The North Borneo Herald. MONDAY, 2ND FEBRUARY 1903. OMADAL THE BAJAUS’ NECROPOLIS. (An article for Home Consumption)

THE NORTH BORNEO HERALD AND THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE

EDUCATIONAL SERIES BY BORNEO HISTORY

No. 3 - VOL.XXI. SANDAKAN, MONDAY, 2ND FEBRUARY 1903.

The North Borneo Herald.

MONDAY, 2ND FEBRUARY 1903.

OMADAL

THE BAJAUS’ NECROPOLIS.

(An article for Home Consumption)

The beautiful country lying around Semporna, the little Government Station dominating the other smaller and less accessible kampongs or villages on the South East Coast of British North Borneo all peopled by the same tribe, is the home of the once, and in a small degree still, lawless Sea-Bajau or Gypsy. The Bajau country may be said to lie within a square formed by Latitudes 4° and 5° North and Longitudes 118° and 119° East. The most northerly kampong is Silam which the Sea-Bajau proper but rarely visits except to bring along sea produce such as beche-de-mer or trepan, for his cautious and wary and timorous of the Government which has an agent in the shape of a paid chief here : the most easterly and southerly boundary of the Bajau country is the island of Danawan where the people have a chief who is expected to report himself to the District Officer of Tawao when called upon to do so: there is no westerly boundary to this District of islands and reefs for westward lies the mainland of British North Borneo on which the Bajau can never be induced to settle for he is fearful or being entrapped before he can take to his boats, and besides his business if not on shore which has no attractions for him but amongst the islands and reefs that abound in fish the object and means of his existence. In the very centre of the square so defined is Semporna which is a small kampong of some 20 or 30 Bajau huts containing from 100 to 150 inhabitants not including children who swarm in confusing numbers defying accurate enumeration and genealogical investigation. The chief of the Bajaus, Penghulu Udang by name, lives here, and a Government clerk keeps his eyes and ears open in quest of boats without licenses, and information that will lead to the capture of this or that wrong-door, often a murderer, in which duties he is assisted by a resident batch of Sikh police whose pluck and loyalty to Government render them more than a match for the Bajaus who, though individually a desperate lot, for the most part seldom fight against any odds or combine in aggressive numbers.

The scenery around Semporna is very beautiful. Opposite lies the wooded island of Bum Bum at the back of which the Bajaus anchor their floating villages. In the far distance behind Bum Bum loom the two peaks of Pulau Gain Island a mass of rock that rises straight out of the sea to a height of 2000 feet, odd. To the south is Trusan Treacher a deep channel running like a river between Bum Bum and the mainland on the northern entrance to which Semporna is situated. Northwards in the direction of Silam the coast is studded with numberless islands from the great Timban Mata to little nameless cays without even a shrub on them. But we are wandering from our subject and the home of the Bajau which is Omadal.

To reach Omadal which is an island to the southeast of Bum Bum island, the easiest and most convenient way is by launch from Semporna. The Government has recently purchased a fine launch in the S.L. Chantek a wise precaution without which the District cannot be adequately governed and it is by means of a trip in her that we are enabled to put before our readers, those at home more especially, a short account of the official headquarters which is also the tribal burial-place of the wild Sea-Bajau a race of savages unknown to the man in the street which is fast dying out because the days of piracy are over in Borneo. For it is by acts of piracy alone that the Bajau seeks to eke out an existence sufficient to encourage population: the means being removed and himself lacking all sense of industry and thrift the gradual extermination of the Sea-Bajau is a matter of certainly and time.

