Manasara Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Manasara-Shilpashastra; III. Manasara on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Manasara: Translation; V. Architecture of Manasara: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v6.c41.s19.1

v6.c41.s19.1

The term might have been derived from the Malay words ‘Si Labih’ (land up there), or ‘Seli-besi,’ signifying iron kris. ‘Celebes itself is fourth in size of the various islands, surpassed in this respect by New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra itself. Its length is roughly about five hundred miles, and its width is so varying that, while at the middle it is a scant twenty miles, at the north end it is over a hundred.’ The inhabitants of the interior and the central Celebes, known as the head-hunting Toradjas, are still in a savage condition ; only those of the Minahasa District in the north, a small area in the neighbourhood of Macassar, and a few scattered settlements in near proximity to the coasts, are partly modernized. The people of the southern end of Celebes are nearly all Macassarese or Bugis, the latter being the seamen of the Archipelago, the greatest navigators and the most enterpising traders’.³