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Updated: June 7, 2025
This custom has been accurately described by various writers, and therefore it is almost superfluous to say more on the subject than that the Sumatrans universally use it, carry the ingredients constantly about them, and serve it to their guests on all occasions the prince in a gold stand, and the poor man in a brass box or mat bag.
Were it not for the numerous and very respectable authorities from which we are assured that the natives of America are naturally beardless, I should think that the common opinion on that subject had been rashly adopted, and that their appearing thus at a mature age was only the consequence of an early practice, similar to that observed among the Sumatrans.
The Sumatrans are a very indolent race of people, which accounted for the small interest they took in the arrival of our ship, none thinking it worth while to come aboard, or to make any inquiry concerning us.
The fairness of the Sumatrans comparatively with other Indians, situated as they are under a perpendicular sun where no season of the year affords an alternative of cold, is I think an irrefragable proof that the difference of colour in the various inhabitants of the earth is not the immediate effect of climate.
The compensation is so regularly established among the Sumatrans that any other satisfaction is seldom demanded. In the first heat of resentment retaliation is sometimes attempted, but the spirit soon evaporates, and application is usually made, upon the immediate discovery of the fact, to the chiefs of the country for the exertion of their influence to oblige the criminal to pay the bangun.
In all these ceremonies they burn on the spot a little gum benzoin Et acerra thuris plena, positusque carbo in cespite vivo. The form of taking an oath among the people of Madagascar very nearly resembles the ceremonies used by the Sumatrans.
These people are remarkable for their docility and expertness in handicraft work, and become excellent house-carpenters and joiners, and as an instance of their skill in the arts they practise that of letting blood by cupping, in a mode nearly similar to ours. Among the Sumatrans blood is never drawn with so salutary an intent.
The art of medicine among the Sumatrans consists almost entirely in the application of simples, in the virtues of which they are well skilled. For internal pains they rub oil on a large leaf of a stimulant quality, and, heating it before the fire, clap it on the body of the patient as a blister, which produces very powerful effects.
Simplicity, so essential to the idea, is the characteristic of a rude and quite uncivilized people, and is again adopted by men in their highest state of refinement. The Sumatrans stand removed from both these extremes. Rich and splendid articles of dress and furniture, though not often procured, are the objects of their vanity and ambition.
From before the next he was repulsed with great loss. The Sumatrans had derived more profit from intercourse with Europeans than the inhabitants of Johore or the Moluccas had done. De Castro abandoned the siege. He had received intelligence of the dangerous situation of Malacca, and moved down upon the place with his whole fleet.
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