Talk 2025

The figure of Sandokan is so unique and central that the question of the historicity of this figure certainly arises. The narration of Sandokan's past (in chapter 14) in the first novel of the cycle in particular suggests that there is more to this character than a flourishing fantasy.
In this passage, Yanez is talking about Sandokan's past to Marianna. He is trying to explain to her how Sandokan happened to become the formidable 'Tiger of Malaysia'.

In this tale, Salgari describes the fate of Muluder/Marudu (Marudu) and assigns Sandokan the role of Marudu's heir apparent. Salgari mentions Koti/Kutai and Varauni/Brunei as the borders of the country.

Salgari further describes how this behavior became Sandokan's downfall, as his neighbors became jealous of the successful ruler. Salgari's description certainly corresponds to the political and geographical situation of the 19th century. Marudu's neighbours were the Spanish, the British, the Dutch, the sultanates of Kutei, and Brunei as Salgari told us in the first version.

In this book version, the fact that the Europeans first allied themselves with the locals, namely the Sultanate of Brunei, gives a fairly accurate account of the historical events that led to Marudu's fall in 1845. In later novels, Brunei remains the enemy of Sandokan and also threatens Sandokan's island Mompracem.

What is truly remarkable about Salgari's account is that he describes Marudu as a flourishing empire, which contrasts with the European reports of his time, where it was denigrated as a pirate hideout. Marudu was indeed establishing itself as the third power in northern Borneo - alongside Brunei and Sulu - until it was brutally and rather surprisingly brought down by the British attack.

So in history, Syarif Osman was the Raja of Marudu who ambitiously and successfully extended Marudu's borders to Brunei and Sulu. In doing so, he came into conflict with the British, especially James Brooke, who ruled Sarawak as the White Raja and wanted to extend his own sphere of influence over Brunei and have Labuan, the neighbouring island of Mompracem, under British suzerainty. He therefore defamed Syarif Osman as a pirate and had Marudu destroyed by the British Navy in 1845 after receiving sanctions from the Sultan of Brunei, Marudu's neighbour. Nothing more was heard of Syarif Osman after this event.

In Emilio Salgari's novels, Sandokan is the Raja of Marudu who was so ambitious that he kept expanding Marudu's borders until he came into conflict with native neighbours and European powers, who eventually plotted together to destroy Marudu, which they succeeded in doing. Sandokan was driven out and wandered the coasts of North Borneo, for years until he finally settled on the island of Mompracem.

Now one could assume that Salgari simply renamed the historical Syarif Osman Sandokan.

But there is a second account of past events in the novel number 7, that is: ‘Sandokan alla riscossa’, and this one speaks against equating Sandokan with Syarif Osman. This is primarily about Sandokan reconquering his old homeland, and now Salgari becomes more specific. In this story, he remains on the territory of Marudu, which was also known to the Europeans as Kini Balu and which Salgari also calls Kini Balu. In fact, this story begins in the bay of Marudu, which Sandokan is familiar with and where he has allies. Here about half of the novel takes place. But then the protagonists make their way southwards through the jungle and all kinds of adventures to Sandokan's actual home, namely the place where his father was the Raja: Lake Kini/Kinkini in the interior of North Borneo.

In this report, Sandokan's father is the active conqueror of further areas in Borneo - as far as the coast - and not Sandokan himself as in the first book of the cycle. The father is also mentioned in the 1883 version, but no longer in the book version. In the book version Salgari deleted the father altogether because – perhaps - it is strange that Sandokan should ascend a throne when his father is still alive; in book 7, he finally moved Sandokan's domain to where it is actually much closer to the historical Sandokong, namely more in the interior part of Borneo.

In book 7, Salgari explains that the Sandokan family has lived there for 200 years, comes from eastern Borneo and claims leadership, facts which actually apply to the family of the historical Sandokong. The previously conquered inland population is subservient to the family. Salgari refers to the inland inhabitants of Borneo as ‘Dayak’, which in his time was a collective term for various non-Malay ethnic groups. He would also categorise the Kadazan-Dusun in the Marudu and Kinabatangan regions of Sabah as ‘Dayak’. However, Salgari explicitly does not consider Sandokan to be a Dayak.
He calls the dominion ‘Kinabalu’, which in turn fits in with his narrative from the first novel, as ‘Marudu’ and ‘Kinabalu’ were described as identical in the historical sources by local Europeans in the first half of the 19th century.

