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Title: The Pagan Tribes of Borneo
Author: Charles Hose and William McDougall
Release Date: July, 2002 [Etext #3307]
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This Etext Created by Jeroen Hellingman
The Pagan Tribes of Borneo
A Description of Their Physical Moral and Intellectual Condition
With Some Discussion of their Ethnic Relations
by Charles Hose and William McDougall
With an Appendix on the Physical Characters of the Races of Borneo
by A. C. Haddon
In Two Volumes
Preface
In writing this book we have aimed at presenting a clear picture of the
pagan tribes of Borneo as they existed at the close of the nineteenth
century. We have not attempted to embody in it the observations
recorded by other writers, although we have profited by them and have
been guided and aided by them in making our own observations. We have
rather been content to put on record as much information as we have
been able to obtain at first hand, both by direct observation of the
people and of their possessions, customs, and manners, and by means
of innumerable conversations with men and women of many tribes.
The reader has a right to be informed as to the nature of the
opportunities we have enjoyed for collecting our material, and we
therefore make the following personal statement. One of us (C. H.) has
spent twenty-four years as a Civil Officer in the service of the Rajah
of Sarawak; and of this time twenty-one years were spent actually in
Sarawak, while periods of some months were spent from time to time
in visiting neighbouring lands -- Celebes, Sulu Islands, Ternate,
Malay Peninsula, British North Borneo, and Dutch Borneo. Of the
twenty-one years spent in Sarawak, about eighteen were passed in the
Baram district, and the remainder mostly in the Rejang district. In
both these districts, but especially in the Baram, settlements and
representatives of nearly all the principal peoples are to be found;
and the nature of his duties as Resident Magistrate necessitated a
constant and intimate intercourse with all the tribes of the districts,
and many long and leisurely journeys into the far interior, often
into regions which had not previously been explored. Such journeys,
during which the tribesmen are the magistrate's only companions
for many weeks or months, and during which his nights and many of
his days are spent in the houses of the people, afford unequalled
opportunities for obtaining intimate knowledge of them and their
ways. These opportunities have not been neglected; notes have been
written, special questions followed up, photographs taken, and sketches
made, throughout all this period.
In the years 1898 -- 9 the second collaborator (W. McD.) spent the
greater part of a year in the Baram district as a member of the
Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, which, under the leadership
of Dr. A. C. Haddon, went out to the Torres Straits in the year
1897. During this visit we co-operated in collecting material for a
joint paper on the animal cults of Sarawak;[1] and this co-operation,
having proved itself profitable, suggested to us an extension of
our joint program to the form of a book embodying all the information
already to hand and whatever additional information might be obtainable
during the years that one of us was still to spend in Borneo. The
book therefore may be said to have been begun in the year 1898 and
to have been in progress since that time; but it has been put into
shape only during the last few years, when we have been able to come
together for the actual writing of it.
During the year 1899 Dr. A. C. Haddon spent some months in the Baram
district, together with other members of the Cambridge Expedition
(Drs. C. G. Seligmann, C. S. Myers, and Mr. S. Ray); and we wish to
express our obligation to him for the friendly encouragement in, and
stimulating example of, anthropological field work which he afforded
us during that time, as well as for later encouragement and help
which he has given us, especially in reading the proofs of the book
and in making many helpful suggestions. We are indebted to him also
for the Appendix to this book, in which he has stated and discussed
the results of the extensive series of physical measurements of the
natives that he made, with our assistance, during his visit to Sarawak.
We have pleasure in expressing here our thanks to several other
gentlemen to whom we are indebted for help of various kinds -- for
permission to reproduce several photographs, to Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis,
the intrepid explorer of the interior of Dutch Borneo, who in his
two fine volumes (QUER DURCH BORNEO) has embodied the observations
recorded during two long journeys in the interior; to Mr. H. Ling Roth
for the gift of the blocks used in the preparation of his well-known
work, THE NATIVES OF SARAWAK AND BRITISH NORTH BORNEO, many of which
we have made use of; to Dr. W. H. Furness, author of THE HOME LIFE
OF BORNEO HEAD-HUNTERS (1902), for several photographic plates made
by him during his visits to the Baram in the years 1897 and 1898;
to Drs. C. G. Seligmann and C. S. Myers for permission to reproduce
several photographs; to Mr. R. Shelford, formerly Curator of the
Sarawak Museum, for his permission to incorporate a large part of
a paper published jointly with one of us (C. H.) on tatu in Borneo,
and for measurements of Land Dayaks made by him; to Mr. R. S. Douglas,
formerly Assistant Officer in the Baram district and now Resident of
the Fourth Division of Sarawak, for practical help genially afforded
on many occasions.
Finally, it is our agreeable duty to acknowledge our obligation to
H.H. the Rajah of Sarawak, who welcomed to his country the members of
the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, and without whose enlightened
encouragement of scientific work on the part of his officers this
book would never have been written.
C. H.
W. McD.
JULY 1912.
Supplementary Preface by one of the Authors
I feel that it is necessary to supplement our joint-preface with some
few words of apology for, and explanation of, the appearance of my
name on the title-page of this book. For the book is essentially an
attempt to set forth in condensed form the mass of knowledge of the
tribes of Borneo acquired by Dr. Hose in the course of a quarter of
a century's intimate study of, and sympathetic companionship with,
the people of the interior. My own part in its production has been
merely that of a midwife, though I may perhaps claim to have helped
in the washing and dressing of the infant as well as in its delivery,
and even to have offered some useful advice during the long years of
pregnancy. And, since it is more difficult to present a brief and
popular account of any complex subject the more intimate is one's
knowledge of it, I may fairly hope that my superficial acquaintance
with the pagan tribes of Borneo has been a useful ally to Dr. Hose's
profound and extensive knowledge of them; I have therefore gladly
accepted my friend's generous invitation to place my name beside his
as joint-author of this work.
W. McD.
Contents
Chapter I
Geography of Borneo
1
Chapter II
History of Borneo
8
Chapter III
General Sketch of the Peoples of Borneo
28
Chapter IV
Material Conditions of the Pagan Tribes of Borneo
43
Chapter V
The Social System
63
Chapter VI
Agriculture
97
Chapter VII
The Daily Life of a Kayan Long House
116
Chapter VIII
Life on the Rivers
131
Chapter IX
Life in the Jungle
143
Chapter X
War
158
Chapter XI
Handicrafts
193
Chapter XII
Decorative Art
224
Chapter XIII
Ideas of Spiritual Existences and the Practices Arising from Them
1
Chapter XIV
Ideas of the Soul Illustrated by Burial Customs, Soul-Catching,
and Exorcism
28
Chapter XV
Animistic Beliefs Connected with Animals and Plants
51
Chapter XVI
Magic, Spells, and Charms
115
Chapter XVII
Myths, Legends, and Stories
136
Chapter XVIII
Childhood and Youth of a Kayan
153
Chapter XIX
The Nomad Hunters
177
Chapter XX
Moral and Intellectual Peculiarities
194
Chapter XXI
Ethnology of Borneo
223
Chapter XXII
Government
257
Appendix
The Physical Characters of the Races of Borneo. By A. C. Haddon
311
Index
343
List of Plates
1. Young Kayan Chief with middle-class Companion (in Colour).
FRONTISPIECE
2. Bruni, the pile-built Capital of the Sultans of Bruni 2
3. A Jungle Path near Marudi, Baram District 4
4. A Limestone Hill at Panga in Upper Sarawak 6
5. Mount Dulit from the Tinjar River 8
6. (A) Keltie Falls, Mount Dulit, Sarawak. (B) Kenyahs stopping
to camp for the Night on the Baram River 10
7. The Rejang River emerging from the central mountain Region
12
8. Gorge in the Rejang River above the entrance of Baloi
Peh 14
9. The Rejang River winding through the Hill Country 16
10. The Rejang River about 300 Miles above its Mouth 16
11. Jungle enveloped in thick Moss on Summit of Mount Dulit 18
12. Head of the Rejang River 20
13. In the Headwaters of the Baram River 22
14. Lioh Matu (the Place of a Hundred Islands), at the Head of
the Baram River 24
15. Fanny Rapid in the Pata River, Baram District 26
16. A Sea Dayak or Iban 28
17. Profile of Sea Dayak of Plate 16 28
18. A Sea Dayak Woman 30
19. Kayan Family of the Upper Rejang 32
20. An Uma Pliau (Kayan) Girl of the Baram District 32
21. Buling, the Son of a Kenyah Chief of the Baram District 34
22. (A) A curly-haired Kayan of the Baram. (B) Aban Tingan,
a famous Kenyah Warrior, younger Brother of Tama Bulan 36
23. Klemantans of the Tinjar District, and one old Kayan Chief
of Baloi, Laki Bo, wearing black Head-dress (back row, second figure,
left) 38
24. Long Pokuns (Klemantans) of Tinjar River 38
25. Kalabit (Murut) Chief (in centre) with Followers, from the
Source of the Baram River 40
26. Punans of Tinjar River 40
27. Tama Bulan Wang, the Kenyah Penghulu of the Baram District
42
28. Kayan Girl from the Upper Kotei District 44
29. Youthful Sea Dayaks in gala Dress 44
30. Sea Dayak Woman wearing Coat and Petticoat ornamented with
Shells 46
31. Sulau, the Wife of a Kayan Chief, displaying her Collection
of valuable old Beads 46
32. A Barawan Woman (Klemantan) of the Tinjar 48
33. Malanau Infant wearing Apparatus for moulding of the
Head 48
34. A Long House in the Baram District 50
35. Murik Village of Long Tamala, Baram District 50
36. Gallery of a Kayan House at Long Lama, Baram District 52
37. Interior of a Kayan Dwelling-room 52
38. Heads hanging in the Gallery of a Kayan House 54
39. Beneath a Kayan House. To the left the Altar-posts for
Offerings can be seen 54
40. Large Barn in which PADI is stored 56
41. Iban House 56
42. Gallery of Iban House 56
43. Iban Seat-mats. Iban Seed-baskets 58
44. (B) Tobacco-boxes; (C) Wooden Plate for rolling Cigarettes;
(G) Gourd for Pith-heads of Darts; (P) Tobacco-pipes; (FP) Fire-piston;
(F) Nose-flute 58
45. Kenyah Woman's Hat. Kayan Tawak and Gongs 60
46. Ningka, a valuable old Sea Dayak Jar 60
47. Old earthenware Vessels much prized by all the Tribes 62
48. Ibans bargaining over old Jars 62
49. Tama Usong, leading Kayan Chief of the Baram District 64
50. Aban Deng, the Chief of the Long Wats (Klemantan) of the
Baram District 66
51. Sebop (Klemantan) Chief haranguing his Followers 70
52. Kenyahs of the Pata River. The Men wearing Caps and the one
squatting on the left are of the upper Class the others are of the
middle Class 74
53. A Kayan making Fire by Friction with a PUSA 78
54. A Corpse in a Barawan (Klemantan) House. Party in the
unfinished House of Jangan, Chief of the Sebops, on the occasion of
the naming of his Child 82
55. Ibans felling a Tree 98
56. A Lirong Farm in the Tinjar River 100
57. Kayans of Baloi in the PADI-field. The Tatu on the Thighs is
perceptible 102
58. Kenyah Women resting from Weeding in the PADI-field 104
59. Kenyah Women at their Farm 106
60. Kenyahs measuring the Length of the Shadow of the ASO DO at
Noon to determine the Time for sowing PADI 108
61. Klemantan Women dressed as Men at the harvest Festival 114
62. The Garden of a Kayan House, I.E. the Area between the House
and the River, with Fruit-trees and PADI Barns 116
63. Elderly Kayan Woman ascending the House-ladder with Basketful
of Water-vessels 118
64. The Gallery of a Klemantan (Sebop) House, Tinjar District
120
65. Jungle Fruits 122
66. A Klemantan Village, showing the Balawing Pole 124
67. Kayans splitting Rattans for Mat-making 126
68. A Kayan Party sitting in the Gallery of a Long House 126
69. Entertaining Guests in the Gallery of a Klemantan (Barawan)
House 128
70. Lepu Pohuns (Klemantans) of the Tinjar River 130
71. (A) Ibans preparing a Boat for a long Journey. (B) Kayan
War-boat on the Lower Baram 132
72. A Halt at Batu Pita on the Baram 132
73. Cooking the mid-day Meal on a gravel Bed, Baram River 134
74. Boat proceeding up the Rejang River below the Palagus
Falls 134
75. Poling up the Palagus Falls, Rejang River 136
76. (A) Kenyahs hauling a Boat over Rapids. (B) Hut built on
River-bank for a night's Shelter 136
77. A Boat about to descend the Falls at Long Bukau, Rejang
River 138
78. Boat roofed with Leaf-mats on the Dapoi River, Baram
District 138
79. Kayans fishing with Cast-net in the Upper Baram River 140
80. Fishing with Rod and Line at the Tipang Falls of the Baram
140
81. Typical Scene in the uppermost Reaches of a River 142
82. Kenyah Hunters at Work with the Blow-pipe 144
83. Kenyah Hunter returning Home with young Pig 146
84. Kayan Hunting-party camping for the Night 146
85. Ibans setting Traps for Pheasants and small Mammals. Punans
at Home 148
86. Kayans working Gutta-percha 150
87. (A) Gathering the IPOH Dart-poison. (B) Usong, a Kayan Youth
of upper Class, Son of Tama Usong (Plate 49) 152
88. Kenyah collecting IPOH Poison 152
89. Klemantans making Fire in the Jungle by sawing one Piece of
Bamboo across another 154
90. Instructing Kayan Youths in the jungle 156
91. Kenyah and Kayan Swords and Sheaths 158
92. Spears and Paddles (Kayan and Klemantan) 160
93. Kayan and Kenyah War-caps 162
94. Coat and Cap, Sword, Knife, and Shield of Kenyah Warrior
(in Colour) 164
95. A Murik (Klemantan) Youth in War-dress 166
96. Klemantan War-boat ascending a Reach of the Baram near
Marudi 168
97. Pole set up in River by Kayans to mark the Spot where a
favourable Omen was observed 170