On the occasion we are now describing an early start was made and we were shortly skirting the north coast of Bum Bum island in sight of Gulam Gulam or, to be correct, the spot where that village used to be, for a year ago, Mr. Molyneux, the District Officer of Tawao, who handles these lawless subjects of the Government with much tact and courage, had occasion, owing to the disloyalty of Panglima Lohari its chief, to burn the place down. Next appeared Egang Egang and Panto Panto, the Bajau seems fond of reduplication both in matters of crime and nomenclature, and presently the island of Omadal came into sight. Every village in Sea-Bajau-dom is unapproachable by reason of broad stretches of coral reef that no steam-vessel dare venture over : this physio graphical condition which a feature peculiar to all the islands around Bum Bum suits the Bajau who thereby has less to fear from pursuit by vessels of the Petrel type the latter being the Government steam-yacht which, by reason of its speed and a tradition, purely imaginative, that represents it to be full of armed men, is greatly respected in close proximity by the Bajau people.

As we neared Omadal, the edge of the reef came into view and the anchor was let go in deep water, the shore being reached by a short pull in a sapit, or species or native craft, over sparkling water reflecting the most exquisite shades of purple, mauve, blue and bright green as it became shallower and shallower. The shore is bordered by a fringe of dazzling white sand and beyond the reach of the lightest tide grows a covering of rank grass and scrub through which are riddled native tracks leading to different parts of the island. The first object that strikes the visitor to Omadal is the cemetery which can be seen some distance before the island is approached. A truly wonderful tribute to savage art is this cluster of grave-stones and sepulchral monuments mostly of wood, carved with a degree of fineness, symmetry and artistic design worthy of a modern studio and far more deserving of admiration for here we have inherent art and there but imitation often base and inartistic. Monumental architecture is perhaps the most ancient exemplification of art, being characteristic of the Egyptians the earliest epoch and the first human point in whose history is placed at 5004 B. C. This fact supplies the student with food for genuine reflection when confronted by a rude but singularly artistic form of art and the intelligent visitor to Omadal cannot be struck with feelings of astonishment and mute admiration at the sight of this wonderful grave-yard and its beautiful carvings. Remember the Bajau---a wild, uncivilized, blood-thirsty savage, living a hand to mouth existence barren of incident, eked out for the most part of the year in a narrow sapit, always on the look-out for plunder, reckless of life, knowing no customs save those in connection with marriage and death, observing no law except the one rule to skedaddle when a Government agent comes along,----and then cast your eyes on this solemn array of tombs and tomb-stones and surely the contrast furnishes a query the answer to which like that to so many other ethnological problems is beyond human ken. Of the carvings themselves there is not much to be said by way of description for a single acanthus-like floriation is the style of carving running through all of them with more or less variation. But those that are very elaborate in design are beautiful works or art indicating wonderful symmetry and deft manipulation while all are worthy of a “place” at any civilized art exhibition. Some are mere stakes with carved heads four or five feet in height, while others are heavy stone slabs the carving of which must have presented peculiar difficulties of workmanship. A strange feature about this cemetery is an erection, there are several of them, in shape like a pagoda, consisting of a pile of umbrellas of a brilliant yellow colour placed one over another about half a foot apart and decreasing in size from bottom to top. This design of monument has doubtless been imported from Mecca by the Hadjis, for even the Bajau tribe contributes its quota of ‘pious’ men who have gone on a pilgrimage and returned full-blown ‘Hadjis’. At the time we visited Omadal a funeral was about to take place and the corpse lay in a pavilion of white cloth bearing a strange floral device embroidered in red, embalmed and surrounded by the bed clothes that covered the living body, which its head resting on the now superfluous pillow. Spread out on the fore-ground were rows of platters filled with rice, salt and vegetables set at the disposal of friends of the deceased and others who had helped to bring his body over from the distant isle of Danawan.

Turning our backs reluctantly on the cemetery, we took a path through the scrub to the other side of the island where lay the little village---a village of trustees in whose keeping rests the sacred burial ground of the Bajaus. The island narrows to a point where the site of the small village is chosen doubtless for strategical purposes for the Bajau lives by strategy and places his kampongs in such a position that escape in time of danger may be easily effects. From this tanjong or spit an enemy approaching from any point of the compass can be observed long before he has time to make a rush on the island, and it is a fact that when the present District Officer made a surprise visit there about a year ago in search of weapons, not one was found though it is certain that every male member was armed, and all the womenfolk had disappeared in a mysterious manner “leaving the decks cleared for action.” It is not unlikely that bad the D.O. Shewn fight there must have ensued an ugly rush for the weapons concealed in the brush-wood.

