Article

Pigs

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Pigs

Taxonomic Diversity and Systematic Revision

The genus Sus in the Malay sub-region was the subject of intensive taxonomic revision throughout the early twentieth century, driven by the accumulation of museum specimens from Borneo, Sumatra, the Riau Archipelago, and the Malay Peninsula. G. S. Miller’s monograph of 1905–1906 established the foundational framework, describing Sus gargantua from south-eastern Borneo as the largest known living pig (skull length 570 mm in a young adult), separating the Peninsular wild pig from the Indian Sus cristatus under the name Sus jubatus, and erecting numerous island species from the West Sumatra chain, the Natunas, and Great Nicobar [1]. C. Boden Kloss, curator at the Raffles Museum in Singapore, reviewed this work in 1907, noting its full descriptions, identification keys, measurements, and numerous plates of skulls and mandibular teeth, while expressing reservation about Miller’s decision to separate Sus jubatulus on the basis of a single specimen from a small island close to the mainland [1].

The most sustained taxonomic debate concerned the status of the bearded pig. Miller had originally described Sus oi from the Indragiri River in eastern Sumatra, distinguishing it from the Bornean Sus barbatus primarily on the morphology of the third lower molar—three cross ridges with a terminal heel in barbatus versus two in oi [2], [3]. Kloss’s 1921 study challenged this distinction, demonstrating that three of his six Bornean specimens exhibited the supposedly Sumatran molar pattern, thereby undermining the diagnostic reliability of that character [3]. He proposed instead that the Sumatran form be maintained as a subspecies, S. b. oi, on the basis of cranial metrics: a longer muzzle, longer mandibular symphysis, slightly deeper mandible, and a more concave facial profile [3]. Kloss concluded that only three real species of pig existed in the Malayan sub-region (excluding the Philippines and Celebes): Sus scrofa (encompassing S. cristatus, S. vittatus, and all common wild swine forms), Sus barbatus (including S. b. oi), and Sus verrucosus of Java [3].

Robinson and Moulton, writing in 1922, went further, rejecting the validity of Sus oi even at subspecific rank. They argued that the dental characters given by Miller were “too variable to be of any use” and that the cranial differences Kloss had identified could be explained by the varying age and innate variability of the specimens examined [4]. They retained Sus barbatus as a single name to cover the bearded pig of Borneo, Sumatra, the Riau Archipelago, and the Malay Peninsula [4]. The enigmatic Sus gargantua, based on a single skull from south-eastern Borneo, was left in limbo by both Kloss and Robinson and Moulton, who noted they had no material on which to base a firm opinion [4], [3].

The Bearded Pig: Ecology and Migration

The bearded pig (Sus barbatus) is the dominant wild suid of Borneo, and its ecology was documented in detail by P. Pfeffer during a year-long field study in the river basins of East Kalimantan from July 1956 to July 1957 [5]. Pfeffer distinguished between a resident sedentary population and a transitory migratory population, identifying two principal annual migration pulses following fixed routes from the upper Sembakung, Sesayap, and Malinau basins southward toward the Mahakam, occurring in August–September and December–January [5]. During peak migration, herds of 20–30 or more crossed rivers simultaneously; in 1954, thousands of carcasses accumulated at Tanjung Selor, prompting the Muslim Malay population to declare “war” on the Dayak hunters responsible [5].

The migrations resist explanation by food availability alone, since migrating animals are often fat and the movements occur regardless of local fruiting conditions [5]. Pfeffer could not determine whether the movements represented seasonal round-trips or definitive emigrations [5]. J. Caldecott, in his supplementary commentary based on fieldwork in Sarawak during the early 1980s, proposed a “phenological mosaic” model in which pigs aggregate around fruiting areas of submontane Lithocarpus (oak) forests, breed, and then disperse in pulses as fruiting dies away from one locality to the next, with the oak forests acting as a nutritional subsidy that fuels both reproduction and long-distance movement [5].

Adult males routinely reach 100–150 kg, with some individuals attaining 200 kg during fruit seasons; tusks measure 25–30.5 cm in males and 19–21 cm in females, with exceptional curled tusks reaching 44–46 cm [5]. Subcutaneous fat thickness increases from 3 cm at the neck two weeks into a fruit season to 5–6 cm, and up to 9 cm, four to six weeks later [5]. Pfeffer also recorded a previously unreported association between the bearded pig and the crested wood partridge (Rollulus rouloul), in which the birds feed on fruit fragments dropped by the pig and appear to remove external parasites [5].

The species’ presence in the Malay Peninsula was authenticated in 1922 by Robinson and Moulton, who documented two specimens from Pekan, Pahang: a fully adult female obtained by Dr. W. S. Leicester and a solitary boar shot by a local hunter at Sungei Genek, two miles upriver from Pekan town [4]. The boar weighed 180 katis (approximately 240 pounds) in an emaciated state; the hunter, who had kept a hunting pack for thirty-three years and slaughtered thousands of pigs, estimated it would have scaled 230 katis or more in condition [4]. Robinson and Moulton argued that the species was not indigenous to the peninsula but rather an occasional visitor from Borneo or the Riau Archipelago, noting that the animal’s rarity and the absence of any other authenticated records pointed to a fortuitous establishment rather than a resident population [4].