98. Scouts watching a Boat in Trouble at the Mouth of the Akar
River, Baram District 172
99. Iban War-party in the Jungle 174
100. Kayan House fenced in for Protection against Enemies 176
101. Kenyah Mode of Attack 178
102. Kayan Woman dancing, and carrying in right Hand a Head dressed
in Leaves 180
103. Iban War-boats on the Rejang River 182
104. Iban Scouts on the alert 184
105. Punan Heads taken by Ibans 186
106. Iban Women dancing with human Heads 188
107. Kalabit Smiths using stone Hammers. The Bellows are simpler
than those described in text 194
108. Iban making Fire-pistons 196
109. Iban House in course of Construction 198
110. Kanowit (Klemantan) Baskets and Beadwork 200
111. Kayan Knife and Axes 202
112. Kenyah hewing out Shaft of Blow-pipe before boring it 204
113. Kenyahs drilling a Blow-pipe 206
114. Kenyah lashing Spear-blade to Blow-pipe 208
115. Kenyah making Dart for Blow-pipe 210
116. Kenyah making Dart-poison 212
117. Kenyahs making Bark-cloth 214
118. Iban Woman extracting Cotton-seeds 216
119. Iban Woman with Spinning-wheel 218
120. Iban Woman preparing the Web for dyeing 220
121. Iban Woman weaving 222
122. Carved Door to the Room of Aban Jau, a Chief of the Sebops
(Klemantans), Tinjar River 226
123. Door of Room in Sebop (Klemantan) House. The two Figures near
the Top probably represent Gibbons 228
124. Carvings on the Wall of the Gallery in a Long Ulai (Klemantan)
House, Baram District 230
125. Prow of Klemantan War-boat (the Man is an Iban) 232
126. A Kenyah Pattern carved on a bamboo Tobacco-box 234
127. Annular Design worked on bamboo Tobacco-box (Kenyah) 236
128. Charcoal Drawings. The first depicts Women at Work on PADI
Mortars; the second the feeding of Pigs and Fowls; the third the
laying of a Corpse in the Tomb 238
129. Kenyah Sword-handle carved from a Deer's Horn 242
130. Old Beads worn by Kayans (in Colour) 244
131. Blanket (Pua) woven by Iban Woman 246
132. Blanket (Pua) woven by Iban Woman 248
133. Tatu Patterns on Thighs of Kayan Women 250
134. Tatu Patterns on a Kalabit Woman 252
135. Kalabit Tatu (Woman) 254
136. Tatu designs 258
137. ,, 260
138. ,, 262
139. ,, 264
140. ,, 266
141. ,, 268
142. ,, 270
143. ,, 274
Kenyah Women husking PADI (in Colour) FRONTISPIECE
144. Kenyah Altar showing large round Stones known as BATU
TULOI. Eggs offered to the Omen-birds in the Jungle 2
145. A Klemantan (Barawan) making Offerings of Eggs to the
Gods 4
146. Balawing Pole on the left; Altar-post of Bali Penyalong on the
right and in the middle a Post to which Pieces of the Flesh of slain
Enemies have been skewered as Thank-offerings after successful War,
set up before House of Long Pokuns (Klemantan) 8
147. Wooden Images set up before a Kenyah House at the Approach
of an Epidemic of Cholera 12
148. Wooden Image of Bali Atap, a Kenyah God 16
149. Altar-posts set up before Klemantan House on return from
War 20
150. (A) Temporary Shelter for Heads. (B) Gallery of a Kayan Long
House 24
151. Kenyah Dayongs wearing Masks 30
152. Tomb of the Wife of a Chief of the Long Patas (Klemantan). The
white Discs were formerly made of Shell, but nowadays European Crockery
is used, and a German Firm supplies Dinner-plates provided with two
Perforations which facilitate the attachment of the Plates 34
153. Tomb of a Sekapan (Klemantan) Chief 36
154. The Grave of Kuling, Daughter of Boi Jalong, the principal
Kenyah Chief of the Batang Kayan River 40
155. Malanau Graves near Rejang Village 44
156. Peng Coffins deposited on Ledges of overhanging Cliff on the
Mahakam. River 46
157. (A) Tama Bulan sacrificing a Pig to Bali Penyalong. (B)
Balari, a Kenyah, sacrificing a Fowl to Bali Penyalong 58
158. A Kayan charging a Pig with a Message to the Gods 68
159. Kayans discussing the Liver of a Pig 80
160. Image of a Hornbill made by Ibans for use at Ceremonies 94
161. Group of Kenyahs. On the Top of the Pole can be seen an Image
of the Hawk, Bali Flaki 106
162. An Enemy's Head decorated by Kayans with various Charms 120
163. Image of Crocodile, and House provided for the Spirit whose
Aid is invoked by Malanaus at the Bayoh Ceremony 126
164. A wooden Figure of Crocodile, and Decorations used at the
Bayoh Ceremony by Malanaus 132
165. Mixed Group of Kenyah and Klemantan Boys 154
166. A Sekapan (Klemantan) Woman carrying Child in a Cradle 156
167. Iban Boys bathing. The Fence is for Protection against
Crocodiles 158
168. (1) Fire-piston. (2) PUSA, used to make Fire at the naming
of a Kayan Child. The Figure represents Laki Pesong 160
169. Kayans wrestling 164
170. A Dance which nearly resembles some recent European
Developments of the Art 166
171. A Kayan dancing 168
172. A Lesson in Wood-carving (Kenyahs) 172
173. An Iban Wedding 174
174. Punans of the Baram 178
175. Elderly Punan Headman 180
176. A Punan Headman of the Tinjar 180
177. Punans of Bok (Baram) 182
178. Tatued Ukit of Rejang District 184
179. A Punan Camp in the Dapoi River 186
180. Punans working wild Sago 188
181. Punans working Camphor 190
182. Punan Mother and Child 192
183. Creeper hung across Mouth of tributary Stream to prohibit
All-comers from ascending the Stream. 206
184. Brass Hooks and Sword-handles sent by Tama Kuling to the
Resident of the Baram as Symbols of Peace 220
185. A Kayan of the Mahakam River
186. A Kayan Woman of the Mahakam River, East Borneo 226
187. An Orang Bukit (Klemantan) Woman, Baram District 228
188. Profile of Woman in Plate 187 230
189. Long Pokuns (Klemantans) of Dapoi River, Baram District 234
190. Lirong (Klemantan) Youths of Tinjar River 238
191. A Lirong Woman (Klemantan) of the Tinjar River 240
192. A Kajaman (Klemantan) Woman of the Upper Class 244
193. Land Dayak Men (Klemantans) from Upper Sarawak 250
194. (A) Land Dayak Girls of the Sadong District. (B) Land Dayaks
of Upper Sarawak 252
195. Iban Women, Rejang District 254
196. A small Fort at Kanowit, Rejang District 260
197. The Fort at Claudetown (Marudi), with Squad of Rangers who
form the Garrison 264
198. Entrance of the new Fort at Marudi, Baram District 268
199. Court-room in Baram Fort 272
200. The Silat River descending from Usun Apo to join the Baram,
the High Road between East and West Borneo. 276
201. Kenyah masked Men going to meet former Enemies with Overtures
of Peace 280
202. Klemantan Mask 284
203. Tama Kuling (ALIAS Boi Jalong), principal Kenyah Chief of
the Batang Kayan District 288
204. Tama Kuling's (Kenyah) Village at Tana Puti, Batang Kayan
District 292
205. Madangs (Kenyahs) at the Peace-making at Marudi (1899) 296
206. The great Peace-making at Marudi (1899), Baram District,
between the Kayan, Kenyah, and Klemantan Tribes of East and West
Borneo 298
207. Racing of War-boats at Marudi during the Peace-meeting
(1899) 300
208. Party of Kenyah Chiefs from the Batang Kayan on the Way to
visit the Rajah of Sarawak at Kuching, before the Peace-making in
the Baram in 1901 302
209. Final Instructions from the Resident of the Third Division
of Sarawak to a Kayan Party about to attack Stronghold of Iban
Rebels 304
210. Peace-making with Kana and the Iban Rebels at Kanowit 306
211. Madangs of Pliran with two Children newly restored to their
Parents by the Government from Captivity with Ibans 308
N.B. -- The following names are those of the gentlemen to whom we
are indebted for permission to reproduce their photographs. After
each name stands a list of the plates thus reproduced.
Dr. W. H. Furness. (Nos. 11, 32, 33, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 51, 52, 55,
62, 63, 82, 85, 87 (B), 93, 96, 99, 104, 147, 149, 152, 162, 165,
175, 179, 180, 181, 182.)
Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis. (Nos. 28, 37, 61, 67, 81, 151, 154, 165, 172,
183, 185, 186, 201, 204.)
Dr. A. C. Haddon. (Nos. 6, 22 (A), 43, 54, 76, 144, 150.)
Dr. C. S. Myers. (No. 157.)
Dr. C. G. Seligmann. (Nos. 87 (A), 207.)
Dr. Harrison W. Smith. (No. 194 (A).)
Mr. A. Moor. (No. 208.)
Mr. R. Shelford. (Nos. 193, 194 (B).)
The rest of the plates are from photographs taken by C. H.
Maps
The Eastern Archipelago.
Borneo.
Sketch Map of the Baram District, Sarawak.
Sketch Map of Sarawak.
CHAPTER 1
Geography of Borneo
Borneo is one of the largest islands of the world. Its area is
roughly 290,000 square miles, or about five times that of England
and Wales. Its greatest length from north-east to south-west is 830
miles, and its greatest breadth is about 600 miles. It is crossed
by the equator a little below its centre, so that about two-thirds
of its area lie in the northern and one-third lies in the southern
hemisphere. Although surrounded on all sides by islands of volcanic
origin, Borneo differs from them in presenting but small traces of
volcanic activity, and in consisting of ancient masses of igneous
rock and of sedimentary strata.
The highest mountain is Kinabalu, an isolated mass of granite in the
extreme north, nearly 14,000 feet in height. With this exception the
principal mountains are grouped in several massive chains, which
rise here and there to peaks about 10,000 feet above the sea. The
principal of these chains, the Tibang-Iran range, runs south-westward
through the midst of the northern half of the island and is prolonged
south of the equator by the Schwaner chain. This median south-westerly
trending range forms the backbone of the island. A second much-broken
chain runs across the island from east to west about 1[degree]
north of the equator. Besides these two principal mountain chains
which determine the main features of the river-system, there are
several isolated peaks of considerable height, and a minor ridge of
hills runs from the centre towards the south-cast corner. With the
exception of the northern extremity, which geographically as well
as politically stands apart from the rest of the island, the whole
of Borneo may be described as divided by the two principal mountain
chains into four large watersheds. Of these, the north-western basin,
the territory of Sarawak, is drained by the Rejang and Baram, as well
as by numerous smaller rivers. Of the other three, which constitute
Dutch Borneo, the north-eastern is drained by the Batang Kayan or
Balungan river; the south-eastern by the Kotei and Banjermasin rivers;
and the south-western by the Kapuas, the largest of all the rivers,
whose course from the centre of the island to its south-west corner
is estimated at 700 miles. Although the point of intersection of the
two principal mountain chains lies almost exactly midway between the
northern and southern and the eastern and western extremities of the
island, the greater width of the southern half of the island gives a
longer course to the rivers of that part, in spite of the fact that
all the six principal rivers mentioned above have their sources not
far from this central point. The principal rivers thus radiate from
a common centre, the Batang Kayan flowing east-north-east, the Kotei
south-east by east, the Banjermasin south, the Kapuas a little south
of west, the Rejang west, and the Baram north-west. This radiation of
the rivers from a common centre is a fact of great importance for the
understanding of the ethnography of the island, since the rivers are
the great highways which movements of the population chiefly follow.
In almost all parts of the island, the land adjoining the coast is
a low-lying swampy belt consisting of the alluvium brought down by
the many rivers from the central highlands. This belt of alluvium
extends inland in many parts for fifty miles or more, and is especially
extensive in the south and south-east of the island.
Between the swampy coast belt and the mountains intervenes a zone of
very irregular hill country, of which the average height above the
sea-level is about one thousand feet, with occasional peaks rising
to five or six thousand feet or more.
There seems good reason to believe that at a comparatively recent
date Borneo was continuous with the mainland of Asia, forming its
south-eastern extremity. Together with Sumatra and Java it stands
upon a submarine bank, which is nowhere more than one hundred fathoms
below the surface, but which plunges down to a much greater depth
along a line a little east of Borneo (Wallace's line). The abundance
of volcanic activity in the archipelago marks it as a part of the
earth's crust liable to changes of elevation, and the accumulation of
volcanic matter would tend to make it an area of subsidence; while
the north-east monsoon, which blows with considerable violence down
the China Sea for about four months of each year, may have hastened
the separation of Borneo from the mainland. That this separation was
effected in a very recent geological period is shown by the presence in
Borneo of many species of Asiatic mammals both large and small, notably
the rhinoceros (R. BORNIENSIS, closely allied to R. SUMATRANUS);
the elephant (E. INDICUS, which, however, may have been imported by
man); the wild cattle (BOS SONDIACUS, which occurs also in Sumatra);
several species of deer and pig (some of which are found in Sumatra
and the mainland); several species of the cat tribe, of which the
tiger-cat (FELIS NEBULOSA) is the largest; the civet-cat (VIVERRA)
and its congeners HEMIGALE, PARADOXURUS, and ARCTOGALE; the small
black bear (URSUS MALAYANUS); the clawless otter (LUTRA CINEREA); the
bear-cat (ARCTICTIS BINTURONG); the scaly ant-eater (MANIS JAVANICUS);
the lemurs (TARSIUS SPECTRUM and NYCTICEBUS TARDIGRADUS); the flying
lemur (GALEOPITHECUS VOLANS); the porcupine (HYSTRIX CRASSISPINIS);
numerous bats, squirrels, rats and mice; the big shrew (GYMNURA);
several species of monkeys, and two of the anthropoid apes. The last
are of peculiar significance, since they are incapable of crossing
even narrow channels of water, and must be regarded as products of
a very late stage of biological evolution. Of these two anthropoid
species, the gibbon (HYLOBATES MULLERI) is closely allied to species
found in the mainland and in Sumatra, while the MAIAS or orang-utan
(SIMIA SALYRUS) is found also in Sumatra and, though not now surviving
on the continent, must be regarded as related to anthropoids whose
fossil remains have been discovered there.[2]
The zoological evidence thus indicates a recent separation of Borneo
and Sumatra from the continent, and a still more recent separation
between the two islands.
