WE OFTEN read about
pirates and savage warriors; we see films about them
too. Often in these books and films they seem to be
very brave and exciting people. In fact we sometimes
feel sorry that they are always beaten in the end,
because they give us such a fine sense of adventure.
If you were living just over a hundred years ago, you
would have had a very different opinion. you would
`probably be very angry if you knew that today
Hollywood films would be treating pirates as if theu
were heroes.
Before
we learn about Rajah Brooke and his helpers, let us
learn a little more about what pirates and savages
were really like. One east coast pirate was called
Kurunding; he was an Illanun by race. He was very
proud of his parang and would boast to his friends
that he had hacked a hundred and twenty people to
death with it. That meant misery and hardship for a
hundred families or more. Hardship was not uncommon
on the east coast. Have a look at your map and pick
out Segama River. During the nineteenth century
pirates or savages killed or drove away every single
person living near its banks! Now find the
Kinabatangan. There are quite a lot of small villages
on that river today. Yet a hundred years ago every
single village within 60 miles of the coast had been
completely destroyed! The same thing happened on the
Paitan and Labuk Rivers. The people of the west coadt
and the interior were not much more fortunate.
Pirates and robbers were everywhere. People were
driven from one place to another; as a result they
could never settle down and develop anything. One
traveller in the western part life, described a house
in which he had been interviewed; nailed to one wall
was a human arm and hand about two weeks old.
Balagnini pirates were always raiding Brunei Bay;
many of the sailors whom they pursued would jump into
the sea, preferring the sharks to the pirates. The
Balagnini were not willing to lose victims like this;
so they carried sharp hooks on long poles. With these
they would drag the swimmers from the sea, impaled
like fishes. In interior areas head-hunting was very
popular. We have accounts of savage celebrations at
reason at which as many as forty slaves were beheaded
for no reason at all. In many villages, young men
could not think of marrying until they had been on
head-hunting expeditions: no young woman would
consider a man who had no heads to show.
The
Chinese had continued to trade in Sandakan itself but
nowhere outside it on the east coast, for
head-hunting was still common less than a hundred
years ago. Chinese merchants were often attacked in
Sandakan by head-hunters from the south; and not only
Chinese heads were taken away as trophies. A very
powerful Bajau chief lost his too in Sandakan. The
raiders were Sea Dyaks, 'orang laut' or 'pengait' who
were as dreaded as the Illanun and Balagnini. It was
not surprising that when even large settlements were
subject to attacks like these, in an area of several
thousands of square miles stretching from Sandakan
Bay to Darvel Bay, there were only ten villages and
virtually no paths or tracks. People were afraid to
live in small communities near the rivers and the
sea. As a result of this reign of terror much of what
we know as the East Coast Residency lost its
population, although once there had been prosperous
settlements in many parts of it.
Not
until peace was restored and law and order respected
again could prosperity return. We should give thanks
to Rajah Brooke more than to any other single person
for the defeat of the pirates and savages. It was
largely due to him that the British Royal Navy came
to the waters of North Borneo to clear them of
pirates. Without Booke and the Royal Navy, the
Chartered Company could not have led our country
along the roads of peace and prosperity. In the
following chapters you will read how it was that
within a hundred years, North Borneo passed from
being the most savage country in the world and become
perhaps the most peaceful.
QUESTIONS