Hunt lists the areas in Borneo in 1812 and writes that they are identical.When Sandokan succeeds in reclaiming the throne of his ancestors in book 7, it is also said that the whole area, from the bay of Marudu in the north, where the novel begins, to the lake in the south, belongs to him again:

Salgari moves Sandokan's hometown inland, which fits in perfectly with the home of the historical Sandokong. He lived in Melapi at the Kinabatangan River in the interior of the domain of Marudu. According to travel literature that mentions Lake Kinabalu, the Kinabatangan is also fed by this huge lake (Hoevell 1849: 76) or is associated with it (Tregonning 1954: 40).

Salgari thus portrays Sandokan as a ruler of an inland area in northern Borneo, as a raja from the area of Marudu or Kinabalu. Salgari may also have been aware that Brunei and the British were responsible for the downfall of Sandokan's homeland (Marudu) and that a certain power-mad – nameless - Briton, acting unofficially, was behind it.

According to Marudu oral tradition Sandokan had been a friend and confidant of Syarif Osman, he was his deputy, bodyguard and comrade-in-arms. They are said to have been very similar, but were not related to each other. Sandokan came from an area influenced by Sulu. According to the Limau-Limawan-tale, a person named Sandokong was the admiral ('Laksamana') of the sultan of Sulu and dominated the sea between Sulu and Malaya. Sandokong is also said to have assisted Syarif Osman in the battle against the British. He has had a close relationship with Syarif Osman.

In Sukau at the Kinabatangan, Sandokan and his mother are still remembered today, whose grave is said to known to some residents. In 2019, our guide showed me the old settlement site (Old Melapi) and the cemetery where Sandokong's mother, Adora(n), is said to be buried.. This site is usually not visited by locals out of respect for the old spirits.

This was also written down by the Italian journalist Andrea Semplici in 2003 as shown here.

The written sources on Sandokan are information from locals, recorded by various, mostly European authors who were on site. The written family trees are also included in written source material.

The oldest written document on Sandokong known to me was written by Bampfylde, an official of the British North Borneo Company (BNBC). Bampfylde had travelled to the Kinabatangan River and wrote a report of this voyage to the Governor of the BNBC, named William Hood Treacher, in February 1883. The story of the natives of the river, called the 'Segalud Buludupies' runs as follows:

Tom Harrisson, Curator of the Sarawak Museum from 1947 to 1966, quotes the text by Bampfylde (Harrisson 1966: 82 n) and deals with the history of the bird's nest caves at Kinabantangan himself. In this context, he also paid a visit to the owner. He writes (1966: 134):

Supriya Bhar conducted an interview with Pengiran Galpam in Sandakan on 11 April 1979. This is the same Pengiran that Tom Harrisson had already met and interviewed. She has listed a family tree in which the name Sindukung appears as an ancestor of Pengiran Galpam and also Sammah. In addition, she has recorded a legend of how the three brothers found the Gomantong cave (Paid, Sindukung und Kasannuddin).

Bampfylde, Harrisson and Bhar identified Sandokong as the grandfather of Pengiran Sammah. It is clear to Harrisson that Sandukung and Sandukur, as he is called in Bampfylde's record, which Harrison reproduces, are the same person.

I made contact with the descendants of Pengiran Galpam and conducted in 1997 an interview with more or less 30 members in Sandakan and they remembered their genealogy and the stories connected with it.
They drew up a family tree in which the founder of the family estate appears as ‘Sandukung’ and is the great-uncle of Pengiran Sammah.

The mother of Sandukung is named Adoran and the father Maringganlapasentdhan. They told me that the father was also a well-known personality who was called with the heroic title “Taribong Mandog Awan” which means in Malay “Harimau Udara” and in English “Tiger of the Air”. The male descendents were also called by similar heroic names but these are not remembered today.

Sandokong was – according to the interview – the founder of the Gomantong caves and therefore the founder of the wealth of the family. Sandokong is said to have been buried high up in a cave near Gomantong.

It is interesting that the genealogy starts five generations before Sandokong.

Salgari (1982: 42) writes in the review that Sandokan gives in ‘Sandokan alla riscossa’ that Sandokan's family comes from a warrior caste from eastern Borneo and has ruled Kini Balú for two hundred years. He even uses the Plural form “the Sandokans” ("I Sandokan")

The red flag with the tiger

The red tiger flag was actually the flag of Syarif Osman of Marudu.