The climate of the whole island is warm and moist and very equable. The
rainfall is copious at all times of the year, but is rather heavier
during the prevalence of the north-east monsoon in the months from
October to February, and least during the months of April and May. At
Kuching, during the last thirty years, the average yearly rainfall
has been 160 inches, the maximum 225, and the minimum 102 inches;
the maximum monthly fall recorded was 69 inches, and the minimum
.66, and the greatest rainfall recorded
in one day was 15 inches. The temperature hardly, if ever, reaches
100[degree] F.; it ranges normally between 70[degree] and 90[degree]
F.; the highest reading of one year (1906) at Kuching was 94[degree],
the lowest 69[degree]. Snow and frost are unknown, except occasionally
on the summits of the highest mountains. Thunder-storms are frequent
and severe, but wind-storms are not commonly of any great violence.
The abundant rainfall maintains a copious flow of water down the many
rivers at all times of the year; but the rivers are liable to rise
rapidly many feet above their normal level during days of exceptionally
heavy rain. In their lower reaches, where they traverse the alluvial
plains and swamps, the rivers wind slowly to the sea with many great
bends, and all the larger ones are navigable by small steamers for
many miles above their mouths: thus a large steam launch can ascend the
Rejang for 160 miles, the Baram for 120, and some of the rivers on the
Dutch side for still greater distances. The limit of such navigation
is set by beds of rock over which the rivers run shallow, and which
mark the beginnings of the middle reaches. In these middle reaches,
where the rivers wind between the feet of the hills, long stretches of
deep smooth water alternate with others in which the water runs with
greater violence between confining walls of rock, or spreads out in
wide rapids over stony bottoms. The upper reaches of the rivers, where
they descend rapidly from the slopes of the mountains, are composed
of long series of shallow rapids and low waterfalls, alternating at
short intervals with still pools and calm shallows, bounded by rock
walls and great beds of waterworn stones, which during the frequent
freshets are submerged by a boiling flood. The whole river in these
upper reaches is for the most part roofed in by the overarching forest.
Practically the whole of Borneo, from the seacoast to the summits of
the highest mountains, is covered with a dense forest. On the summits
this consists of comparatively stunted trees, of which every part is
thickly coated with moss. In all other parts the forest consists of
great trees rising to a height of 150 feet, and even 200 feet, and of a
dense undergrowth of younger and smaller trees, and of a great variety
of creepers, palms, and ferns. Trees of many species (nearly 500)
yield excellent timber, ranging from the hardest ironwood or BILIAN,
and other hard woods (many of them so close-grained that they will not
float in water), to soft, easily worked kinds. A considerable number
bear edible fruits, notably the mango (from which the island derives
its Malay name, PULU KLEMANTAN), the durian, mangosteen, rambutan,
jack fruit, trap, lansat, banana of many varieties, both wild and
cultivated, and numerous sour less nutritious kinds. Wild sago is
abundant in some localities. Various palms supply in their unfolding
leaves a cabbage-like edible. Among edible roots the caladium
is the chief. Rubber is obtained as the sap of a wild creeper;
gutta-percha from trees of several varieties; camphor from pockets
in the stem of the camphor tree (DRYOBALANOPS AROMATICA). But of all
the jungle plants those which play the most important parts in the
life of the people are the many species of the rattan and the bamboo;
without them more than half the crafts and most of the more important
material possessions of the natives would be impossible, and their
lives would perhaps nearly conform to the conventional notion of
savage existence as something 'nasty, dull, and brutish.' The jungle
of Borneo is, of course, famous for its wealth of orchids, and can
claim the distinction of producing the largest flower of the world
(RAFFLESIA), and many beautiful varieties of the pitcher plant.
The forests of Borneo harbour more than 450 species of birds, many
of them being of gorgeous colouring or strange and beautiful forms;
especially noteworthy are many hawks, owls, and eagles, fly-catchers,
spider-hunters, sun-birds, broad-bills, nightjars, orioles, miners,
pigeons, kingfishers, hornbills, trojans, magpies, jays, crows,
partridges, pheasants, herons, bitterns, snipes, plovers, Curlews,
and sandpipers. Amongst these are many species peculiar to Borneo;
while on the mountains above the 4000-feet level are found several
species which outside Borneo are known only in the Himalayas.
Besides the mammals mentioned above, Borneo claims several species
of mammal peculiar to itself, notably the long-nosed monkey (NASALIS
LARVATUS); two species of ape (SEMNOPITHECUS HOSEI and S. CRUCIGER);
many shrews and squirrels, including several flying species; a
civet-cat (HEMIGALE HOSEI); a deer (CERVUS BROOKII); the bearded pig
(SUS HARBATUS); the curious feather-tailed shrew (PTYLOCERCUS LOWII).
Reptiles are well represented by the crocodile, which abounds in all
the rivers, a long-snouted gavial, numerous tortoises and lizards
with several flying species, and more than seventy species of snakes,
of which some are poisonous, while the biggest, the python, attains
a length of thirty feet. The rivers abound in edible fish of many
species; insects are of course numerous and varied, and, aided by the
multitude of frogs, they fill the island each evening at sunset with
one vast chorus of sound.
CHAPTER 2
History of Borneo
The Pagan tribes of Borneo have no written records of their history
and only very vague traditions concerning events in the lives of their
ancestors of more than five or six generations ago. But the written
records of more cultured peoples of the Far East contain references to
Borneo which throw some small rays of light upon the past history and
present condition of its population. It has seemed to us worth while
to bring together in these pages these few historical notes. The later
history of Borneo, which is in the main the story of its occupation
by and division between the Dutch and English, and especially the
romantic history of the acquisition of the raj of Sarawak by its
first English rajah, Sir James Brooke, has often been told,[3] and
for this reason may be dismissed by us in a very few words.
The coasts of Borneo have long been occupied by a Mohammedan population
of Malay culture; this population is partly descended from Malay
and Arab immigrants, and partly from indigenous individuals and
communities that have adopted the Malay faith and culture in recent
centuries. When Europeans first visited the island, this population,
dwelling for the most part, as it still does, in villages and small
towns upon the coast and in or near the mouths of the rivers, owed
allegiance to several Malay sultans and a number of subordinate rulers,
the local rajahs and pangirans. The principal sultans had as their
capitals, from which they took their titles, Bruni on the north-west,
Sambas in the west, Pontianak at the mouth of the Kapuas river,
Banjermasin in the south at the mouth of the river of the same name,
Pasir at the south-east corner, Kotei and Balungan on the east at the
mouths of the rivers of those names; while the Sultan of Jolo, the
capital of the Sulu islands, which lie off the north coast, claimed
sovereignty over the northern end of Borneo. But these Malay sultans
were not the first representatives in the island of culture and of
civilised or semi-civilised rule; for history preserves some faint
records of still earlier times, of which some slight confirmation is
afforded by surviving traces of the culture then introduced.
In spite of all the work done on the history of the East Indies,
most of what occurred before and much that followed the arrival of
Europeans remains obscure. There are several Asiatic nations whose
records might be expected to contain valuable information, but all
are disappointing. The Klings, still the principal Hindu traders
in the Far East, visited the Malay Archipelago in the first or at
any rate the second century after Christ,[4] and introduced their
writing[5] and chronology. But their early histories are meagre
and unsatisfactory in the extreme. The Arab culture of the Malays,
which took root in Sumatra in the twelfth century, is of course of
no assistance in regard to events of earlier date, and does not give
trustworthy and detailed accounts until the fifteenth century. The
Chinese, on the other hand, always a literary people, carefully
preserved in their archives all that could be gathered with regard
to the "southern seas." But China was far away, and many local events
would possess no interest for her subjects. Under the circumstances,
the official historians deserve our gratitude for their geographical
descriptions and for the particulars of tribute-bearing missions to
the Son of Heaven, though they have little else to tell.
The first account we have been able to find referring to Borneo is
a description of the kingdom of Poli from the Chinese annals of the
sixth century. Poli was said to be on an island in the sea south-east
of Camboja, and two months south-east of Canton. The journey thither
was made by way of the Malay Peninsula, a devious route still followed
by Chinese junks. Envoys were sent to the Imperial court in A.D. 518,
523, and 616. "The people of this country," our authority says,
"are skilled in throwing a discus-knife, and the edge is like a saw;
when they throw it at a man, they never fail to hit him. Their other
arms are about the same as in China. Their customs resemble those
of Camboja, and the productions of the country are the same as of
Siam. When one commits a murder or theft they cut off his hands,[6]
and when adultery has been committed, the culprit has his legs chained
for the period of a year. For their sacrifice they choose the time when
there is no moon; they fill a bowl with wine and eatables and let it
float away on the surface of the water; in the eleventh month they have
a great sacrifice. They get corals from the sea, and they have a bird
called s'ari, which can talk." A later reference to the same place
says: "They carry the teeth of wild beasts in their ears, and wrap
a piece of cotton round their loins; cotton is a plant of which they
collect the flowers to make cloth of them; the coarser kind is called
KUPA, and the finer cloth T'IEH. They hold their markets at night,
and cover their faces.... At the east of this country is situated
the land of the Rakshas, which has the same customs as Poli."[7]
This is an interesting account in many ways, and tallies very
closely with what other evidence would lead one to suspect. For
there is reason to think that Bruni, before it became Mohammedan,
was a Bisaya kingdom under Buddhist sovereigns and Hindu influence;
and nearly all the particulars given with regard to the people of
Borneo are true of one or other of the races allied to Bisayas and
living near Bruni to-day. The discus-knife, a wooden weapon, is
not now in use, but is known to have been used formerly. The wild
Kadayans sacrifice after every new moon, and are forbidden to eat
a number of things until they have done so. The Malanaus set laden
rafts afloat on the rivers to propitiate the spirits of the sea. The
very names of the two kinds of cotton, then evidently a novelty to
the Chinese, are found in Borneo: KAPOK is a well-known Malay word;
but TAYA is the common name for cotton among the Sea Dayaks, though it
is doubtful whether it is found in Sumatra at all, and is not given
in Marsden's great Dictionary. The use of teeth as ear-ornaments
may refer to Kenyahs. If these identities are sufficient to show
that Poli was old Bruni, we have an almost unique illustration here
of the antiquity of savage customs. That an experience of fourteen
hundred years should have failed to convince people of the futility
of feeding salt waves is a striking demonstration of the widespread
fallacy, that what is old must needs be good.
Poli had already attained a certain measure of civilisation, and
even of luxury. The kingly dignity was hereditary, and the Buddhist
monarch was served with much ceremony. He was clad in flowered silk
or cotton, adorned with pearls, and sat on a golden throne attended
by servants with white dusters and fans of peacock feathers. When
he went out of his palace, his chariot, canopied with feathers and
embroidered curtains, was drawn by elephants, whilst gongs, drums,
and conches made inspiriting music. As Hindu ornaments have been found
at Santubong together with Chinese coins of great antiquity, as the
names of many offices of state in Bruni are derived from Sanskrit,
and the people of Sarawak have only lately ceased to speak of "the
days of the Hindus,"[8] there is nothing startling in the statement
that the kings of Poli were Buddhist.
Whatever Poli may or may not have been, there is little question
that Puni, 45 days from Java, 40 from Palembang, 30 from Champa,
in each case taking the wind to be fair, was Bruni. The Chinese, who
have neither B nor double consonants in their impoverished language,
still call the Bornean capital Puni. Groeneveldt says that the Chinese
consider Puni to have been on the west coast of Borneo. This state
is mentioned several times in the annals of the Sung dynasty, which,
though only ruling over Southern China, had a complete monopoly[9]
of the ocean trade for three centuries (960 to 1279 A.D.). Puni
was at that time a town of some 10,000 inhabitants, protected by
a stockade of timber. The king's palace, like the houses of modern
Bruni, was thatched with palm leaves, the cottages of the people with
grass. Warriors carried spears and protected themselves with copper
armour. When any native died, his corpse was exposed in the jungle,
and once a year for seven years sacrifices were made to the departed
spirit. Bamboos and palm leaves, thrown away after every meal, sufficed
for crockery. The products of the country, or at least such as were
sent as tribute, were camphor, tortoiseshell, and ivory.[10]
In the year 977, we are told, Hianzta, king of Puni, sent envoys
to China, who presented tribute with the following words: "May the
emperor live thousands and tens of thousands of years, and may he not
disapprove of the poor civilities of my little country." The envoys
presented a letter from the king. This was written on' what looked like
the very thin bark of a tree; it was glossy, slightly green, several
feet long, and somewhat broader than one inch; the characters in which
it was written were small, and had to be read horizontally. In all
these particulars the letter resembled the books of magic which are
still written by the Battas of inland Sumatra.[11] The message ran:
"The king of Puni, called Hianzta, prostrates himself before the most
august emperor, and hopes that the emperor may live ten thousands of
years. I have now sent envoys to carry tribute; I knew before that
there was an emperor, but I had no means of communication. Recently
there was a merchant called Pu Lu, whose ship arrived at the mouth
of my river; I sent a man to invite him to my place, and he told me
that he came from China. The people of my country were much delighted
at this, and preparing a ship, asked this stranger to guide them to
the court. The envoys I have sent only wish to see Your Majesty in
peace, and I intend to send people with tribute every year. But when
I do so I fear that my ships may occasionally be blown to Champa,
and I therefore hope Your Majesty will send an edict to that country
with orders that, if a ship of Hianzta arrives there, it must not
be detained. My country has no other articles,[12] and I pray Your
Majesty not to be angry with me." The envoys were entertained and
sent home with presents. In 1082 A.D., a hundred years later, Sri
Maja, king of Puni, sent tribute again, but the promise of yearly
homage was not kept. Gradually the Sung dynasty declined in power,
and East Indian potentates became less humble.
In the thirteenth and the early part of the fourteenth centuries
Bruni owed allegiance alternately to two powers much younger than
herself, Majapahit in Java, and Malacca on the west coast of the
Malay Peninsula. Both these states were founded in the thirteenth
century.[13] Majapahit, originally only one of several Javan kingdoms,
rapidly acquired strength and subjugated her neighbours and the nearest
portions of the islands around. Malacca, formed when the Malay colony
of Singapore was overwhelmed by Javanese, became the great commercial
depot of the Straits and the chief centre of Mohammedanism in the
Archipelago. The two powers therefore stood for two faiths and two
cultures: Majapahit for Brahminism and Hindu influence, Malacca for
Islam and the more practical civilisation of Arabia.
