RESPECT FOR THE SULTAN OF MENANGKABAU.

Notwithstanding the independent spirit of the Battas, and their contempt of all power that would affect a superiority over their little societies, they have a superstitious veneration for the sultan of Menangkabau, and show blind submission to his relations and emissaries, real or pretended, when such appear among them for the purpose of levying contributions:  even when insulted and put in fear of their lives they make no attempt at resistance:  they think that their affairs would never prosper; that their padi would be blighted, and their buffaloes die; that they would remain under a kind of spell for offending those sacred messengers.

PERSONS.

The Battas are in their persons rather below the stature of the Malays, and their complexions are fairer; which may perhaps be owing to their distance, for the most part, from the sea, an element they do not at all frequent.

DRESS.

Their dress is commonly of a sort of cotton cloth manufactured by themselves, thick, harsh, and wiry, about four astas or cubits long, and two in breadth, worn round the middle, with a scarf over the shoulder.  These are of mixed colours, the prevalent being a brownish red and a blue approaching to black.  They are fond of adorning them, particularly the scarf, with strings and tassels of beads.  The covering of the head is usually the bark of a tree, but the superior class wear a strip of foreign blue cloth in imitation of the Malayan destars, and a few have bajus (outer garments) of chintz.  The young women, beside the cloth round the middle, have one over the breasts, and (as noticed in Mr. Miller’s journal) wear in their ears numerous rings of tin, as well as several large rings of thick brass wire round their necks.  On festival days however they ornament themselves with earrings of gold, hair-pins, of which the heads are fashioned like birds or dragons, a kind of three-cornered breastplate, and hollow rings upon the upper arm, all, in like manner, of gold.  The kima shell, which abounds in the bay, is likewise worked into arm-rings, whiter, and taking a better polish than ivory.

ARMS.

Their arms are matchlock guns, with which they are expert marksmen, bamboo lances or spears with long iron heads, and a side-weapon called jono, which resembles and is worn as a sword rather than a kris.  The cartridge-boxes are provided with a number of little wooden cases, each containing a charge for the piece.  In these are carried likewise the match, and the smaller ranjaus, the longer being in a joint of bamboo, slung like a quiver over the shoulder.  They have machines curiously carved and formed like the beak of a large bird for holding bullets, and others of peculiar construction for a reserve of powder.  These hang in front.  On the right side hang the flint and steel, and also the tobacco-pipe.  Their guns, the locks of which {for holding the match) are of copper, they are supplied