Domestic Pigs and Ritual Deposition in Sarawak

The antiquity of domesticated pigs in Borneo was established by Lord Medway in 1973, who demonstrated that domesticated pigs of Sus scrofa descent were present in Sarawak by the Neolithic period and that the ritual deposition of pig jaw-bones in funerary contexts persisted with remarkable continuity through to the Ming period and beyond [6]. Drawing on osteological specimens from two Sarawak Museum cave excavations—Megala E and Lobang Kudih—Medway showed that the pigs represented were not the indigenous bearded pig but imported domestic stock [6].

At Megala E, a single full-grown pig’s mandible was recovered from a Neolithic burial context dated by carbon-14 to 1165 ± 240 BC [6]. Dental measurements placed this animal well below the range of the bearded pig and separable from the Eurasian Wild Pig and Javan Warted Pig, identifying it as a domestic S. scrofa [6]. At Lobang Kudih, a small funerary cave on the Sungei Terus near Beluru, Medway examined 112 jaw fragments representing at most 94 individual pigs, all attributable to a small, homogeneous domestic breed [6]. The cave was used exclusively for burial, with associated artifacts dating its occupation to the late thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, most probably the latter part of the fifteenth century [6].

Medway’s analysis extended beyond simple taxonomic identification. He documented the condition of the jaws (unbroken at deposition, fractured post-mortem), the age distribution of the animals (a marked preference for 5–13 month old pigs, comprising two-thirds of the sample), and the morphological signs of domestic selection (foreshortened toothrows, reduced diastemata, crowded teeth) [6]. The Kudih pig’s toothrow is markedly foreshortened compared to the bearded pig: total jaw length ranges 168–187 mm versus 285–370 mm in S. barbatus, and anterior diastemata are reduced to 2.0–2.4 mm versus 10.3–24.5 mm [6]. Age-class analysis shows 62 per cent (55 of 89 aged specimens) fell in the 5–13 month range, with unweaned piglets entirely absent and animals over 24 months proportionally scarce [6].

The ethnographic dimension is integral to Medway’s argument. He cites Hose and McDougall’s early twentieth-century accounts of Kenyah and Kayan funeral rites involving pig jaw-bones, and corroborates these with interviews conducted in 1973 with Lian Labang and Tusau Padang [6]. The practice of retaining pig jaws for ritual purification, as charms, or as burial accompaniments is shown to be a persistent cultural feature, linking the archaeological deposits at both caves to living tradition [6]. Modern domestic pigs from an Iban longhouse near Engkilili have permanent dentition falling within the range of the Kudih pig, confirming the continuity of this small breed in Sarawak to the present day [6].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on pigs spans more than seven decades and reflects shifting priorities from taxonomic description to ecological and archaeological investigation. The earliest contributions, by Kloss and Miller in the 1900s and 1910s, were fundamentally taxonomic in character, driven by the accumulation of museum specimens and the need to delineate species boundaries within the genus Sus [2], [1], [3]. Kloss’s 1906 note on Sus oi consolidated the original description by Miller with his own examination of a second specimen and closed with a pointed rebuttal of Lydekker’s claim that the species belonged to the fauna of the Malay Peninsula, arguing instead that the fauna of the Rio-Linga Archipelago was entirely allied to that of Sumatra [2]. The subsequent debate over the validity of Sus oi as a distinct taxon, conducted between Kloss and Robinson and Moulton in the 1920s, exemplifies the period’s reliance on small series of skulls and the difficulty of drawing species boundaries from limited material [4], [3].

The 1970s and 1980s marked a decisive shift toward integrative approaches. Medway’s 1973 article connected archaeological faunal remains to ethnographic ritual practice, a methodological approach that anticipated later integrative work in Bornean archaeology [6]. Pfeffer and Caldecott’s 1986 article bridged the gap between Pfeffer’s detailed but linguistically isolated French-language observations of 1959 and the emerging English-language conservation literature of the 1980s, while providing the first comparative framework between East Kalimantan and Sarawak bearded pig populations [5]. In Sarawak, bearded pigs contributed 32 per cent of all meat and fish consumed at 63 interior boarding schools in 1984–1985, and at least 90 per cent of the estimated 54 kg of wild meat consumed per person per year in undisturbed areas [5]. This quantification of the species’ role in the subsistence economy of Borneo’s forest peoples represented a new dimension of inquiry absent from the earlier taxonomic literature.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. C.B. Kloss and G.S. Miller (1907). Malayan pigs: a recent zoological paper. G.S. Miller’s notes on Malayan pigs JSBRAS 49: 67–69. Read on JSTOR
  2. C.B. Kloss (1906). The new Sumatran pig JSBRAS 45: 55–60.
  3. C.B. Kloss (1921). Malaysian bearded pigs JSBRAS 83: 147–150.
  4. J.C. Moulton and H.C. Robinson (1922). The bearded pig (Sus barbatus) in the Malay Peninsula JSBRAS 85: 202–205. Read on JSTOR
  5. J. Caldecott and P. Pfeffer (1986). The bearded pig in East Kalimantan and Sarawak JMBRAS 59(2): 81–100.
  6. Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, Lord (Earl of Cranbrook) Medway (1973). The antiquity of domesticated pigs in Sarawak JMBRAS 46(2): 169–178. Read on JSTOR