In the earliest years of the fourteenth century Bruni was a dependency
of Majapahit, but seems to have recovered its independence during the
minority of the Javan king. It is to this time that the tradition of
the Kapuas Malays ascribes the arrival of the Kayans in Borneo.[14]
Then Angka Wijaya extended the power of Majapahit over Palembang
in Sumatra, Timor, Ternate, Luzon, and the coasts of Borneo. Over
Banjermasin he set his natural son. In 1368 Javanese soldiers drove
from Bruni the Sulu marauders who had sacked the town. A few years
later the ungrateful king transferred his allegiance to China, and
not long afterwards, with calculating humility, paid tribute[15]
to Mansur Shah, who had succeeded to the throne of Malacca in 1374 A.D.
An extraordinary incident occurred at the beginning of the fifteenth
century, which again -- and for the last time -- draws our attention
to the Chinese court. The great Mongol conquerors, Genghis and Kublai
Khan, had little to do with the Malay Archipelago, though the latter
sent an unsuccessful expedition against Java in 1292. But the Ming
emperors, who were of Chinese blood, came to power in 1368 and soon
developed the maritime influence of the empire. For a few years there
was a continual stream of East Indian embassies. During the last
twenty years of the century, however, these became more rare, and in
1405 the Chinese emperor found it necessary to send a trusted eunuch,
by name Cheng Ho, to visit the vassal states in the south. This man
made several journeys, travelling as far as the shores of Africa,
and his mission bore immediate fruit. Among others, Maraja Kali,
king of Puni, although Cheng Ho does not appear to have called on
him in person, sent tribute in 1405; and so pleased was he with
the embroidered silk presented to him and his wife in return, that
he visited the Son of Heaven three years later. Landing in Fukien,
he was escorted by a eunuch to the Chinese capital amid scenes of
great rejoicing. The emperor received him in audience, allowing
him the honours of a noble of the first rank, and loaded him with
gifts. The same year, having accomplished his one great ambition of
"seeing the face of the Son of Heaven," this humbled monarch died in
the imperial city, leaving his son Hiawang to succeed to the throne of
Puni. Having induced the emperor to stop the yearly tribute of forty
katties of camphor paid by Puni to Java, and having agreed to send
tribute to China every three years, Hiawang returned home to take up
the reins of government. Between 1410 and 1425 he paid tribute six
times, besides revisiting the Chinese Court; but afterwards little
Puni seems to have again ignored her powerful suzerain.
It is probable that the Chinese colony in North Borneo which gave
its name to the lofty mountain Kina Balu (Chinese widow) and to
the Kina Batangan, the chief river which flows from it, was founded
about this time. Several old writers seem to refer to this event,
and local traditions of the settlement still survive. The Brunis and
Idaans (a people in the north not unlike the Bisayas) have legends
differing in detail to the effect that the Chinese came to seize the
great jewel of the Kina Balu dragon, but afterwards quarrelled about
the booty and separated, some remaining behind. The Idaans consider
themselves the descendants of these settlers, but that can only
be true in a very limited sense. Both country and people, however,
show traces of Chinese influence.
There is good evidence that the Chinese influence and immigration
were not confined to Bruni and the northern end of the island. In
south-west Borneo there are traces of very extensive washings of
alluvial gravels for gold and diamonds. These operations were being
conducted by Chinese when Europeans first came to the country; and
the extent of the old workings implies that they had been continued
through many centuries. Hindu-Javan influence also was not confined
to the court of Bruni, for in many parts of the southern half of
Borneo traces of it survive in the custom of burning the dead, in low
relief carvings of bulls on stone, and in various gold ornaments of
Hindu character.
The faith of Islam and the arrival of Europeans have profoundly
affected the manners and politics of the East Indies, and now it is
difficult to picture the state of affairs when King Hiawang revisited
China to pay homage to the Emperor. In 1521, within a hundred years
of that event, Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's great exploit,
was calling on the "Moorish" king of Bruni, in the course of the
first voyage round the world. The change had come. Of the two new
influences, so potent for good and evil, Mohammedanism made its
appearance first. The struggle for religious supremacy ended in the
complete victory of the Prophet's followers in 1478, when Majapahit
was utterly destroyed, thirty years before the capture of Malacca by
the Portuguese.
How early the Arab doctrines were taught in Bruni is impossible
to state with any precision. Local tradition ascribes their
introduction to the renowned Alak ber Tata, afterwards known as Sultan
Mohammed. Like most of his subjects this warrior was a Bisaya, and in
early life he was not a Mohammedan, not indeed a civilised potentate
at all, to judge by conventional standards; for the chief mark of
his royal dignity was an immense chawat, or loin-cloth, carried as
he walked by eighty men, forty in front and forty behind. He is the
earliest monarch of whom the present Brunis have any knowledge, a fact
to be accounted for partly by the brilliance of his exploits, partly
by the introduction about that time of Arabic writing. After much
fighting he subdued the people of Igan,[16] Kalaka, Seribas, Sadong,
Semarahan, and Sarawak,[17] and compelled them to pay tribute. He
stopped the annual payment to Majapahit of one jar of pinang juice,
a useless commodity though troublesome to collect. During his reign
the Muruts were brought under Bruni rule by peaceful measures,[18]
and the Chinese colony was kept in good humour by the marriage of
the Bruni king's brother and successor to the daughter of one of the
principal Chinamen.
Alak ber Tata is said to have gone to Johore,[19] where he was
converted[20] to Islam, given[21] the daughter of Sultan Bakhei and
the title of Sultan, and was confirmed in his claim to rule over
Sarawak and his other conquests.[22]
Sultan Mohammed was succeeded by his brother Akhmad, son-in-law of
the Chinese chief, and he was in turn succeeded by an Arab from Taif
who had married his daughter. Thus the present royal house of Bruni is
derived from three sources -- Arab, Bisaya, and Chinese. The coronation
ceremony as still maintained affords an interesting confirmation of
this account. On that occasion the principal minister wears a turban
and Haji outfit, the two next in rank are dressed in Chinese and Hindu
fashion, while the fourth wears a chawat over his trousers to represent
the Bisayas; and each of these ministers declares the Sultan to be
divinely appointed. Then after the demonstration of loyalty the two
gongs -- one from Menangkabau, the other from Johore -- are beaten,
and the Moslem high priest proclaims the Sultan and preaches a sermon,
declaring him to be a descendant of Sri Turi Buana, the Palembang
chief who founded the early kingdom of Singapore in 1160 A.D., who
reigned in that island for forty-eight years, and whose descendants
became the royal family of Malacca.
The Arab Sultan who succeeded Akhmed assumed the name Berkat and ruled
the country with vigour. He built a mosque and converted many of his
subjects, so that from his reign Bruni may be considered a Mohammedan
town. To defend the capital he sank forty junks filled with stone
in the river, and thus formed the breakwater which still bars the
entrance to large ships. This work rose above the water level, and
in former times bristled with cannon. Sultan Berkat was succeeded by
his son Suleiman, whose reign was of little consequence.
Neglecting Suleiman, we come now to the most heroic figure in Bruni
history, Sultan Bulkiah, better known by his earlier name, Nakoda
Ragam. The prowess of this prince has been celebrated in prose and
verse. He journeyed to distant lands, and conquered the Sulu islands
and eastern Borneo. Over the throne of Sambas he set a weak-minded
brother of his own. He even sent an expedition to Manila, and on the
second attempt seized that place. Tribute poured into his coffers from
all sides. His wife was a Javanese princess, who brought many people
to Bruni. These intermarried with the Bisayas, and from them it is
said are sprung the Kadayans, a quiet agricultural folk, skilled
in various arts, but rendered timid by continual oppression. Some
have settled recently in the British colony of Labuan, and others in
Sarawak round the river Sibuti, where they have become loyal subjects
of the Rajah of Sarawak.
Nakoda Ragam's capital at Buang Tawa was on dry land, but when he died,
killed accidentally by his wife's bodkin, the nobles quarrelled among
themselves, and some of them founded the present pile-built town of
Bruni. It was to this Malay capital and court that Pigafetta paid
his visit in 1521 with the surviving companions of Magellan. His is
the first good account from European sources of the place which he
called Bornei, and whose latitude he estimated with an error of less
than ten miles.[23]
It is easy to see from Pigafetta's narrative[24] that at the
date of his visit the effects of Nakoda Ragam's exploits had not
evaporated. The splendour of the Court and the large population the
city is said to have contained were presumably the result of the
conquests he had made in neighbouring islands. The king, like the
princes of Malacca before the conquest, had his elephants, and he and
his courtiers were clothed in Chinese satins and Indian brocades. He
was in possession of artillery, and the appearance and ceremonial of
his court was imposing.
From this time onwards the power of Bruni has continuously
declined. Recurrent civil wars invited the occasional interventions
of the Portuguese and of the Spanish governors of the Philippines,
which, although they did not result in the subjugation of the Malay
power, nevertheless sapped its strength.
The interest of the later history of Borneo lies in the successive
attempts,[25] many of them fruitless, made by Dutch and English to
gain a footing on the island. The Dutch arrived off Bruni in the year
1600, and ten days afterwards were glad to leave with what pepper
they had obtained in the interval, the commander judging the place
nothing better than a nest of rogues. The Dutch did not press the
acquaintance, but started factories at Sambas, where they monopolised
the trade. In 1685 an English captain named Cowley arrived in Bruni;
but the English showed as little inclination as the Dutch to take up
the commerce which the Portuguese had abandoned.
At Banjermasin, on the southern coast, more progress was made. The
Dutch arrived there before their English rivals, but were soon
compelled by intrigues to withdraw. In 1704[26] the English factors
on the Chinese island of Chusan, expelled by the imperial authorities
and subsequently driven from Pulo Condar off the Cochin China coast
by a mutiny, arrived at Banjermasin. They had every reason to be
gratified with the prospects at that port; for they could sell the
native pepper to the Chinese at three times the cost price. But their
bitter experiences in the China seas had not taught them wisdom; they
soon fell out with the Javanese Sultan, whose hospitality they were
enjoying, and after some bloody struggles were obliged to withdraw
from this part of the island.
In 1747 the Dutch East India Company, which in 1705 had obtained a firm
footing in Java, and in 1745 had established its authority over all
the north-eastern coast of that island, extorted a monopoly of trade
at Banjermasin and set up a factory. Nearly forty years later[27]
(1785), the reigning prince having rendered himself odious to his
subjects, the country was invaded by 3000 natives of Celebes. These
were expelled by the Dutch, who dethroned the Sultan, placing his
younger brother on the throne; and he, in reward for their services,
ceded to them his entire dominions, consenting to hold them as a
vassal. This is the treaty under which the Dutch claim the sovereignty
of Banjermasin and whatever was once dependent on it. In this way
the Dutch got a hold on the country which they have never relaxed;
and, after the interval during which their possessions in the East
Indies were administered by England,[28] they strengthened that hold
gradually, year by year, till now two-thirds or more of the island
is under their flag and feels the benefits of their rule. If there
are still any districts of this large area where Dutch influence has
even now barely made itself felt, they will not long remain in their
isolation; for the Controleurs are extending their influence even
into the most remote corners of the territory.
To turn again to the north-western coast and the doings of Englishmen,
in 1763 the Sultan of Sulu ceded to the East India Company the
territory in Borneo which had been given him when he killed the usurper
Abdul Mubin in Bruni. In 1773 a small settlement was formed on the
island of Balambangan, north of Bruni; and in the following year
the Sultan of Bruni agreed to give this settlement a monopoly of the
pepper trade in return for protection from piracy. In the next year,
however, Balambangan was surprised and captured by the Sulus. It was
reoccupied for a few months in 1803, and then finally forsaken.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Malays of Bruni,
Sulu, and Mindanao, with native followers and allies, inspired
we may suppose by the example of their European visitors, took to
piracy -- not that they had not engaged in such business before, but
that they now prosecuted an old trade with renewed vigour. English
traders still tried to pay occasional visits, but after the loss
of the MAY in 1788, the SUSANNA in 1803, and the COMMERCE in 1806,
with the murder of the crews, the Admiralty warned merchants that it
was CERTAIN DESTRUCTION to go up river to Bruni. For forty years this
intimation was left on British charts, and British seamen followed the
humiliating counsel. Not until the early forties was peace restored,
after an event of the most romantic and improbable kind, the accession
of an English gentleman to the throne of Sarawak.
Of this incident, so fateful for the future of the western side
of Borneo, it must suffice to say here that James Brooke, a young
Englishman, having resigned his commission in the army of the British
East India Company, invested his fortune in a yacht of 140 tons,
with which he set sail in 1838 for the eastern Archipelago. His
bold but vague design was to establish peace, prosperity, and just
government in some part of that troubled area, whose beauties he had
admired and whose misfortunes he had deplored on the occasion of an
earlier voyage to the China seas. When at Singapore, he heard that
the Malays of Sarawak, a district forming the southern extremity
of the Sultanate of Bruni, had rebelled against the Bruni nobles,
and had in vain appealed to the Dutch Governor-general at Batavia for
deliverance from their oppressors. Under the nominal authority of the
Sultan, these Bruni nobles, many of whom were of Arab descent, had
brought all the north-western part of Borneo to a state of chronic
rebellion. They had taught the Sea Dayaks of the Batang Lupar and
neighbouring rivers to join them in their piratical excursions, and,
being to some extent dependent upon their aid, were compelled to
treat them with some consideration; but all other communities were
treated by them with a rapacity and cruelty which was causing a rapid
depopulation and the return to jungle of much cultivated land.