Omadal is the only vulnerable point in the Bajau’s sympathy and the storming of Omadal in 1886 by H.M.S. Zephyr was a punishment that the tribe has never forgotten.

When they are not carving head-stones the men are mostly engaged in making boats, and very strong and sea-worthy are the fleet sapits built at Omadal. We saw some twenty feet in length and big enough to carry five or six families. They are built of the same beautiful reddish yellow wood that lends itself so readily to the carver’s art--- a wood that grows in abundance on the larger islands in Darvel Bay.

Returning by a different route to Semporna we passed between two extensive reefs through a channel that the largest vessel in His Majesty’s Navy could safely navigate and when opposite Kubang on Bum Bum island we came in view of a considerable floating village of Bajaus known to harbour at least half a dozen very slippery customers wanted by Government but unobtainable for miles of reef to which they fly whenever a steamer appears to them to be going out of her usual course. When returning up Trusan Treacher the tide was low and the great Beaufort reef was dotted here and there with small groups of boats between which the numbers of Bajaus were to be seen at their daily occupation fishing and spearing for fish and gathering beche-de-mer to exchange at Semporna for rice and cloth. The appearance of these boats and fishermen on the edge of the horizon which was but the middle of an enormous reef many square miles in extent was rendered weird by  the mirage which is ever present in these sunny waters. To approach sufficiently close to get a shot at these people supposing such action was rendered necessary would be impossible except with a maxim gun for the Bajau knows every square yard of the reef and can make good his escape at the expense of his pursuers whose steps are dogged by  care for the safety of their boat and of themselves for it is not a pleasant thought by any means when smiling in these waters that if one’s boat got stranded or wrecked on a pinnacle of reef the Bajaus, if there were any in sight, would take advantage of such a predicament and surround the unfortunate intruder whose life would then be worth less than any single Bajau’s spear.

The Bajau is gradually but surely dying out and another fifty years hence may witness his extinction. The B.N.B. Government has always harassed him in its endeavors to establish law and order in the District and during the last few years since the Americans occupied the Philippines and adjoining islands the Bajau is less willing to clear out of Borneo Territory and hide in Sibuto, than he used to be. Sandwiched between two civilizing communities whose traditions will permit of no murder, rapine and lawlessness the Bajau finds himself compelled either to face a new state of existence or to continue roaming from island to island and reef to reef to thee slow extermination of his tribe. The infant mortality amongst the Bajaus is a powerful factor for evil in this connection, starvation; oyster-poisoning and geophagism do the rest.

As we sailed up Trusan Treacher and rejoined the Government steam yacht Petrel the setting sun’s rays lighting up the peaks of Pulau Gaia over at the back of Bum Bum island which we had now circumnavigated was a sight not to be forgotten. This beautiful setting to a picture of savage life is wasted on the Bajau who lives as if in obedience to the one law of existence, but the Bajau country is not the only one of which it has been ingenuously written that ‘only man is vile.’

On our return to civilization at Lahad Datu the first news that greeted us was conveyed by the Sergeant of Constabulary in charge who told us of two Chinese having been brought over in a mutilated condition, both unconscious, discovered in a lonely shop on Timban Mata when they had been attacked by Bajaus. The Bajau again---and so on till the end of the chapter. Whenever a deed of violence is committed in the Darvel Bay District the Bajau may pretty surely be adjudged the perpetrator and it is for very good reasons that a European never trusts a Bajau because the balance of reason and homicidal mania is so uncertain that opportunity once given would inevitably decide in a favor of the latter tendency---but the European generally sees to it that opportunity is never allowed.

-/ss