Annual report on Sarawak.

Date:
[1959]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Sarawak. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    214/282 (page 180)
    After the fall of Majapahit, Sarawak formed part of the dominions of the Malay Sultan of Brunei, and it is first known to us by name through the visits to Brunei of Pigafetta in 1521, of Jorge de Menezes in 1526, of Gonsalvo Pereira in 1530, and from an early map of the East Indies by Mercator. Sarawak was then the name of a place on the river of the same name. Kuching did not exist. Too little is still known about this period of Sarawak’s proto¬ history where pre-history and written history overlap. But an important and attractive addition to our knowledge here was made during 1938. Back in 1940, Chinese coolies doing some irrigation work near Sambas in Southern Borneo discovered a magnificent hoard of gold and silver buddhas. After a chequered career in Indonesia, Singapore and Holland, this “Sambas Treasure” was acquired for the British Museum with the assis¬ tance of the Sarawak Museum—whose help has been generously recognised by the presentation by the Trustees of the British Museum of two magnificent replicas for local display. In the stand of the largest of these buddhas a piece of leaf was found— during cleaning in the British Museum laboratories—containing an inscription in archaic Malay. This has not yet been interpreted and is being worked on by experts at present. It is the earliest such writing known from Borneo. The buddhas themselves relate to the one found at Santubong, in stone, already mentioned. They probably date from the 7th century onward, and are now a special exhibit in the British Museum Treasure Gallery in London. II — HISTORY The history of Sarawak as an integral State begins with the first landing in August, 1839, of James Brooke. At that time Sarawak was the southern province of the Brunei Sultanate. The oppression of the Sultan’s viceroy, Makota, had goaded into revolt the Malays and Land Dayaks resident in the area known as Sarawak Proper, and the Sultan had sent his uncle, the Rajah Muda Hassim, to pacify the country. The insurgents were led by Datu Patinggi Ali. James Brooke departed after a short stay and returned in 1840, to find the fighting still in progress. At the request of the Rajah Muda Hassim, he interceded in the dispute, brought about a settlement, and was rewarded for his services by being installed on the 24th September, 1841, as