Brooke sailed for Sarawak in August 1839, and found the country torn
by internal conflicts. The Sultan had recently sent Muda Hasim, his
uncle and heir-presumptive to the throne of Bruni, to restore order;
but this weak though amiable noble had found himself quite incapable
of coping with the situation. Brooke spent some time surveying the
coast and studying the people and country, and gained the confidence of
Muda Hasim. After an excursion to Celebes, Brooke sailed for a second
visit to Sarawak just a year after the first, and found the state of
the country going from bad to worse. Muda Hasim besought him to take
command of his forces and to suppress the rebellion. Brooke consented,
and soon secured the submission of the rebel leaders on the condition
that he (Brooke), and not any Bruni noble, should be the governor and
Rajah of Sarawak. Muda Hasim had offered to secure his appointment
to this office as an inducement to him to undertake the operations
against the rebels; Brooke therefore felt himself justified in granting
these terms. And when later Muda Hasim, no longer threatened with
disgrace and failure, showed himself disinclined to carry out this
arrangement, Brooke, feeling himself bound by his agreement with
the rebel leaders, whose lives he had with difficulty preserved from
the vengeance of the Bruni nobles, insisted upon it with some show
of force; and on September 24, 1841, he was proclaimed Rajah and
governor of Sarawak amid the rejoicings of the populace. Muda Hasim,
as representative of the Sultan, signed the document which conferred
this title and authority; but since he was not in any proper sense
Rajah of Sarawak, which in fact was not a raj, but a district hitherto
ruled or misruled by Bruni governors not bearing the title of Rajah,
this transaction cannot properly be described as an abdication by
Muda Hasim in favour of Brooke. Brooke accordingly felt that it was
desirable to secure from the Sultan himself a formal recognition of
his authority and title. To this end he visited the Sultan in the year
1842, and obtained from him the desired confirmation of the action of
his agent Muda Hasim. The way in which the raj of Sarawak has since
been extended, until it now comprises a territory of nearly 60,000
square miles (approximately equal to the area of England and Wales),
will be briefly described in a later chapter (XXII.).
The northern end of Borneo had long been a hunting-ground for slaves
for the nobles of Bruni and Sulu, whose Sultans claimed but did
not exercise the right to rule over it. In 1877 Mr. Alfred Dent,
a Shanghai merchant, induced the two Sultans to resign to him their
sovereign rights over this territory in return for a money payment. The
British North Borneo Company, which was formed for the commercial
development of it, necessarily undertook the task of pacification
and administration. In 1881 the company was granted a royal charter
by the British Government; and it now administers with success and a
fair prospect of continued commercial profit a territory which, with
the exception of a small area about the town of Bruni, includes all
of the island that had not been brought under the Dutch or Sarawak
flag. In 1888 Sarawak and British North Borneo were formally brought
under the protection of the British Government; but the territories
remained under the rule of the Rajah and of the company respectively,
except in regard to their foreign relations. In the year 1906 the
Sultan of Bruni placed himself and his capital, together with the
small territory over which he still retained undivided authority,
under the protection of the British Government; and thus was completed
the passing of the island of Borneo under European control.
CHAPTER 3
General Sketch of the Peoples of Borneo
It is not improbable that at one time Borneo was inhabited by people
of the negrito race, small remnants of which race are still to be
found in islands adjacent to all the coasts of Borneo as well as in
the Malay Peninsula. No communities of this race exist in the island
at the present time; but among the people of the northern districts
individuals may be occasionally met with whose hair and facial
characters strongly suggest an infusion of negrito or negroid blood.
It is probable that the mixed race of Hindu-Javanese invaders, who
occupied the southern coasts of Borneo some centuries ago, became
blended with the indigenous population, and that a considerable
proportion of their blood still runs in the veins of some of the
tribes of the southern districts (E.G. the Land Dayaks and Malohs).
There can be no doubt that of the Chinese traders who have been
attracted to Borneo by its camphor, edible birds' nests, and spices,
some have settled in the island and have become blended with and
absorbed by the tribes of the north-west (E.G. the Dusuns); and
it seems probable that some of the elements of their culture have
spread widely and been adopted throughout a large part of Borneo. For
several centuries also Chinese settlers have been attracted to the
south-western district by the gold which they found in the river
gravel and alluvium. These also have intermarried with the people of
the country; but they have retained their national characteristics,
and have been continually recruited by considerable numbers of their
fellow countrymen. Since the establishment of peace and order and
security for life and property by the European administrations, and
with the consequent development of trade during the last half-century,
the influx of Chinese has been very rapid; until at the present time
they form large communities in and about all the chief centres of
trade. A certain number of Chinese traders continue to penetrate far
into the interior, and some of these take wives of the people of the
country; in many cases their children become members of their mothers'
tribes and so are blended with the native stocks.
Among the Mohammedans, who are found in all the coast regions of
Borneo, there is a considerable number of persons who claim Arab
forefathers; and there can be no doubt that the introduction of the
Mohammedan religion was largely due to Arab traders, and that many
Arabs and their half-bred descendants have held official positions
under the Sultans of Bruni.
During the last half-century, natives of India, most of whom are Klings
from Madras, have established themselves in the small trades of the
towns; and of others who came as coolies, some have settled in the
towns with their wives and families. These people do not penetrate
into the interior or intermarry with the natives.
With the exception of the above-mentioned immigrants and their
descendants, the population of Borneo may be described as falling
naturally into two great classes; namely, on the one hand those
who have accepted, nominally at least, the Mohammedan religion and
civilisation, and on the other hand the pagan peoples. In Bruni and in
all the coast regions the majority of the people are Mohammedan, have
no tribal organisation, and call themselves Malays (Orang Malayu). This
name has usually been accorded them by European authors; but when
so used the name denotes a social, political, and religious status
rather than membership in an ethnic group. With the exception of these
partially civilised "Malays" of the coast regions and the imported
elements mentioned above, all the natives of Borneo live under tribal
organisation, their cultures ranging from the extreme simplicity of the
nomadic Punans to a moderately developed barbarism. All these pagan
tribes have often been classed together indiscriminately under the
name Dyaks or Dayaks, though many groups may be clearly distinguished
from one another by differences of culture, belief, and custom,
and peculiarities of their physical and mental constitutions.
The Mohammedan population, being of very heterogeneous ethnic
composition, and having adopted a culture of foreign origin, which
may be better studied in other regions of the earth where the Malay
type and culture is more truly indigenous, seems to us to be of
secondary interest to the anthropologist as compared with the less
cultured pagan tribes. We shall therefore confine our attention to
the less known pagan tribes of the interior; and when we speak of
the people of Borneo in general terms it is to the latter only that
we refer (except where the "Malays" are specifically mentioned). Of
these we distinguish six principal groups: (1) Sea Dayaks or Ibans,
(2) the Kayans, (3) Kenyahs, (4) Klemantans, (5) Muruts, (6) Punans.
A census of the population has been made in most of the principal
districts of Sarawak and of Dutch Borneo; but as no census of the
whole country has hitherto been made, it is impossible to state
with any pretence to accuracy the number of the inhabitants of the
island. Basing our estimate on such partial and local enumerations
as have been made, we believe the total population to be about
3,000,000. Of these the Chinese immigrants and their descendants, who
are rapidly increasing in number, probably exceed 100,000. The Malays
and the native converts to Islam, who constitute with the Chinese the
population of the towns and settled villages of the coast districts,
probably number between three and four hundred thousand; the Indian
immigrants are probably not more than 10,000; the Europeans number
perhaps 3000; the rest of the population is made up of the six groups
of barbarians named in the foregoing paragraph.
Any estimate of the numbers of the people of each of these six
divisions is necessarily a very rough one, but it is perhaps worth
while to state our opinion on this question as follows: Klemantans,
rather more than 1,000,000; Kenyahs, about 300,000; Muruts, 250,000;
Sea Dayaks, 200,000; Kayans, 150,000; Punans and other peoples of
similar nomadic habits, 100,000 -- I.E. a total of 2,000,000.
(1) Of all these six peoples the Sea Dayaks have become best known
to Europeans, largely owing to their restless truculent disposition,
and to the fact that they are more numerous in Sarawak than any of
the others. They have spread northwards over Sarawak during the latter
half of the last century, chiefly from the region of the Batang Lupar,
where they are still numerous. They are still spreading northward,
encroaching upon the more peaceful Klemantan tribes. They are
most densely distributed in the lower reaches of the main rivers
of Sarawak, especially the Batang Lupar and Saribas rivers, which
are now exclusively occupied by them; but they are found also in
scattered communities throughout almost all parts of Sarawak, and
even in British North Borneo, and they extend from their centre in
Sarawak into the adjacent regions of Dutch Borneo, which are drained
by the northern tributaries of the Great Kapuas River.
The Sea Dayak is of a well-marked and fairly uniform physical
type. His skin is distinctly darker than that of the other peoples
of the interior, though not quite so dark as that of most of the
true Malays. The hair of his head is more abundant and longer than
that of other peoples. His figure is well proportioned, neat, and
generally somewhat boyish. His expression is bright and mobile, his
lips and teeth are generally distorted and discoloured by the constant
chewing of betel nut. They are a vain, dressy, boastful, excitable,
not to say frivolous people -- cheerful, talkative, sociable, fond
of fun and jokes and lively stories; though given to exaggeration,
their statements can generally be accepted as founded on fact; they
are industrious and energetic, and are great wanderers; to the last
peculiarity they owe the name of Iban, which has been given them by
the Kayans, and which has now been generally adopted even by the Sea
Dayaks themselves.
The good qualities enumerated above render the Iban an agreeable
companion and a useful servant. But there is another side to the
picture: they have little respect for their chiefs, a peculiarity which
renders their social organisation very defective and chaotic; they
are quarrelsome, treacherous, and litigious, and the most inveterate
head-hunters of the country; unlike most of the other peoples, they
will take heads for the sake of the glory the act brings them and for
the enjoyment of the killing; in the pursuit of human victims they
become possessed by a furious excitement that drives them on to acts
of the most heartless treachery and the most brutal ferocity.
All the Sea Dayaks speak one language, with but slight local
diversities of dialect. It is extremely simple, being almost devoid
of inflections, and of very simple grammatical structure, relying
largely on intonation. It is closely allied to Malay.
(2) The Kayans are widely distributed throughout central Borneo, and
are to be found in large villages situated on the middle reaches of
all the principal rivers with the exception of those that run to the
north coast. They occupy in the main a zone dividing the districts
of the lower reaches of the rivers from the central highlands from
which all the rivers flow.
They are a warlike people, but less truculent than the Sea Dayaks,
more staid and conservative and religious, and less sociable. They
do not wantonly enter into quarrels; they respect and obey their
chiefs. They are equally industrious with the Sea Dayaks, and though
somewhat slow and heavy in both mind and body, they are more skilled
in the handicrafts than any of the other peoples. They also speak
one language, which presents even less local diversity than the Sea
Dayak language.
(3) The Kenyahs predominate greatly in the highlands a little north of
the centre of Borneo where all the large rivers have their sources;
but they are found also in widely scattered villages throughout the
Kayan areas. In all respects they show closer affinities with the
Kayans than with the Sea Dayaks; as regards custom and mode of life
they closely resemble the Kayans, with whom they are generally on
friendly terms; but they are easily distinguished from the Kayans by
well-marked differences of bodily and mental characters, as well as
by language. Physically they are without question the finest people
of the country. Their skin-colour is decidedly fairer than that of
Sea Dayaks or Kayans. They are of medium stature, with long backs
and short, muscular, well-rounded limbs; a little stumpy in build,
but of graceful and vigorous bearing. They are perhaps the most
courageous and intelligent of the peoples; pugnacious, but less
quarrelsome than the Sea Dayak; more energetic and excitable than the
Kayan; hospitable and somewhat improvident, sociable and of pleasant
manners; less reserved and of more buoyant temperament than the Kayan;
very loyal and obedient to their chiefs; more truthful and more to be
depended upon under all circumstances than any of the other peoples,
except possibly the Kayans.
The Kenyahs speak a number of dialects of the same language, and
these differ so widely that Kenyahs of widely separated districts
cannot converse freely with one another; but, as with all the peoples,
except the Sea Dayaks, nearly every man has the command of several
dialects as well as of the Kayan language.
(4) The Klemantans. Under this name we group together a number
of tribes which, though in our opinion closely allied, are widely
scattered in all parts of Borneo, and present considerable diversities
of language and custom. In physical and mental characters they show
affinities to the Kenyahs on the one hand and to the Muruts on the
other. They are less bellicose than the peoples mentioned above,
and have suffered much at their hands. They are careful, intelligent,
and sociable, though somewhat timid, people; skilful in handicrafts,
but less energetic than the Kayans and Kenyahs, and inferior to them
in metal work and the making of swords and spears and boats. The
blow-pipe is their characteristic weapon, and they are more devoted
to hunting than any others, except the Punans.
Klemantans are to be found in every part of the island, but most of
their villages are situated on the lower reaches of the rivers. They
are most abundant in the south, constituting the greater part of the
population of Dutch Borneo; in the north they are few, their place
being filled by their near relatives, the Muruts. The latter constitute
the principal part of the population of the northern end of the island,
predominating over all the other peoples in British North Borneo,
and in the northern extremities of Sarawak and of Dutch Borneo.
(5) The Muruts are confined to the northern part of Borneo. They
resemble the Klemantans more closely than the other peoples. They
are comparatively tall and slender, have less regular and pleasing
features than the Klemantans, and their skin is generally darker
and more ruddy in colour. Their agriculture is superior to that
of the other peoples, but they are addicted to much drinking of
rice-spirit. Their social organisation is very loose, their chiefs
having but little authority. Besides those who call themselves Muruts,
we class under the same general name several tribes which we regard as
closely allied to them; namely, the Adangs in the head of the Limbang;
the Kalabits about the head of the Baram; the Sabans and Kerayans at
the head of the Kerayan river; the Libuns; the Lepu Asings at the
head of the Bahau; Tagals and Dusuns in the most northerly part;
the Trings of the Barau and Balungan rivers on the east.
