The
condition, however, is much more complicated as we can now distinguish
at least two main races among the aborigines.
We have no evidence as to who were the primitive inhabitants of
Borneo. One would expect to find Negritos in the interior, as these
black, woolly-haired pygmies inhabit the Andamans, parts of the
Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, the Philippines, New Guinea, and possibly
Melanesia. No authoritative evidence of their occurrence in Borneo
is forthcoming, and one can confidently assert that there are no
Negritos in Sarawak. Nor are there any traces of Melanesians. It is
generally admitted that, assuming the Australians to be mainly of
that race, a Pre-Dravidian element should occur in the Archipelago,
and the cousins Sarasin have noted this strain among the Toalas of
Celebes and Moszkowski among the Batins of Sumatra; in this connection
it is of interest that Nieuwenhuis discovered ten Ulu Ayars and two
Punans with straight hair and a "black or blue-black" skin colour;
Kohlbrugge,[223] who records this observation, offers no explanation.
Dr. E. T. Hamy in 1877 recognised a primitive element in the Malay
Archipelago, for which he adopted the term Indonesian, a name
previously invented by Logan for the non-Malay population of the
East Indian Archipelago.
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