Early Chinese Settlement in North Borneo

By : Justin Wong

In 1894, Mr. P. Brietag, the manager of a tobacco estate from Kampung Batu Putih in the Kinabatangan area, led the first expedition to Agop Batu Tulug, a limestone cave systems found in Sabah or North Borneo then. In 1965, Mrs. Barbara Harrison of the Sarawak Museum and a group from Sabah Museum started an archaeological study of the caves.

Source : http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Malaysia/East/Sabah/Kinabatangan/photo317934.htm

What they found inside the caves were human bones, more than 100 carved coffins believed to be 200 - 250 years of age, gongs, blowpipes, Chinese artefacts, ceramics and personal ornaments. There is a school of thought that these sites might be the former burial sites of an early Chinese settlement found in the Kinabatangan area.

There are scholars who believe that China had been trading with the inhabitants of Borneo as early as 900 AD, based on Chinese texts. Chinese junks trading with the Sulus in the Philippines referred to a kingdom or area south of the Philippines named Puni in 1252. In 1292, it is said that Kublai Khan sent an expedition to Borneo.

The indigenous Orang Sungai who inhabits the area along the Kinabatangan River since time immemorial has an oral tradition as to how the river got its name. They used to call the river, "Cina Batangan" or Chinese River. They say a Chinese adventurer sailed from China, through the Sulu Sea and came to the river mouth of the Kinabatangan River. He established a few settlements namely Mumiang, Sukau and Bilit along the 560 kilometre long river. These towns are still in existence today.

Source : http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/slideshow-photo/kinabatangan-river-in-the-morning-mist-by-travelpod-member-cawleyadventure-bilit-malaysia.html?sid=10340832&fid=tp-2

The jungle of the Kinabatangan area was bountiful! The Chinese found and traded edible bird's nests, rhinoceros horns, elephant ivories, hornbill casques, hardwood resins, damar, flexible rattan vines, beeswax, fragrant wood and oil rich illipe nuts with the Chinese emperor and wealthy mandarins.

Source : http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5586036

Eventually, the Chinese adventurer and his followers became a powerful group in the Kinabatangan area and the natives even started calling him a "Raja".  Salasilah Raja-Raja Brunei or Genealogy of The Brunei Kings, seems to validate the existence of these early Chinese settlements in Kibatangan. It identified the leader as Ong Sum Ping.

Ong Sum Ping is also known as Wong Song Ping and Huang Senping. However, he is better known by his Hokkien name in Brunei. Some suggested that he was from the Fujian province of China. In the late Yuan Dynasty, Ong together with his sister and followers, fled China to avoid the social unrest.

In another oral tradition, it is said that when Ong Sum Ping and his party reached the river mouth of the Kinabatangan River, they were exhausted after facing a shipping crisis. So exhausted were they that one of them dropped their arms into the river. Hence, the area had since then been called "Kina Batangan" - The place that the Chinese lost their arms. The natives, particularly the Dusuns, called the Chinese "Kina", quite similar to the malay word "Cina".

Chinese texts said that Ong Sum Ping went to Brunei in 1375. Sultan Muhammad Shah (1363 - 1402), whom was the first Sultan of Brunei, apparently welcomed him with open arms. He married off his daughter, Princess Ratna Dewi, to Ong Sum Ping and gave him the title Pengiran Maharaja Lela and Chief of Kinabatangan.

The Sultan also arranged to have his brother, Pengiran Bendahara Ahmad to marry Ong Sum Ping's sister and gave her the title Puteri Kinabatangan or Princess of Kinabatangan. Pengiran Bendahara Ahmad would later rule Brunei as Sultan Ahmad from 1408 to 1425.

Brunei was a fledgling power during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Shah and was under constant threat of a Sulu invasion. However, with the cooperation of these two regional powers i.e. Brunei and Kinabatangan, they managed to repel the Sulus. Brunei would go on to become a regional power culminating to its "Golden Age" between late 15th and early 16th century.

Ong Sum Ping would continue to expand his power base. Some credited him to having opened more Chinese towns and villages in what is now present day Kota Kinabalu. Ong Sum Ping is the only Chinese who has a street named after him in Brunei, "Jalan Ong Sum Ping".

There is an oral tradition of the Kadazandusun of their first encounter with the Chinese from the Kinabatangan and Labuk areas. One of the Chinese "heroes" asked for the hand of the Chief's daughter in marriage. The dowry was said to be seven huge jars plus copper and silverwares. During this encounter, the Kadazandusun was still living at their legendary place of origin, Nunuk Ragang. I am sure this is not the only example of inter-marriages between the natives and the early Chinese settlers.

These early Chinese settlers integrated themselves well into the local community. For example, if one is to go to Kuala Penyu during Chinese New Year, you would find some Dusun Tatana celebrating the festivity. Their houses would be decorated with lanterns and some houses would have altars. When I was young, I had always wondered about this but most of the people I asked simply said that their family had been doing this longer than they could remember. It is possible that their ancestors could have been part Chinese.

Interesting enough, the olden Chinese in Sabah who inter-married with the natives did not give Chinese names to their offspring. They named them for example, Bulangang, Sanagang, Manak etc. Why they did this? Well, I will find out next when there is a gathering of elders.

Why do I make the assumption that some of the natives in Kuala Penyu could have inter-married with some of these early Chinese settlers? Kuala Penyu was one of the early conquests of Sultan Muhammad Shah, it is a coastal area and would have been subject to attacks by the Sulu. It would be plausible that Ong Sum Ping could have sent some of his men there to reinforce the Sultan's men in defense of the area. Old folks recall the days when "Lanun Suluk" or Suluk Pirates would land on their shores to replenish their drinking water and food supply. They said, generally they wouldn't harm them if they co-operated. These old folks' encounters happened sometime in the late 19th century, long after Ong Sum Ping's era in 14th century but it serves to demonstrate that the area was accessible to the Sulu raiders.

Ong Sum Ping is also said to be a muslim even before he married into the royal household. He could have played a role in the spreading of Islam to the Orang Sungais whom are predominantly Muslims these days, in the Kinabatangan area.

Oral traditions is of course not the best source of factual information but it is interesting to note that some of them seem to corroborate with historical facts.  I hope I have entertained you with my piece which is not to be taken seriously but I hope it will make you curious enough to research Sabah's past on your own, if you happen to be a Sabahan reading this.

I leave you with the following suggested must read:

1. British North Borneo: An Account of its History, Resources and Native Tribes by Owen Rutter

2. Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia by Janet Hoskins

3. The Sulu Zone, 1768 - 1898 : The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and ethnicity in the transformation of a Southeast Asian maritime State by James Francis Warren