(6) The Punans, among whom we include, beside the Punans proper, the
Ukits and a few other closely allied but widely scattered small groups,
are the only people who do not dwell in villages established on the
banks of the rivers. They live in small groups of twenty or thirty
persons, which wander in the jungle. Each such group is generally
made up of a chief and his descendants. The group will spend a few
weeks or months at a time in one spot (to which generally they are
attracted by the presence of wild sago), dwelling in rude shelters of
sticks and leaves, and then moving on, but generally remaining within
some one area, such as the basin of one of the upper tributaries
of a large river. They are found throughout the interior of Borneo,
but are difficult to meet with, as they remain hidden in the depths
of the forests. Unlike all the other peoples, they cultivate no PADI
(rice), and they do not make boats or travel on the rivers. They
support themselves by hunting with the blow-pipe, by gathering
the wild jungle fruits, and by collecting the jungle products and
bartering them with the more settled peoples. In physical characters
they closely resemble the Kenyahs, being well-built and vigorous;
their skin is of very light yellow colour, and their features are
regular and well shaped. Mentally they are characterised by extreme
shyness and timidity and reserve. They are quite inoffensive and never
engage in open warfare; though they will avenge injuries by stealthy
attacks on individuals with the blow-pipe and poisoned darts. Their
only handicrafts are the making of baskets, mats, blow-pipes, and the
implements used for working the wild sago; but in these and in the use
of the blow-pipe they are very expert. All other manufactured articles
used by them -- cloths, swords, spears -- are obtained by barter from
the other peoples. Unlike all the other peoples, they have no form of
sepulture, but simply leave the corpse of a comrade in the rude shelter
in which he died. They sing and declaim rude melancholy songs or dirges
with peculiar skill and striking effect. Their language is distinctive,
but is apparently allied to the Kenyah and Klemantan tongues.
We propose to deal with the topics of each of our descriptive chapters
by giving as full as possible an account of the Kayans, and adding to
this some observations as to the principal diversities of custom and
culture presented by the other peoples. For, if we should attempt
to describe in detail each of these peoples with all their local
diversities, this book would attain an inordinate length. The Kayans
are in most respects the most homogeneous of these peoples, the
most conservative and distinctive, and present perhaps the richest
and most interesting body of belief and custom and art; while many
of their customs and arts have been adopted by their neighbours,
or are indigenous with them.
We may conclude this chapter by describing briefly in general terms
the physical characters, and the habits and customs that are common
to all or most of these pagan tribes.
These peoples present no very great differences of physical
character. All are of medium height; their skin-colour ranges from
a rich medium brown to a very pale CAFE-AU-LAIT, hardly deeper than
the colour of cream. Their hair is nearly black or very dark brown,
and generally quite lank, but in some cases wavy or even almost
curly. Their faces show in nearly all cases, though in very diverse
degrees, some of the well-known mongoloid characters, the wide
cheek-bones, the small oblique eyes, the peculiar fold of the upper
eyelid at its nasal end, and the scanty beard. In some individuals
these traces are very slight and in fact not certainly perceptible. The
nose varies greatly in shape, but is usually rather wide at the
nostrils, and in very many cases the plane of the nostrils is tilted
a little upwards and forwards. On the other hand some individuals,
especially among the Kenyahs, have distinctly aquiline and well-formed
noses. Amongst all these peoples, especially the Kenyahs, Punans,
and Klemantans, there are to be seen a few individuals of very regular
well-shaped features of European type.
Although as regards physical characters all these peoples have much in
common, yet each of them presents peculiarities which are obvious to
the eye of an experienced observer, and enable him without hesitation
to assign to their proper groups the majority of individuals; and
such recognition on mere inspection is of course rendered easier by
the relatively slight peculiarities of dress and ornament proper to
each group.
The pure-bred Kenyah presents, perhaps, the most clearly marked as
well as the finest physical type. His skin, is the colour of rich
cream with a very small dash of coffee. The hair of his head varies
from slightly wavy to curly, and is never very abundant or long in the
men. The rest of his body is almost free from hair, and what little
grows upon the face is carefully plucked out (not, leaving even the
eyebrows and eyelashes). This practice is common to all the peoples of
the interior except the Sea Dayaks. His stature is about 1600 mm.; his
weight about 136 pounds. His limbs are distinctly short in proportion
to his body; his trunk is well developed and square, and both limbs
and trunk are well covered with rounded muscles. His movements are
quick and vigorous, and he is hardy and capable of sustaining prolonged
toil and hardship. His head is moderately round (Index 79), his face
broad but well shaped. The expression of his face is bold and open.
The Kayan has a rather darker skin of a redder tone. His legs are not
so disproportionately short, but in all other respects his body is less
well proportioned, graceful, and active than the Kenyah's. His features
are less regular and rather coarser and heavier; his expression is
serious, reserved, and cautious.
The Murut is nearly as fair skinned as the Kenyah, perhaps a little
ruddier in tone. His most characteristic feature is the length of his
leg and lack of calf, in both of which respects he contrasts strongly
with the Kenyah. The length of his leg raises his stature above the
average. His intonation is characteristic, namely, somewhat whining;
whereas the Kenyah's speech is crisp and staccato.
The Klemantans present a greater variety of physical types, being
a less homogeneous group. Roughly they may be said to present all
transitions from the Kenyah to the Murut type. In the main they are
less muscular and active than the Kenyah. It is amongst them that
the upward and forward direction of the plane of the nostrils is
most marked.
The Punan presents, again, a well-marked type. His skin is even fairer
than the Kenyah's, and is distinguished by a distinctly greenish
tinge. He is well proportioned, graceful, and muscular, and his
features are in many cases very regular and pleasing. His expression
is habitually melancholy and strikingly wary and timid. In spite of
his homeless nomadic life he generally appears well nourished and
clean, and he seems less subject to sores and to the skin diseases
which so often disfigure the other peoples, especially the Muruts,
Kayans, and Sea Dayaks.[29]
All these peoples, with the exception of the Punans and similar nomads,
live in village communities situated with few exceptions on the banks
of the rivers. The populations of these villages vary from 20 or 30
persons only in the smallest, to 1500 or even more in a few of the
largest; while the average village comprises about 30 families which,
with a few slaves and dependants, make a community of some 200 to 300
persons. Each such community is presided over by a chief. A number of
villages of one people are commonly grouped within easy reach of one
another on the banks of a river. But no people exclusively occupies
or claims exclusive possession of any one territory or waterway. With
the exception of the Sea Dayaks, all these different peoples may here
and there be found in closely adjoining villages; and in some rivers
the villages of the different peoples are freely intermingled over
considerable areas. The segregation of the Sea Dayak villages seems
to be due to the truculent treacherous nature of the Sea Dayak,
which renders him obnoxious as a neighbour to the other peoples,
and leads him to feel the need of the support of his own people in
large numbers. All find their principal support and occupation in the
cultivation of PADI (rice), and all supplement this with the breeding
of a few pigs and fowls and, in the north of the island, buffalo,
with hunting and fishing, and with the collection of jungle produce
-- gutta-percha, rubber, rattan canes, camphor, sago. These jungle
products they barter or sell for cash to the Malay and Chinese traders.
They have no written records, and but vague traditions of their
past history and migrations. There is no political organisation
beyond a loose coherence and alliance for defence and offence of the
village communities of any one people in neighbouring parts of the
country -- a coherence which at times is greatly strengthened by the
personal ascendency of the chief of some one village over neighbouring
chiefs. One of the most notable examples of such personal ascendency
exercised in recent times was that of Tama Bulan (Pl. 27), a Kenyah
chief whose village was situated on one of the tributaries of the
Baram river, and who by his loyal co-operation with the government
of the Rajah of Sarawak greatly facilitated the rapid establishment
of law and order in this district.
Except for these informal alliances obtaining between neighbouring
villages of the people of any one stock, each village forms an
independent community, ruled by its chief, making war and peace
and alliances, and selecting patches of land for cultivation at its
own pleasure. No village community remains on the same spot for any
long period; but after fifteen, ten, or even fewer years, a new site
is sought, often at a considerable distance, and a new village is
built. The principal reasons for this habit of frequent migration,
which has produced the intimate mingling throughout large areas of the
peoples of different stocks, are two: first, the necessity of finding
virgin soil for cultivation; secondly, the occurrence of epidemics
or other calamities; these lead them to believe that the place of
their abode supplies in insufficient degree the favouring spiritual
influences which they regard as essential to their welfare. For among
all these peoples animistic beliefs abound; they hold themselves to be
surrounded on every hand by spiritual forces both good and bad, some
of which are embodied in the wild creatures, especially the birds,
while some are manifested in such natural processes as the growth of
the corn, the rising of the river in flood, the rolling of thunder,
the incidence of disease. And they are constantly concerned to keep
at a distance, by the observance of many rigidly prescribed customs,
the evil influences, and, to a less degree, to secure by propitiatory
acts the protection and the friendly warnings of the beneficent powers.
One of the most peculiar features of the people of Borneo is the great
diversity of language obtaining among them. The migratory habits of
the people and the consequent mingling of communities of different
stocks within the same areas, far from having resulted in the genesis
by fusion of a common language, have resulted in the formation of
a great number of very distinct dialects; so that in following the
course of a river, one may sometimes find in a day's journey of a
score of miles half a dozen or more villages, the people of each of
which speak a dialect almost, or in some cases quite, unintelligible
to their neighbours. A necessary consequence of this state of affairs
is that, with the exception of the Sea Dayaks, almost all adults
speak or at least understand two or more dialects or languages,
while most of the chiefs and leading men speak several dialects
fluently and partially understand a larger number. The language most
widely understood by those to whom it is not native is the Kayan;
but since the recent spread of trade through large areas under the
protection of the European governments, a simplified form of the Malay
language has been rapidly establishing itself as the LINGUA FRANCA of
the whole country. In Sarawak, where, during the last fifty years,
the Sea Dayaks have spread from the Batang Lupar district and have
established villages on all the principal rivers, their language,
which seems to be a bastard and very simple branch of the Malay tongue,
is very widely understood and is largely used as a common medium.
Note on the use of the term KLEMANTAN. The Malay name for Borneo is
Pulu Klemantan, and we have adopted this name to denote the large
group of allied tribes which in our opinion have the best claim to
be regarded as representing the indigenous population of the island.
CHAPTER 4
Material Conditions of the Pagan Tribes of Borneo
With few exceptions, the main features of the dress, adornment,
and weapons of all the peoples are similar, showing only minor
differences from tribe to tribe and from place to place. The essential
and universal article of male attire is the waist-cloth, a strip of
cloth about one yard wide and four to eight yards in length (see
Frontispiece). Formerly this was made of bark-cloth; but now the
cotton-cloth obtained from the Chinese and Malay traders has largely
superseded the native bark-cloth, except in the remoter regions; and
here and there a well-to-do man may be seen wearing a cloth of more
expensive stuff, sometimes even of silk. One end of such a cloth is
passed between the legs from behind forwards, about eighteen inches
being left dependent; the rest of it is then passed several times round
the waist, over the end brought up on to the belly, and the other end
is tucked in at the back. The man wears in addition when out of doors
a coat of bark-cloth or white cotton stuff,[30] and a wide sun-hat
of palm leaves, in shape like a mushroom-top or an inverted and very
shallow basin, which shelters him from both sun and rain; many wear
also a small oblong mat plaited of rattan-strips hanging behind from
a cord passed round the waist, and serving as a seat when the wearer
sits down. At home the man wears nothing more than the waist-cloth,
save some narrow plaited bands of palm fibre below the knee, and, in
most cases, some adornment in the ears or about the neck and on the
arms.[31] The man's hair is allowed to grow long on the crown of the
scalp, and to hang freely over the back of the neck, in some cases
reaching as far as the middle of the back. This long hair is never
plaited, but is sometimes screwed up in a knot on the top of the head
and fastened with a skewer. The latter mode of wearing the hair is
the rule among the Muruts, who use elaborately carved and decorated
hairpins of bone (the shin bone of the deer, Fig. 1). That part of
the hair of the crown which naturally falls forwards is cut to form
a straight fringe across the forehead. All the rest of the head is
kept shaven, except at times of mourning for the death of relatives.
When in the house the man commonly wears on his head a band of plaited
rattan, which varies from a mere band around the brows to a completed
skull-cap. The free ends of the rattan strips are generally allowed to
project, forming a dependent tassel or fringe (Pl. 21). A well-to-do
Kayan man usually wears a necklace consisting of a single string of
beads, which in many cases are old and of considerable value (Pls. 19
and 28). Every Kayan has the shell of the ear perforated, and when
fully dressed wears, thrust forward through the hole in each shell,
the big upper canine tooth of the tiger-cat; but he is not entitled
to wear these until he has been on the warpath. Those who have taken
a head or otherwise distinguished themselves in war may wear, instead
of the teeth, pieces of similar shape carved from the solid beak of
the helmeted hornbill. The youths who have not qualified themselves
for these adornments, and warriors during mourning, usually wear a
disc of wood or wax in their places (Pls. 19 and 21).
The lobe of the ear is perforated and distended to a loop some two
inches in length, in which a brass ring is worn. Just above this loop
a small hole through the shell is usually made, and from this a small
skein of beads depends. Similar ear ornaments are worn by Kenyahs and
some of the Klemantans, but not by Muruts, and by few individuals
only among Punans and Sea Dayaks. Many of the latter wear a row of
small brass rings inserted round the margin of the shell of each ear
(Fig. 2).
Many of the men wear also bracelets of shell or hard wood.
Although the dress of the men is so uniform in essentials throughout
the country, it gives considerable scope for the display of personal
tastes, and the Sea Dayak especially delights in winding many yards
of brilliantly coloured cloth about his waist, in brilliant coats
and gorgeous turbans[32] and feathers, and other ornaments; by means
of these he manages to make himself appear as a very dressy person
in comparison with the sober Kayan and with most of the people of
the remoter inland regions, who have little but scanty strips of
bark-cloth about the loins.
The universal weapons of the country are sword and spear, and
no man travels far from home without these and his oblong wooden
shield. Some of the peoples are expert in the use of the blowpipe
and poisoned dart. The blow-pipe and the recently introduced firearms
are the only missile weapons; the bow is unknown save as a plaything
for children,[33] and possibly in a few localities in the extreme
north.[34]
The dress of the women is less uniform than that of the men. The Sea
Dayak woman (Pls. 29 and 30) wears a short skirt of cotton thread
woven in curious patterns of several colours, reaching from the waist
almost to the knee; a long-sleeved jacket of the same material, and a
corset consisting of many rings of rattan built up one above another
to enclose the body from breast to thigh. Each rattan ring is sheathed
in small rings of beaten brass. The corset is made to open partially
or completely down the front, but is often worn continuously for long
periods. She wears her hair tied in a knot at the back of her head.