The first mentioning of that flag in British reports goes back to an eyewitness of the battle of Marudu, named Pascoe, who took part in the battle on the British side and wrote of the flag.

However, since Pascoe did not publish his report on Marudu until April 1886, Emilio Salgari could not have used it as a source for his story about Sandokan, which he had already published three years earlier. He also couldn't understand English. He must have come across the tiger flag and Marudu elsewhere.

This constellation alone, that Sandokan flies the tiger flag and his home is in the Marudu region, suggests that Salgari's Sandokan epic is not invented, but is set against a historical background.

And here we are in midst the history of Syarif Osman who must have been a contemporary of Sandokong.

Syarif Osman had been the Raja of Marudu since at least the 1830s.

Under his charismatic leadership, Marudu developed into a strong, economically expanding kingdom, which also extended over many spheres of influence in the tradition of Malay-Bornean maritime coastal states (shown in red). Syarif Osman‘s authorization was based on his origin, his actions, the marriage to a Sulu princess as well as other marriages, his style of leadership, his charismatic qualities and, of course, the acceptance and loyalty of his followers. His descendants also took over positions of power in Marudu, so that his reign can be regarded neither as coincidental nor as usurpative. Similar to a Malay Raja, Syarif Osman built a fortress in the centre of his kerajaan, organised a military apparatus and above all seized hold of the trade. Under his reign, he united Marudu Bay and the islands offshore and exerted influence over districts that were located further away. Furthermore, he entered into alliances with other regional leaders. Syarif Osman was regarded as an ambitious and strong leader, whose government was effective and successful.

This brought him into conflict with James Brooke, who had established himself as Raja in Sarawak since the early 1840s and attempted to extend his influence to Brunei from 1844. Brooke also wanted to place the island of Labuan under British rule. Syarif Osman's position and influence in the still independent part of Borneo had been in competition with Brooke's claim to leadership.

To remove Osman, Brooke needed the official support of British Navy. To gain this support, Brooke declared that Syarif Osman was a pirate, as the Navy was deployed to combat piracy in the South China Sea.

So Brooke intensified his accusations against Syarif Osman through letter-writing campaigns designed to influence all the important authorities in London and India as well as the Navy officers on site. He finally won Admiral Cochrane's help, who destroyed Marudu on 19th August 1845.

Brooke's triumph in the journal reflected the aim of his defamation of Osman: he had destroyed Osman's "power".

Brooke had already demonstrated his radicalism in insisting on his claim to leadership by conducting the pirate campaigns of 1843 and 1844, in which he portrayed neighbouring river regents who did not want to submit to his leadership as pirates and had them destroyed with Captain Keppel's help.

This is what happened to Pengiran Mahkota, Syarif Sahap and Syarif Mular, Pengiran Usop and also Syarif Osman.

Syarif Osman's authority, probably more far-reaching than that of other independent rulers in North Borneo in the early 1840s, may have been too dangerous for Brooke. He undoubtedly saw Syarif Osman as a leader, but portrayed his leadership role as illegitimate: Brooke's defamation turned a "leader" into a "pirate leader".

Before Brooke's accusations, the Governor-General in Manila, Claveria, and the British Governor in Singapore, Butterworth, had recognized Syarif Osman as Raja of Marudu.

Even Brooke's contemporary Belcher saw Syarif Osman as the "only energetic ruler":

Belcher's attribution of Osman's ability to grant protection to the British merchants stands in contrast to the accusations of piracy made by Brooke and the British officers.

Syarif Osman of Marudu was regarded as a pirate in 19th and most 20th century literature, based on statements by James Brooke and the officers of the British Navy.

However, Syarif Osman was mainly a charismatic leader, a Raja, who, using his political, economical and organizational abilities, was about to develop Marudu as a Malay-Bornean maritime coastal state, as his kerajaan.

That was very very roughly the summary of my book from 2003.

Fortunately, things have changed since then regarding the accusation of piracy and the role that Syarif Osman played in history.

Syarif Osman has no longer disappeared into oblivion - or rather, dealing with him was no longer avoided because of his supposedly bad reputation. People are proud of him, or at least interested in him.

So the view of Syarif Osman has changed in the last two decades. The reason for this may be that Syarif Osman is no longer ostracised as a pirate in official historiography.