Appendices and Heferences

Section V Appendices and Heferences A sub-adult female Sumatran orang-utan cif the dark, Southern type. 417 Section V: appendices and references A sub-adult male Sumatran orang-utan, apparently of mixed descent. 418 APPENDIX 1 TABLEXXVII List of vernacular names of the orang-utan (after Yasuma, 1994 and pers. dos.). Vernacular name Ethnic or cultural identity; [region) Hirang (utan) Kayan He/ong lietiea Kayan and Kenyah; [Modang, Long Bleh] Kaheyu Ngadju; Southern groups, [east Central Kalimantan] Kahui Murut; [Northern west Kai. groups, south Sarawak] Keö, Ke'u, Keyu, or Ma'anyan and Bawo; Southern groups, [Kanowit, South-Kal. prov. Kuyuh. and east of S. Barito] Kihiyu Ot Danum; [north Centr. Kai. prov.] Kisau or Kog'iu Orang Sungai; Northern groups, [east-Sabah] Kogiu Kadazan; Northern groups, [north Sabah] Koju Punan: Northern groups, [S. Blayan] Kuyang, Kuye . Kenyah, Kayan and Punan: [Apo Kayan, Badung, Bakung, Lepok Jalan, Lepok Yau, S. Tubuh, S. Lurah, Melap, lower S. Kayan] Maias Bidayuh, lban and Lun Dayeh; [Sarawak north of G. Niut, north West or Mayas Kai. prov., north Sarawak and north East Kai prov.; also western Malayu; West-Kalimantan prov.] Dyang Dok Kenyah; [Badeng, 5. Lurah] Drang Hutan modern lndonesians, islamized dayaks; transmigrants [lndo-Malay or Drang-utan archipelago] and Dusun [North Sabah] Tjaului townspeople [Balikpapan, Samarinda] Ulan!Urang Utan islamized Dayaks and coastal Kenyah; [Tidung regency, northeast- Kalimantan] Uraagng Utatn Benuaq, Bahau and Tunjung; [S. Kedangpahu, along S. Mahakam] also transmigrants [western East-Kalimantan] Uyang Paya .. Kenyah; Apo Kayan, [north East Kai. prov.] Mawas Batak, Malays; [Sumatra] and the Batek [in W. Malaysia] Maweh'" Acehnese, Gayo; [Aceh prov.] (Le ljo) Minang east of Sarisan [Rokan, Riau, central Sumatra] (Atu pandaklrimbu) Rawas (Sedapa) Palembang [north Palembang area] (Sebaba) Pasemah [southeast Bengkulu] (Gugu) Serawai [south Bengkulu] (Li koiyau) Riau Malay [Batang Hari] (Umang) Karo Batak [Dairi] (Drang pendek) Rejang Lebeng Minang [west Barisan, north Bengkulu] The names between brackets rifer to orang pendek, the southem type qf orang-utan. *Kuyah or kuyal in the Kayan language may indicate 'a monkey' in general 419 Seetion V: appendices and references ** Paya is a vemacular tenn for trouble, misery, nuisance, implying 'nuisance people' as the local name for the red ape. *** A Zarge harbour town along Aceh's east coast is called Lhok Seumaweh, 'bay cif the orang-utan' Three basic roots can be discerned in the Iist of Bornean names, one modern and two traditional; the names derived from orang hutan are supposedly of modern, Malay origin, e.g. urang, uyang, uraagng, ulan, oyang and, perhaps, kuyang. The name 'mawas' and its derivates are evidently of Sumatran origin, surviving even in the myths of the aboriginal tribes of the Malay peninsula (Schebesta, 1928). Considering that the Iban or 'sea dyaks' of southwestern Borneoare ofSumatran origin, it is irrteresring to note that they apparently named the Bornean orang-utan afi:er its Sumatran brethren. This suggests that until some four centuries ago the distribution range of the Sumatran subspecies still extended as far south as the Iban's original homeland, i.e. along the banks of the river Batang Hari in the northern section of what is currently South Sumatra province. The presumably original Bornean names have a more or less common root structure, namely, 'Ka-u', 'Ke-u', 'Ki-u', 'Ko-u' and 'Ku-o'. Is this root perhaps derived from a human interpretation of the most common vocalisations of orang utans in the presence ofhumans? For instance, the loud 'kiss sound' of the ape, which is the usual vocalisation of a wild, anxious orang-utan confronting humans or other species disturbing to the orang-utan. Or, perhaps, even the 'lork call', or 'hark' (see e.g. Rijksen, 1978). It is interesting that at least two Sumatran names for the orang pendek, from Riau province, i.e. Li koiyau and Le tjo, are based on the same root. The tjo sound is undoubtedly derived from this common 'kiss sound' vocalisation. 420 Appendix 2 APPENDIX 2 What's in a name? The scientific name of the orang-utan has given rise to considerable confusion; the name Simia satyrus which was originally given by Linnaeus to the ape in 1758 was changed erroneously in 1927. ln 1925 the International CommiSSion on ZoologKai Nomendature published Op1mon No 90 (Sm1th~man MISCellaneous Collecttons 73 [3D to announce that 11 had fatled to reach a two-th1rds maJonty vote for suspellSIO!l of ten generic names, among wh1ch S1mia linnaeus 1758, so that 'the Law of Pnonty IS tobe applted 1n these cases.' Apparently 11 had been suggested that the name Simia had been comed eartier for the Magot (Macaca sylvanus), and hence coufd not be applied to the orang-utan (or chtmpanzee). Areport by Allen, refernng to Simta troglodytes Gmel., Unn. S.N v 1:26, 1788 (t.e the chtmpanzee) and to Simia saryrus L1nn., 1758 [l.e the orang-utan), hsts all the names whKh could not be suspended and should be treated accordmg to the rufe of Pnonty. Reasons for a possible change are not specified, apparently because 'no good purpose can be served by publication of the arguments for and against suspension', according to the Comrnission on Zoological Nomenclature. However, Stiles and Orleman, in a publication entitled The Nornene/ature Jor Man, the Chimpanzee, the Orang-utan, and the Barbary Ape (in Bull. US Public Health Service Hyg. Lab.; 145; pp. 1-66), reveal that doubt was raised concerning the two Dutch references which Linnaeus had used to describe the orang-utan. It was noted that de Bondt had supposedly described a human patient suffering from 'hypertrichy' (hairiness), and that Tulp apparently had described 'a chimpanzee from Angola.' It appears that the International Comrnission on Zoological Nomendarure at the time possessed incomplete historical information regarding the Durch 'discoverers'104 and their publications. The first European to report on the red ape was the 1" century historian Pliny the Eider. Then, in the 13th century the Venetian adventurer Marco Polo, in his travel diary concerning the description of the coastal region ofPase, in Aceh, noted: 'there is a me dium-sized ape here which has a face like that of a man.' The first detailed description, however, was made by the Dutch physician Jacob de Bondt (Bontius), inspector of surgery in Batavia (1592-1631). When his description of the Bornean ape was finally published in the Historiae Naturalis et Medicae Indiae Orientalis, twenty seven years after his death, it had been preceded by the description of a preserved specimen, by the physician Nicolaas Tulp (Tulpius), the Mayor of Amsterdam. 104 The apehas probably been known to the civilised world since antiquity; T ulp adh already acknowledged that the Satyr described by Plinius was most probably het orang-utan, notwithstanding somemi nor inaccuracies in the early descriptions. lt is also irrteresring to note that the Arab encyclopaedic cosmography 'Ajci 'ib refers to the narrative of the ninth-century traveller Ibn al-Faqlh al-Harnadhänl describingth e fully haired, tree-dwelling aboriginal'hu rnans' on the islandof Rämni (i.e. Sumatra) (Kruk, 199 5). 421 Section V: appendices and references The pubhcallon 1n the Bullet1n of the Health SeMce drew speoal attention to the 'potential danger whKh m1ght anse 1n med~eal and public health work because of conbnued confus10n' over the taxonomic names. This is nonsense, because 1f any confusion ever occurred 1n the New World 1n the early nineteenth century {e.g Owen, 1835; Knox, 1840), 11 had already been cleared up m Europe more than a century earher, around 1790, through the pubiKatiOns of Camper, Vosmaer, de Button and Unnaeus (Dobson, 1953-54). ln any event. etght of the mneteen CommiSSion members voted against suspens10n. while a postseript to the Opinion noted that 'add1t10nal data have been obta1ned by the Secretary whKh persuade h1m that rt 1s by no means clear, under the Rules, that StiTJia should be transferred to the Barbary Ape .' At the Budapest meetmg '" t 926, one CommiSSioner was appomted to prepare recommendabons m thiS case. and 1n 1927 the CommiSSIO!l, ha ng Iaken careful note of the recent publicat1on of the US Public Health SeMce, unammous~ adopted the resolut1011 to (1) ent1re~ suppress the name Simta and (2) to enforce the Law of Pnonty, whKh apparent~ meant that the orang-utan was henceforth tobe called Pongo pygmaeus {Hopp1us, 1786). The decision was publtshed as Optnion No 114 {Sm1thsonian M& Coll. 73 [6), 1929). Until the late nineteenth century, the modern western name, orang-utan, which is derived from the Malay orang hutan, was never used locally to denote the ape. The Malay word means 'person (or people) of the forest', and was (is) commonly used derogatorily to indicate a person of a savage, crude or 'primitive' nature. It was coined by de Bondt, albeit spelled wrongly, as ourang outang, which would translate as a person with a debt. The name orang hutan was probably the most convenient synonym found by bis Malay interpreter for any one of the ape 's vernacular names given to de Bondt, perhaps something like maias, keo or kahui, as the ape is known in southwestern Kalimantan. When de Bondt's description ofEast Indian animals was published posthumously in 1658, the editor, the physician Willern Piso, or the publishers, the brothers Lodewijk and Daniel Elsevier, decided to enliven the text with what they probably believed tobe a fair representation ofthe unknown 'ourang outang'. The illustration in fact was a poor copy of a fictitious tropical 'wildman' or 'Ape' of earlier publications, such as can be found in B. Von Breydenbach's ]ourney to the Holy Land (1483-84), and notably in K.

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