The principal garment of the women of all the other peoples is a
skirt of bark or cotton cloth, which is tied by a string a little
below the level of the crest of the hip bone; it reaches almost to
the ankle, but is open at the left side along its whole depth. It is
thus a large apron rather than a skirt. When the woman is at work in
the house or elsewhere, she tucks up the apron by drawing the front
flap backwards between her legs, and tucking it tightly into the band
behind, thus reducing it to the proportions and appearance of a small
pair of bathing-drawers. Each woman possesses also a long-sleeved,
long-bodied jacket of white cotton similar to that worn by the men;
this coat is generally worn by both sexes when working in the fields
or travelling in boats, chiefly as a protection against the rays of
the sun. The women wear also a large mushroom-shaped hat similar to
that worn by the men. With few exceptions all the women allow the hair
to grow uncut and to fall naturally from the ridge of the cranium,
confined only by a circular band of rattan or beadwork passing over
the occiput and just above the eyebrows.
The principal ornaments of the women are necklaces and girdles of
beads, earrings, and bracelets. A well-to-do Kayan woman may wear a
large number of valuable beads (see Pls. 28 and 31). The bracelets
are of ivory, and both forearms are sometimes completely sheathed
in series of such bracelets. The ear-rings are the most distinctive
feature of the Kayan woman's adornment. The perforated lobes of the
ears are gradually drawn down during childhood and youth, until
each lobe forms a slender loop which reaches to the collar-bone,
or lower. Each loop bears several massive rings of copper (Pl. 20),
whose combined weight is in some cases as much as two pounds.[35] Most
of the Kenyah women also wear similar earrings, but these are usually
lighter and more numerous, and the lobe is not so much distended. The
women of many of the Klemantan tribes wear a large wooden disc in the
distended lobe of each ear, and those of other Klemantan tribes wear
a smaller wooden plug with a boss (Pl. 32). The children run naked
up to the age of six or seven years, when they are dressed in the
fashion of their parents.
On festive occasions both men and women put on as many of their
ornaments as can be conveniently worn.
Deformation of the Head
Some of the Malanaus, a partially Mohammedan tribe of Klemantans,
seated about the mouths of the Muka, Oya, and Bintulu rivers of
Sarawak, have the curious custom of flattening the heads of the
infants, chiefly the females. The flattening is effected at an
early age, the process beginning generally within the first month
after birth. It consists in applying pressure to the head by means
of a simple apparatus for some fifteen minutes, more or less, on
successive days, or at rather longer intervals. The application of
the pressure for this brief space of time, on some ten to twenty
occasions, seems to suffice to bring about the desired effect. The
pressure is applied while the child sleeps, and is at once relaxed if
the child wakes or cries. The apparatus, known as TADAL (see Fig. 3),
consists of a stout flat bar of wood, some nine inches in length
and three wide in its middle part. This wider middle part bears on
one surface a soft pad for application to the infant's forehead. A
[inverted T] strap of soft cloth is attached by its upper
extremity to the middle of the upper edge of the wooden bar; and each
end of its horizontal strip is continued by a pair of strings which
pass through holes in the ends of the bar. The strings are brought
together on the front of the bar at its middle and passed through the
centre of a copper coin[36] or other hard disc. The bar is applied
transversely to the forehead of the infant; the vertical strap runs
back over the sagittal suture; the transverse strap is drawn tightly
across the occiput, and the required degree of pressure is gradually
applied by twisting the coin round and round on the front of the bar,
and so pulling upon the strings which connect the ends of the bar on
the forehead with the ends of the strap across the occiput (Pl. 33).
The effect produced is of course a flattening of brow and occiput and
a broadening of the whole head. The motive seems to be the desire to
enhance the beauty of the child by ensuring to it a moon-like face,
which is the most admired form. The Malanaus seem to be by nature
peculiarly round-headed; the question whether this is due to the
effects of head-flattening practised for many generations, must be
left to the investigations of the Neo-Lamarckians. They are also a
peculiarly handsome people, and it seems more likely that, taking a
pride in their good looks, they have, like so many other peoples,
sought to enhance the beauty of their children by accentuating a
racial peculiarity.
Houses
All the tribes except the Punans build houses of one type; but the size
and proportions, the strength of the materials used, and the skill and
care displayed in the work of construction, show wide differences. The
houses of the Kayans are perhaps better and more solidly built than any
others and may be taken as the type. Each house is built to accommodate
many families; an average house may contain some forty to fifty,
making up with children and slaves some two or three hundred persons;
while some of the larger houses are built for as many as a hundred
and twenty families, or some five to six hundred persons. The house
is always close to a river, and it usually stands on the bank at a
distance of 20 to 50 yards from the water, its length lying parallel
to the course of the river. The plan of the house is a rectangle,
of which the length generally much exceeds the width (Pl. 34).
Its roof is always a simple ridge extending the whole length of the
house, and is made of shingles of BILIAN (ironwood) or other hard
and durable kind of wood. The framework of the roof is supported at
a height of some 25 to 30 feet from the ground on massive piles of
ironwood, and the floor is supported by the same piles at a level some
7 or 8 feet below the cross-beams of the roof. The floor consists
of cross-beams morticed to the piles, and of very large planks of
hard wood laid upon them parallel to the length of the house. The
projecting eaves of the roof come down to a level midway between
that of the roof-beams and that of the floor, and the interval of
some 4 to 5 feet between the eaves and the floor remains open along
the whole length of the front of the house (I.E. the side facing the
river), save for a low parapet which bounds the floor along its outer
edge. This space serves to admit both light and air, and affords an
easy view over the river to those sitting in the house. The length
of the house is in some cases as much as 400 yards, but the average
length is probably about 200 yards. The width of the floor varies
from about 30 to 60 feet; the whole space between roof and floor is
divided into two parts by a longitudinal wall of vertical planks,
which runs the whole length of the house. This wall lies not quite
in the middle line, but a little to the river side of it. Of the two
longitudinal divisions of the house, that which adjoins the river
is thus somewhat narrower than the other; it remains undivided in
its whole length. The other and wider part is divided by transverse
walls at intervals of some 25 or 30 feet, so as to form a single row
of spacious chambers of approximately equal size. Each such chamber is
the private apartment of one family; in it father, mother, daughters,
young sons and female slaves, sleep and eat (Pl. 37). Within each
chamber are usually several sleeping-places or alcoves more or less
completely screened or walled off from the central space. The chamber
contains a fireplace, generally merely a slab of clay in a wooden
framework placed near the centre. The outside wall of this side of
the house is carried up to meet the roof. The entrance of light and
air and the egress of smoke are provided for by the elevation on a
prop of one corner of a square section of the roof, marked out by a
right-angled cut, of which one limb runs parallel to the outer wall,
the other upwards from one extremity of the former. This aperture
can be easily closed, E.G. during heavy rain, by removing the prop
and allowing the flap to fall into its original position.
The front part of the house, which remains undivided, forms a single
long gallery serving as a common antechamber to all the private rooms,
each of which opens to it by a wooden door (Pls. 36, 38). It is in
a sense, though roofed and raised some 20 feet above the ground, the
village street, as well as a common living and reception room. Along
the outer border of the floor runs a low platform on which the inmates
sit on mats. One part of this, usually that opposite the chief's
apartment in the middle of the house, is formed of several large
slabs of hardwood (TAPANG or Koompassia), and is specially reserved
for the reception of guests and for formal meetings. The platform
is interrupted here and there by smaller platforms raised some 3 or
4 feet from the floor, which are the sleeping quarters assigned to
the bachelors and male visitors. At intervals of some 30 or 40 feet
throughout the gallery are fireplaces similar to those in the private
chambers; on some of these fire constantly smoulders.
Over one of these fireplaces, generally one near the middle of
the great gallery, is hung a row of human heads (Pl. 38), trophies
obtained in war, together with a number of charms and objects used
in various rites.[37]
Alongside the inner wall of the gallery stand the large wooden mortars
used by the women in husking the PADI. Above these hang the winnowing
trays and mats, and on this wall hang also various implements of
common use -- hats, paddles, fish-traps, and so forth.
The gallery is reached from the ground by several ladders, each
of which consists of a notched beam sloping at an angle of about
45[degree], and furnished with a slender hand-rail. The more carefully
made ladder is fashioned from a single log, but the wood is so cut as
to leave a hand-rail projecting forwards a few inches on either side
of the notched gully or trough in which the feet are placed. From
the foot of each ladder a row of logs, notched and roughly squared,
and laid end to end, forms a foot-way to the water's edge. In wet
weather such a foot-way is a necessity, because pigs, fowls, and dogs,
and in some cases goats, run freely beneath and around the house, and
churn the surface of the ground into a thick layer of slippery mire.
Here and there along the front of the house are open platforms raised
to the level of the floor, on which the PADI is exposed to the sun
to be dried before being husked.
Under the house, among the piles on which it is raised, such
boats as are not in daily use are stored. Round about the house,
and especially on the space between it and the brink of the river,
are numerous PADI barns (Pl. 40). Each of these, the storehouse of
the grain harvested by one family, is a large wooden bin about 10
feet square, raised on piles some 7 feet from the ground. Each pile
carries just below the level of the floor of the bin a large disc of
wood horizontally disposed, and perforated at its centre by the pile;
this serves to prevent rats and mice gaining access to the bin. The
shingle roof of the bin is like that of the house, but the two ends
are filled by sloping surfaces running up under the gables. There
are generally also a few fruit trees and tobacco plants in the space
cleared round about the house; and in the space between it and the
river are usually some rudely carved wooden figures, around which
rites and ceremonies are performed from time to time.
Kayan villages generally consist of several, in some cases as many
as seven or eight, such houses of various lengths, grouped closely
together. The favourite situation for such a village is a peninsula
formed by a sharp bend of the river.
Of the houses built by the other peoples, those of the Kenyahs very
closely resemble those of the Kayans. The Kenyah village frequently
consists of a single long house (and with the Sea Dayaks this is
invariably the case), and it is in many cases perched on a high
steep bank immediately above the river. Some of the Klemantans also
build houses little if at all inferior to those of the Kayans, and
very similar to them in general plan. But in this as in all other
respects the Klemantans exhibit great diversities, some of their
houses being built in a comparatively flimsy manner, light timber
and even bamboos being used, and the roof being made of leaves. The
houses of the Muruts are small and low, and of poor construction.
The Sea Dayak's house differs from that of the Kayan more than any
of the others. The general plan is the same; but the place of the
few massive piles is taken by a much larger number of slender piles,
which pass up to the roof through the gallery and chambers. Of the
gallery only a narrow passageway alongside the main partition-wall
is kept clear of piles and other obstructions. The floor is of split
bamboo covered with coarse mats. An open platform at the level of the
floor runs along the whole length of the open side of the house. There
are no PADI barns about the house, the PADI being kept in bins in the
roofs. The roof itself is low, giving little head space. The gallery
of the house makes an impression of lack of space, very different to
that made by the long wide gallery of a Kayan or Kenyah house.
Although the more solidly built houses, such as those of the Kayans,
would be habitable for many generations, few of them are inhabited for
more than fifteen or twenty years, and some are used for much shorter
periods only. For one reason or another the village community decides
to build itself a new house on a different and sometimes distant site,
though the new site is usually in the same tributary river, or, if on
the main river, within a few miles of the old one. The most frequent
causes of removal are, first, using up of the soil in the immediate
neighbourhood of the village, for they do not cultivate the same
patch more than three or four times at intervals of several years;
secondly, the occurrence of a fatal epidemic; thirdly, any run of bad
luck or succession of evil omens; fourthly, the burning of the house,
whether accidentally or in the course of an attack by enemies.
On removing to a new site the planks and the best of the timber of a
well-built house are usually towed along the river to the spot chosen,
and used in the construction of the new house.
After the houses the most important of the material possessions of the
people are their boats. Each family possesses at least one small boat
capable of carrying seven or eight persons, and used chiefly for going
to and from the PADI fields, but also for fishing and short journeys
of all kinds. In addition to these the community possesses several
larger boats used for longer journeys, and generally at least one long
war-boat, capable of carrying 50 to 100 men. Each boat, even one of
the largest size, is hollowed from a single log, the freeboard being
raised by lashing narrow planks to the edge of the hollowed log. In
the middle of a large boat is a section, the freeboard of which is
raised still higher, and which is covered by an arched roof of palm
leaves. The boat is crossed at intervals of some three feet by seats
formed of short planks, each supported at both ends by projections of
the main timber, to which they are lashed with rattan. In travelling
on the lower reaches of the rivers, the rowers sit two on each bench,
side by side and facing the bow. On the upper reaches, where rapids
abound, a deck is made by laying split bamboos along the length of the
boat upon the benches, and the crew sits upon this deck in paddling,
or stands upon it when poling the boat over rapids.
In addition to the clothes, houses, and boats, and the domestic
animals mentioned above, and to the personal ornaments and weapons
to be described in later chapters, the material possessions of the
Kayans consist chiefly of baskets and mats.
The baskets are of various shapes and sizes, adapted to a variety
of uses. The largest size holds about two bushels of PADI, and is
chiefly used for transporting grain from the fields to the house
(Fig. 4). It is almost cylindrical in shape, but rather wider at
the upper end. Four strips of wood running down from near the upper
edge project slightly below, forming short legs on which the basket
stands. The upper end is closed by a detachable cap, which fits inside
the upper lip of the basket. It is provided with a pair of shoulder
straps, and a strap which is passed over the crown of the head. These
straps are made of a single strip of tough beaten bark. One end of it
is attached to the foot of the basket; a second attachment is made
at the middle of the height, forming a loop for the one shoulder;
the strip is then looped over to the corresponding point on the other
side, forming the loop for the head, and then carried down to the foot
of the basket on that side to form the loop for the other shoulder.
A smaller cylindrical basket, very neatly plaited of thin and very
pliable strips of rattan, is used for carrying the few articles which
a man takes with him in travelling -- a little rice and tobacco,
a spare waist cloth, a sleeping mat, perhaps a second mat of palm
leaves used as a protection against rain, a roll of dried banana
leaves for making cigarettes, perhaps a cap for wear in the house, and,
not infrequently nowadays, a bright coloured handkerchief of Chinese
silk. The lip of the basket is surrounded by a close set row of eyes
through which a cord is passed. To this cord a net is attached,
and is drawn together in the centre of the opening of the basket
by a second cord, in order to confine its contents. This basket is
provided with shoulder straps only.
