Chapter UJUNGTANAH to UMBRELLA of U by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Ihre lange Pfeil, die Sie von grossen Bögen, einer Mannsläng hoch, hurtig schiessen; in Banda aber tähten Ihre Weiber grossen Schaden damit. Denn Sie sich auf die Báume setzten, und kleine Fischgeräht damit schmierten, und durch ein gehöhlert Röhrlein, von einem Baum, auf unser Volck schossen, mit grossen machtigen Schaden.” —Saar, Ost-Indianische Funfzehen-Jahrige Kriegs-Dienste … 1672, pp. 46–47.

1667.—“Enquiries for Suratt, and other parts of the East Indies.

“19. Whether it be true, that the only Antidote hitherto known, against the famous and fatal macassar-poison, is human ordure, taken inwardly? And what substance that poison is made of?”—Phil. Trans., vol. ii. Anno 1667 (Proceedings for March 11, 1666, i.e. N.S. 1667), d. 417.

1682.—“The especial weapons of the Makassar soldiers, which they use against their enemies, are certain pointed arrowlets about a foot in length. At the foremost end these are fitted with a sharp and pointed fish-tooth, and at the butt with a knob of spongy wood.

“The points of these arrows, long before they are to be used, are dipt in poison and then dried.

“This poison is a sap that drips from the bark of the branches of a certain tree, like resin, from pine-trees.

“The tree grows on the Island Makasser, in the interior, and on three or four islands of the Bugisses (see BUGIS), round about Makassar. It is about the height of the clove-tree, and has leaves very similar.

“The fresh sap of this tree is a very deadly poison; indeed its virulence is incurable.

“The arrowlets prepared with this poison are not, by the Makasser soldiers, shot with a bow, but blown from certain blow-pipes (uit zekere spatten gespat); just as here, in the country, people shoot birds by blowing round pellets of clay.

“They can with these in still weather hit their mark at a distance of 4 rods.

“They say the Makassers themselves know no remedy against this poison … for the poison presses swiftly into the blood and vital spirits, and causes a violent inflammation. They hold (however) that the surest remedy for this poison is …” (and so on, repeating the antidote already mentioned).—Joan Nieuhof’s Zee en Land Reíze, &c., pp. 217–218.

c. 1681.—“Arbor Toxicaria, Ipo.

“I have never yet met with any poison more horrible and hateful, produced by any vegetable growth, than that which is derived from this lactescent tree.

Moreover beneath this tree, and in its whole circumference to the distance of a stone-cast, no plant, no shrub, or herbage will grow; the soil beneath it is barren, blackened, and burnt as it were … and the atmosphere about it is so polluted and poisoned that the birds which alight upon its branches become giddy and fall dead * * * all things perish which are touched by its emanations, insomuch that every animal shuns it and keeps away from it, and even the birds eschew flying by it.

“No man dares to approach the tree without having his arms, feet, and head wrapped round with linen … for Death seems to have planted his foot and his throne beside this tree. …” (He then tells of a venomous basilisk with two feet in front and fiery eyes, a crest, and a horn, that dwelt under this tree). * * *

“The Malays call it Cayu Upas, but in Macassar and the rest of Celebes it is called Ipo.

“It grows in desert places, and amid bare hills, and is easily discerned from afar, there being no other tree near it.”

—Rumphii, Herbarium Amboinense, ii. 263–268.

1685.—“I cannot omit to set forth here an account of the poisoned missiles of the Kingdom of Macassar, which the natives of that kingdom have used against our soldiers, bringing them to sudden death. It is extracted from the Journal of the illustrious and gallant admiral, H. Cornelius Spielman. … The natives of the kingdom in question possess a singular art of shooting arrows by blowing through canes, and wounding with these, insomuch that if the skin be but slightly scratched the wounded die in a twinkling.”

(Then the old story of the only antidote). …

The account follows extracted from the Journal.

“There are but few among the Macassars and Bugis who possess the real knowledge needful for selecting the poison, so as to distinguish between what is worthless and what is highest quality. … From the princes (or Rajas) I have understood that the soil in which the trees affording the poison grow, for a great space round about produces no grass nor any other vegetable growth, and that the poison is properly a water or liquid, flowing from a bruise or cut made in the bark of those trees, oozing out as sap does from plants that afford milky juices. … When the liquid is being drawn from the wounded tree, no one should carelessly approach it so as to let the liquid touch his hands, for by such contact all the joints become stiffened and contracted. For this reason the collectors make use of long bamboos, armed with sharp iron points. With these they stab the tree with great force, and so get the sap to flow into the canes, in which it

speedily hardens.”—Dn. Corn. Spielman … de Telis deleterio Veneno infectis in Macassar, et aliis Regnis Insulae Celebes; ex ejus Diario extracta. Huic praemittitur brevis narratio de hac materia Du. Andreae Cleyeri.