846, Vol. II, app. II, p. lvii.
21. http://www.panagadivers.com/Diving/Reefs.htm—The theory of Negro that Mompracem, which was always depicted as a large island, has gone down over the past 150 years by a weather event, and has now become a reef is also unlikely, since Negro does not provide sound evidence. The reference to the destruction of the volcanic island of Krakatoa in Java by the eruption of the volcano in 1883 is not sufficient.
22. Guillemard 1886: 264—It is more likely that all these islands got a group naming after the largest, namely Labuan. In fact, they all now belong to the “Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan”, and even Belcher described these islands as “the Labuan group” (1848 I: 172). The Rusukan Islands always refer only to the two Rusukan Islands, Keraman has to be seen separately, see, e.g., Asiatic Pilot, vol. 5, 1925: 369 (“Kuraman and Rusukan Islands”).
23. Negro (2011: 96) says further “Cheremon” is identical with “Keraman”. Marryat (1848), who is cited by Negro, means with “Cheremon” the island of Pulau Cermin that lies directly in a river estuary in the bay of Brunei. Marryat describes an event of 1844, which also has been mentioned by other British authors, namely that a British boat has been bombarded from this island by the Brunei Malays. Then the British have demanded to remove the defences of that island. That was done by the people of Brunei for the moment. These defences were located on Pulau Cermin, the name also appears accordingly (“Chermin”) by the other authors, for example Brooke (CO 144 / 1, p. 68, letter to Wise from 10/31/1844). Forrest (1969: 379) translated in 1776 in his travel report “Pulo Chirming” with “Glass Island.” The Malay word “Cermin” means in fact “mirror”/”mirror glass”.
24. In my article on the historical Sandokan (1996) I took over the translation of Raiola. I had assumed at the time, he would have learned this from one of the regional languages, but then, of course, these would not be called Malay. After a closer examination of the passage of Raiola I can not tell from what source he has derived his knowledge. Nicholl mentioned nowhere this or any other translation of the name Keraman in his detailed studies on old maps of Borneo. “Disappear” is translated with “hilang”/“lenyap”/“lesap” in Malay.
25. See detail of Belcher’s map in Appendix 4.
26. Nicholl 1976: 104. Nicholl mentions the “Admiralty Chart Folio 1844”, a chart on which the deep water channel, which lies between Labuan and Kuraman and which should be used by the ships, is called the “Kuraman Channel”. This waterway (“Keraman Channel”) is also found on official Labuan maps, so on the map “Peta Menunjokkan Nama² Jalan Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan” (Jabatan Ukur), which I obtained in 1992 at Labuan. See map in Appendix 3.
27. “The Singapore Free Press”, vol. 10, 29.5.1845. The author is mentioned as absent.
28. Gerlich 2003: 41, 57.
29. Mundy, 1848, vol. I: 319. He mentions, moreover, that on Kuraman there are beautiful trees and good water resources (vol. II: 338).
30. Also Negro (2011: 117) shows a map of 1872, where to the southwest of Labuan the islands Kuraman, Rusukan Kechil and Rusukan Besar can be seen (as well as the islands Burong, Enno, Pappan and Daat).
31. On an early German map (Hulsius 1602), the name appears only as “Pracem”.
32. Regarding Mompracem one can indeed try to decipher Portuguese words in the name, but then these words would have been reproduced not correctly in linguistically respect, what would have been very unlikely for native speakers. Thus Negro (2011: 134) attempts an interpretation as “Mon praia cem” (“mountain of the hundred beaches”), but in doing so the correct arrangement of words should be “mon cem praia”. Similarly, the translation of “praça” (“place of arms”) would not consider the first syllable (mo / mon / mom).
33. Guillemard 1886: 264.
34. According to the worldbirdinfo.net “Megapodius lowi” is synonymous with the “Megapodius cummingii”.
35. The map is called “Dies Ostindien Inseln” (= “The East Indian Islands”) and is clearly based on former Dutch maps, hence not on site information. Of course, Salgari has consulted more than just one map. Spagnol mentions (1982: 160) among others “L’Océanie” by Louis Grégoire Domeny de Rienzi (1836) and explains that it is second hand information and would explain the errors in Salgari’s works.
36. See, for example, Spagnol 1982: 163.

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Source and Credit to : Dr Bianca Gerlich | Bianca@Mompracem.de