Bianca Gerlich Finding the Island Mompracem. the Problem of Mapping the Northwest Coast of Borneo from 16Thto 20Th Century M

BIANCA GERLICH FINDING THE ISLAND MOMPRACEM. THE PROBLEM OF MAPPING THE NORTHWEST COAST OF BORNEO FROM 16THTO 20TH CENTURY ompracem, the island of the Malay freedom figther Sandokan in the M novels of the Italian Emilio Salgari, appeared on maps of the 16th- 19th centuries under several variants1 of that name, but on modern maps of the 20th century it is no longer found. In examining the three symbols2 that stand for the freedom struggle of Sandokan, I have followed Robert Nicholl's investigation,3 that the island today is named Keraman.4 Inspired by the questioning by Negro5 who identified with Mompracem an underwater reef, I have now - almost ret rospectively - dealt intensively with the problem of the localization of that is land. Robert Nicholl has dealt academically with the history of cartography of Brunei as well as the local names of and around the island of Borneo. He con cludes that because of the location and the resulting strategic importance of the island Mompracem, which is marked on old maps even very large, the island must be the present island Keraman. Negro doubted this statement. As well as Nicholl he noticed that the location of the island was rearranged more and more to the west on maps over time. Negro, however, believes that the younger the maps in relation to the mentioning of the name of Mompracem, the more cor rect the material should be. Therefore he assumes the more westerly positions as the correct ones and identifies Mompracem as a place in the ocean which lies 1 - The first mentioning in the material I have used is "Mopiasem", the majority named the is land "Monpracem" and in the 18th/19th centuries there were some maps on which the island was named "Mompracem". See list of map material in Appendix 5 where the name variants of the island were listed. I will call the island "Mompracem" hereafter. 2 - Gerlich 1996, Gerlich 1998. 3 - Nicholl I 976: I 04. 4 - The island Keraman (or Kuraman) belongs to Malaysia. It is part of the "Labuan Marine Park", which was developed between 2001 to 2005, and offers possibilities of a gentle nature tourism with appropriate facilities. In 2004, there were independence aspirations of a small group of emigrants from Brunei. 5 - Negro deals with the location of the island Mompracem, among others, in his book. He compares the old maps with satellite projections and from that, he attempts to determine the position of the island Mompracem. Unfortunately there is a lack of bibliographical informa tion. An examination of historical maps itself is missing entirely. Orientr Modn-no, XCII, 2012, I, p. 5-20 © lstituto per l'Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino - Roma 6 BIANCA GERLICH opposite of the coastal area between Muara and Kuala Belair in the present-day Sultanate of Brunei, namely the coral reef "Ampa Patches".6 An island is not there. In his opinion, Mompracem could have been sunk in the sea during the past 150 years or even, more simply, was always the name of a ree£ Consequently, the question of the reliability of the maps arises as well as the reason for the various details regarding the location and the names. The maps ofthe 16th century Mompracem appears first on Portuguese maps. Medieval European, Chinese and Javanese7 sources do not mention this name. Also in connection with the visit of the Italian Ludovico Barthema in 1507 in Brunei no records regarding Mompra cem are known. The name is also not to be found on early Portuguese maps that have been created as a result of the first visits to Brunei, for example the map of Pigafetta (July 1521 in Brunei), or of Diego Ribero, which has been recorded on the basis of data collected during the voyage of Dom Jorge de Menezes in 1526. The maps, which have been created until 1540 and were based on travel material from the 1530s, are likewise rudimentary. These maps do not show the entire is land of Borneo, but only the north west coast. Only in the 1540s, when the maps got more accurate and complete, the name Mompracem appears in vari ants. 8 The Portuguese had conquered Malacca in 1511 and thereby interrupted the trade between Malacca and Brunei, so that they, wishing to reasume the trade in their own interest, travelled for their first time to Brunei only three years later. Years later, Brunei gained importance for the Portuguese as a holding station on the route to the Moluccas. After the visit of Dom Jorge de Menezes 1526, Brunei was regarded as a favorable route to Ternate in the Moluccas (Spice Islands). Only at the beginning of the 17th century, the Portuguese lost the spice trade to the Dutch as well as the city of Malacca in 1641. Thus the maps were created in the period in which the Portuguese were active and often on site in Brunei. According to Nicholl (1980: 181) the great progress of these maps in comparison to medieval ones was, that they were created by sailors for sailors. Important to them was not so much the artistic value, but the accuracy. For ex ample, the first letter of a name stands exactly at the geographical phenomenon that refers to the name, even if it means the name had to be written on the head. 9 Nicholl describes the mapping by the Portuguese as "great deviding line" 6 - See map in Appendix 1. 7 - Broek (I 962: 13 I) shows a map of Borneo based on Javanese chronicles of the 14th cen tury; parts of Borneo were at chat time under the reign of Majapahic. See Nicholl 1980. 8- Raiola (1975: 186) mentions a map from 1545 as the first, on which Mompracem can be seen. le comes from a Portuguese who remained anonymous and is due co Raiola to be found at the museum in Vienna. He also shows a map of Lopo Homen from the year 1554, on which the island is named "mopiasem". 9 - Incidentally, chis circumstance facilitates the identification of the island Mompracem in contrast to lacer maps, where the name sometimes had been inserted at any place and for deco rative purpose. In the Portuguese maps it can be seen exactly co which island the name refers, .

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