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The third group, or Orangs Boumans, resemble ordinary beings, but have the power of making themselves invisible. They come down from the mountains to buy supplies, but have not been seen for some time. Westenberg, from whom this information is quoted, regards the last class as being proscribed Battaks, who have fled for refuge to the mountains.
Warneck says that among the Battaks of Sumatra there are "remains of a pure idea of God." but there is also a host of spirits, born of fear, which thrust themselves between God and man.
Certain of the Hindoo alphabets, notably that of the Battaks of Sumatra, give us clews to the originals of the numerals. It does not seem certain, however, that the Hindoos employed these characters according to the decimal system, which is the prime element of their importance. Knowledge is not forthcoming as to just when or by whom such application was made.
In religion, most of the Malays are Mohammedans, but the people of Bally and Lombok are still Brahmins, while the Dyaks and Battaks are of very primitive faiths. From remote times until 1478 Brahminism and Buddhism were the principal religions, but in that year the faith of Islam began to supersede them.
If so, some of the skulls that I have seen at Dyak Compounds would not be grinning so hideously these days as they ornament the poles of certain vain and proud Dyak hunters. The Battaks of Sumatra also have a playful custom of getting rid of their old men. When a man gets so old that they think it is about time for him to tell his last tale, they put him up a Cocoanut tree.
They are all Mahometans, but they speak a variety of curious languages, which seem compounded of Bugis and Javanese, with the languages of the savage tribes of the Moluccas. The savage Malays are the Dyaks of Borneo; the Battaks and other wild tribes of Sumatra; the Jakuns of the Malay Peninsula; the aborigines of Northern Celebes, of the Sula island, and of part of Bouru.
Natives other than Malays are the Dyaks, in the interior of Borneo; the Battaks, in the interior of Sumatra; and finally the Papuans, who inhabit New Guinea, or Papua, and some of the small islands near. These Papuans are said to be of the same race as the Australian aborigines, and are the only black people in these islands, the other inhabitants being light brown or copper-coloured.
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