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There were in the area that is now Dutch Borneo several independent Malay Sultans, of which the principal had their capitals at Pontianak, Banjermasin, and Kotei.
Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, although smaller than Pontianak and other Dutch settlements on the coast of Borneo, is generally acknowledged to be the first town in Borneo so far as civilisation and comfort are concerned, and is renowned for its Bazaar, which is the best-built and cleanest in the island.
Pontianak, the well-known town in the Western Division of Dutch Borneo, is the name of another good-looking female antoh, who causes injury to women at childbirth. Some evil antohs, by Kahayans and others called kuyang, also select maternity victims. They are believed to fly through the air at night, appearing like fireflies, and enter the woman through head, neck, or stomach, doing much harm.
But all is not finished with the passage of the soul to the land of the dead; the soul may return to avenge its death by helping to discover the murderer, or to wreak vengeance for itself; there is a widespread belief that those who die a violent death become malignant spirits and endanger the lives of those who come near the haunted spot; the woman who dies in child-birth becomes a pontianak, and threatens the life of human beings; and man resorts to magical or religious means of repelling his spiritual dangers.
They have settlements at Sambas, at Pontianak, and at Banjermassin; and forts on the rivers, inhabited by Dutch residents, or Malay chiefs in their pay: but they have never won the hearts of the aborigines, for the Dutch maxim is always to get as much money as possible out of native subjects, consequently they are every now and then obliged to send European troops to enforce the obedience of the Chinese and Dyaks to their rule.
My sister is there!" A Feminine-Flash light that has its humorous side was one that I experienced in Borneo. We had gone out to a Dyak village to take pictures. It was a miserably hot morning. That night I stayed in Pontianak which is bisected by the Equator. It was so cold in the middle of the night that I had to get up and put on a night shirt!
The men who were saved gave details of the taking of two large vessels one a Singapore prahu trading to Tringanau; the other a Dutch tope, of one hundred and fifty tons, on the coast of Borneo to the south of Pontianak. There they fell in with five other Illanun boats, which had come down from the northward they themselves were going up from the southward.
She adventured among the Dyaks, and journeyed westward to Pontianak, and the diamond mines of Landak. We next meet with her in Java, and afterwards in Sumatra, where she boldly trusted herself among the cannibal Battas, who had hitherto resented the intrusion of any European.
The principal sultans had as their capitals, from which they took their titles, Bruni on the north-west, Sambas in the west, Pontianak at the mouth of the Kapuas river, Banjermasin in the south at the mouth of the river of the same name, Pasir at the south-east corner, Kotei and Balungan on the east at the mouths of the rivers of those names; while the Sultan of Jolo, the capital of the Sulu islands, which lie off the north coast, claimed sovereignty over the northern end of Borneo.
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