Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1893 — THE ORANG KOOBOOS. [ARTICLE]

THE ORANG KOOBOOS.

The Most Degraded Race of Men In the World. The Bushmen of, South Africa have been often spoken of as the lowest in the scale of humanity—the connecting link between man and monkey; but thete is a race known as the Orang Kooboos, or Brown Men of the Island of Sumatra, who present a stronger claim to that distinction. They are described as covered with hair and having long arms. They are deficient in chin, or rather that feature forms little part of the face. Some explorers of the island were at first disposed to class them as simply a somewhat higher development of the orang-outang, but this idea was dispelled by the facts that they possess speech, though exceedingly rude and monosyllabic, have perceptive faculties and resemble the rest of mankind in their formation. They are, moreover, recognized as belonging to the human race by the Malays, who,*however, hunt them as wild animals, in order to work them as beasts of burden. These singular people are only to be met with in the almost impassable swamps and forests of the island. They live among the branches of the teak and marringin trees, which grow to an enormous size. They construct a rude platform of bamboos wherever they can Upd a sufficient number of horizontal limbs of a tree to serve as the basis or sleepers for a floor, and over this they raise a rude conical roof of split bamboos and cocoanut leaves. These savages subsist almost exclusively upon fish, which abound in all the rivers and bays of that portion of the Pacific. It has been found impossible to teach the Kooboos the use of garments, altbougti they manifest a great fondness for pieces of colored cloth, which they will attach to various parts of their bodies. They will tie a vest to their heads or around their waists with a lively grinning and grunting of delight, and seem to make no distinction between a simple piece of cloth for ornament and a manufactured article, the only ground for preference being the difference of colors. It has been impossible to teach those in captivity the language of their masters, for after every effort they still spoke the Malay in an uncouth monosyllabic manner, like their own jargon of unclassified

grunts. They seem to have no idea whatever of marriage, but merely pair off for a season, nor do they give any evidence of belief or consciousness of the existence of a spiritual being. Notwithstanding the utter degradation of this hairy, brutish race, they seem to be no insignificant contributors to commerce, for in some of the ’impassable forests of Sumatra they have been the chief collectors of benzoin or gum benjamin. Curious stories are told about the manner of trading with the Orang Kooboos. The trader proceeds to a certain point on the edge of a forest, at certain periods of the year, with quantities of colored cloths, beads, and other trifles; he then heats a gong for some length of time at various intervals during one or two days as & signal, and then retires to a considerable distance to return in about a week, when he finds satisfactory quantities of benzoin in place of his "oods, which have been carried away oy the