Somers Heidhues Mary. The First Two Sultans of Pontianak. In: Archipel , volume 56, L'horizon nousantarien. Borneo's West Coast in the 18th Century. In the 18th century, the West Coast of Borneo Kalimantan was home to a number of small coastal and riverine trading polities, most of them in Muslim Malay hands. The most important of these was Sukadana [Map 1], which stood in a loose tributary relationship to Banten and controlled much of the Kapuas River trade.
This river, over km long, drains an immense territory inhabited mostly by non-Muslim peoples usually called "Dayak. Landak, some distance inland on the river of that name, controlled West Borneo's only source of diamonds.
Like Sukadana, Landak was a tributary of Banten. Another riverine kingdom was Sanggau, far inland on the Kapuas ; at the time, the Kapuas was sometimes called the Sanggau River. Sanggau had deposits of good-quality gold, West Borneo's second most valuable product. Near the coast in the north, Sambas was the most important state ; it was a former tributary of Brunei.
Finally, Mempawah, also a coastal state, just north of the Kapuas outlet, was something of a newcomer. A Bugis adventurer, Daeng Menambun, one of the five Bugis brothers whose story is. Archipel 56, Paris, , pp. Map 1. Malay principalities in West Borneo in capitals , with principal rivers. The First Two Sultans of Pontianak Bugis polities followed the pattern of other, Malay, principalities.
These early states lived for the most part from their domination of trade. Branson's model of Malay port kingdoms holds for Kalimantan as well ; these ports controlled the traffic of a rivershed and exercised authority over the upstream or hulu peoples. The inland people collected forest products or raised agricultural goods, marketing them through the port. In exchange they acquired imported articles : cloth, iron, tobacco, salt, and the much sought-after large Chinese earthenware jars, called tempayan, from the ruler who controlled the port.