In addition to these two principal baskets, each family has a number
of smaller baskets of various shapes for storing their personal
belongings, and for containing food in course of preparation (Fig. 5).
The mats are of many shapes and sizes. The largest are spread on
the raised part of the floor, both of the gallery and of the private
chambers, when a party sits down to eat or converse. Each individual
has his own sleeping mat, and each family has a number of mats used
for drying, husking, winnowing, and sieving the PADI.
The bamboo water-vessel consists of a section of the stem of the
bamboo, closed at the lower end by the natural septum, the upper end
having a lip or spout formed at the level of the succeeding septum. A
short length of a branch remains projecting downwards to form a handle,
by means of which the vessel can be conveniently suspended. These
vessels are used also for carrying rice-spirit or BORAK; but this
is stored in large jars of earthenware or china. The native jar of
earthenware is ovoid in shape and holds about one gallon, but these
are now largely superseded by jars made by the Chinese.
Each family possesses some dishes and platters of hardwood (Figs. 6
and 7), and generally a few china plates bought from traders; but a
large leaf is the plate most commonly used.
Rice, the principal food, which forms the bulk of every meal, is
boiled in an iron or brass pot with lip, handle, and lid, not unlike
the old English cauldron; it has no legs, and is placed on a tripod of
stones or suspended over the fire. This metal pot, which is obtained
from the Chinese traders, has superseded the home-made pot of clay
(Fig. 8) and the bamboo vessels in which the rice was cooked in former
times. A larger wide stewpan is also used for cooking pork, vegetables,
and fish. The Kayans smoke tobacco, which they cultivate in small
quantities. It is generally smoked in the form of large cigarettes,
the finely cut leaf being rolled in sheets of dried banana leaf. But
it is also smoked in pipes, which are made in a variety of shapes, the
bowl of hardwood, the stem of slender bamboo (Fig. 9). Sea Dayaks chew
tobacco, but smoke little, being devoted to the chewing of betel nut.
In every house is a number of large brass gongs (TAWAK), which are
used in various ceremonies and for signalling, and constitute also
one of the best recognised standards of value and the most important
form of currency. Besides these largest gongs, smaller ones of various
shapes and sizes are kept and used on festive occasions (Pl. 45). All
these gongs are obtained through traders from Bruni, China, and Java.
Beside the gongs a Kayan house generally contains, as the
common property of the whole household, several long narrow drums
(Fig. 10). Each is a hollow cylinder of wood, constricted about its
middle, open at one end, and closed at the other with a sheet of
deer-skin. This is stretched by means of slips of rattan attached to
its edges, and carried back to a stout rattan ring woven about the
constricted middle of the drum; the skin is tightened by inserting
wedges under this ring.
In most houses two or three small brass swivel guns may be seen
in the gallery, and a small stock of powder for their service is
usually kept by the chief. They are sometimes discharged to salute a
distinguished visitor, and formerly played some small part in repelling
attacks. The domestic animals of the Kayans are fowls, goats, pigs,
and dogs. The latter live in the house, the others run free beneath
and around the house.
The material possessions of the other peoples differ little from those
of the Kayans. Almost every Sea Dayak possesses, and keeps stored at
the back of his private chamber, one or more large vases. These were
formerly imported from China, but are now made by the Chinese of the
towns in Borneo. The commonest of the highly prized jars are of plain
brown brightly glazed earthenware, standing about three feet in height
on a flat bottom (Pl. 48); each is ornamented with a Chinese dragon
moulded in relief (BENAGA), or some scroll designs which, though very
varied, go by the name of RUSA (=deer) and NINGKA. A Dayak will give
from 200 to 400 dollars for such a jar. Rarer and still more highly
prized is a jar similar to these, but wider, very highly glazed, and
bare of all ornament save some obscure markings. Eight perforated
"ears" project just below the lip, and serve for the attachment of
a wooden or cloth cover. This jar occurs in two varieties, a dark
green and a very dark brown, which are known respectively as GUSI
and BERGIAU, the latter being the more valuable. Other smaller and
less valued jars are the PANTAR and the ALAS. The jars of the kinds
mentioned above are valued largely on account of their age; probably
all of them were imported from China and Siam, some of them no doubt
centuries ago. Besides these old jars there are now to be found in
most of the Sea Dayak houses many jars of modern Chinese manufacture,
some of which are very skilful imitations of the old types; and
though the Dayak is a connoisseur in these matters, and can usually
distinguish the new from the old, he purchases willingly the cheap
modern imitations of the old, because they are readily mistaken by
the casual observer for the more valuable varieties (Pl. 47).
A few large vases of Chinese porcelain, usually covered with elaborate
designs in colour, are to be found in most of the houses of the other
peoples (Pl. 47).
CHAPTER 5
The Social System
The Kayans constitute a well-defined and homogeneous tribe or
people. Although their villages are scattered over a wide area,
the Kayan people everywhere speak the same language and follow
the same customs, have the same traditions, beliefs, rites, and
ceremonies. Such small differences as they present from place to
place are hardly greater than those obtaining between the villagers
of adjoining English counties. Although communication between the
widely separated branches of the people is very slight and infrequent,
yet all are bound together by a common sentiment for the tribal name,
reputation, tradition, and customs. The chiefs keep in mind and hand
down from generation to generation the history of the migrations of
the principal branches of the tribe, the names and genealogies of the
principal chiefs, and important incidents affecting any one branch. At
least fifteen sub-tribes of Kayans, each bearing a distinctive name,
are recognised.[38] The word UMA, which appears in the names of each
group, means village or settlement, and it seems probable that these
fifteen sub-tribes represent fifteen original Kayan villages which
at some remote period, before the tribe became so widely scattered,
may have contained the whole Kayan population. At the present time
the people of each sub-tribe occupy several villages, which in most
cases, but not in all, are within the basin of one river.
In spite of the community of tribal sentiment, which leads Kayans
always to take the part of Kayans, and prevents the outbreak of
any serious quarrels between Kayan villages, there exist no formal
bonds between the various sub-tribes and villages. Each village is
absolutely independent of all others, save in so far as custom and
caution prescribe that, before undertaking any important affair (such
as a removal of the village or a warlike expedition), the chief will
seek the advice, and, if necessary, the co-operation of the chiefs
of neighbouring Kayan villages. The people of neighbouring villages,
especially the families of the chiefs, are also bound together by
many ties of kinship; for intermarriage is frequent.
As was said above, a Kayan village almost invariably consists of
several long houses. Each house is ruled by a chief; but one such
chief is recognised as the head-chief of the village.
The minor and purely domestic affairs of each house are settled
by the house-chief, but all important matters of general interest
are brought before the village-chief. In the former category fall
disputes as to ownership of domestic animals and plants, questions
of compensation for injury or loss of borrowed boats, nets, or other
articles, of marriage and divorce, and minor personal injuries, moral
or physical. The matters to be settled by the head-chief sitting in
council with the subordinate chiefs are those affecting the whole
village, questions of war and peace and of removal, disputes between
houses, trials for murder or serious personal injuries.
The degree of authority of the chiefs and the nature and degree of
the penalties imposed by them are prescribed in a general way by
custom, though as regards the former much depends upon the personal
qualities of each chief, and as regards the latter much is left to his
discretion. The punishments imposed are generally fines, so many TAWAKS
(gongs), PARANGS (swords) or spears, or other articles of personal
property. On the whole the chief plays the part of an arbitrator and
mediator, awarding compensation to the injured party, rather than that
of a judge. In the case of offences against the whole house, a fine
is imposed; and the articles of the required value are placed under
the charge of the chief, who holds them on behalf of the community,
and uses them in the making of payments or presents in return for
services rendered to the whole community.
The chief also is responsible for the proper observation of the omens
and for the regulation of MALAN (tabu) affecting the whole house; and,
as we shall see, he takes the leading part in social ceremonies and in
most of the religious rites collectively performed by the village. He
is regarded by other chiefs as responsible for the behaviour of his
people, and above all, in war he is responsible for both strategy
and tactics and the general conduct of operations.
For the maintenance of his authority and the enforcement of his
commands the chief relies upon the force of public opinion, which,
so long as he is capable and just, will always support him, and will
bring severe moral pressure to bear upon any member of the household
who hesitates to submit.
In return for his labours on behalf of the household or village the
Kayan chief gains little or nothing in the shape of material reward. He
may receive a little voluntary assistance in the cultivation of his
field; in travelling by boat he is accorded the place of honour and
ease in the middle of the boat, and he is not expected to help in
its propulsion. His principal rewards are the social precedence and
deference accorded him and the satisfaction found in the exercise
of authority.
If the people of a house or village are gravely dissatisfied with
the conduct of their chief, they will retire to their PADI-fields,
building temporary houses there. If many take this course, a new
long house will be built and a new chief elected to rule over it,
while the old chief remains in the old house with a reduced following,
sometimes consisting only of his near relatives.
The office of chief is rather elective than hereditary, but the
operation of the elective principle is affected by a strong bias in
favour of the most capable son of the late chief; so in practice a
chief is generally succeeded by one of his sons. An elderly chief will
sometimes voluntarily abdicate in favour of a son. If a chief dies,
leaving no son of mature age, some elderly man of good standing and
capacity will be elected to the chieftainship, generally by agreement
arrived at by many informal discussions during the weeks following
the death. If thereafter a son of the old chief showed himself a
capable man as he grew up, he would be held to have a strong claim on
the chieftainship at the next vacancy. If the new chief at his death
left also a mature and capable son, there might be two claimants, each
supported by a strong party; the issue of such a state of affairs would
probably be the division of the house or village, by the departure of
one claimant with his party to build a new village. In such a case
the seceding party would carry away with them their share of the
timbers of the old house, together with all their personal property.
The Kenyahs form a less homogeneous and clearly defined tribe than
the Kayans; yet in the main their social organisation is very similar
to that of the Kayans, although, as regards physical characters and
language as well as some customs, they present closer affinities with
other peoples than with the Kayans, especially with the Klemantans. The
Kenyah tribe also comprises a number of named branches, though these
are less clearly defined than the sub-tribes of the Kayan people. Each
branch is generally named after the river on the banks of which its
villages are situated, or were situated at some comparatively recent
time of which the memory is preserved. In many cases a single village
adopts the name of some tributary stream near the mouth of which it
is situated, and the people speak of themselves by this name. Thus it
seems clear that the named branches of the Kenyah tribe are nothing
more than local groups formed in the course of the periodical
migrations, and named after the localities they have occupied.[39]
The foregoing description of the relations of a Kayan chief to
his people applies in the main to the Kenyah chief. But among the
Kenyahs the position of the chief is one of greater authority and
consideration than among the Kayans. The people voluntarily work for
their chief both in his private and public capacities, obeying his
commands cheerfully, and accepting his decisions with more deference
than is accorded by the Kayans. The chief in return shows himself
more generous and paternal towards his people, interesting himself
more intimately in their individual affairs. Hence the Kenyah chief
stands out more prominently as leader and representative of his people,
and the cohesion of the whole community is stronger. The chief owes his
great influence over his people in large measure to his training, for,
while still a youth, the son or the nephew of a chief is accustomed
to responsibility by being sent in charge of small bodies of followers
upon missions to distant villages, to gather or convey information, or
to investigate disturbing rumours. He is also frequently called upon to
speak on public occasions, and thus early becomes a practised orator.
Among Klemantans, Muruts, and Sea Dayaks each house recognises a
headman or chief; but he has little authority (more perhaps among the
first of these peoples than among the other two). He acts as arbitrator
in household disputes, but in too many cases his impartiality is not
above suspicion, save where custom rigidly limits his preference.
Among both Kayans and Kenyahs three social strata are clearly
distinguishable and are recognised by the people themselves in each
village. The upper class is constituted by the family of the chief
and his near relatives, his aunts and uncles, brothers, sisters, and
cousins, and their children. These upper-class families are generally
in easier circumstances than the others, thanks to the possession
of property such as brass ware, valuable beads, caves in which the
swift builds its edible nest, slaves, and a supply of all the other
material possessions larger in quantity and superior in quality to
those of the middle- and lower-class families.
The man of the upper class can generally be distinguished at a glance
by his superior bearing and manners, by the neatness and cleanliness
of his person, his more valuable weapons, and personal ornaments,
as well as by greater regularity of features. The woman of the
upper class also exhibits to the eye similar marks of her superior
birth and breeding. The tatuing of her skin is more finely executed,
greater care is taken with the elongation of the lobe of the ear,
so that the social status of the woman is indicated by the length
of the lobe. Her dress and person are cleaner, and generally better
cared for, and her skin is fairer than that of other women, owing no
doubt to her having been less exposed to the sun.
The men of the upper class work in the PADI-fields and bear their share
of all the labours of the village; but they are able to cultivate
larger areas than others owing to their possession of slaves, who,
although they are expected to grow a supply of PADI for their own
use, assist in the cultivation of their master's fields. For the
upper-class women, also, the labours of the field and the house are
rendered less severe by the assistance of female slaves, although
they bear a part both in the weeding of the fields, in the harvesting,
and in the preparation of food in the house.
The chief's room, which is usually about twice as long as others, is
usually in the middle of the house; and those of the other upper-class
families, which also may be larger than the other rooms, adjoin it
on either side.
In all social gatherings, and in the performance of public rites and
ceremonies, the men of the upper class are accorded leading parts,
and they usually group themselves about the chief. Social intercourse
is freer and more intimate among the people of the upper class than
between them and the rest of the household.
The upper class is relatively more numerous in the Kenyah than in the
Kayan houses, and more clearly distinguishable by address and bearing.
The middle class comprises the majority of the people of a house in
most cases. They may enjoy all the forms of property, though generally
their possessions are of smaller extent and value, and they seldom
possess slaves. Their voices carry less weight in public affairs;
but among this class are generally a few men of exceptional capacity
or experience whose advice and co-operation are specially valued
by the chief. Among this class, too, are usually a few men in each
house on whom devolve, often hereditarily, special duties implying
special skill or knowledge, E.G. the working of iron at the forge,
the making of boats, the catching of souls, the finding of camphor,
the observation and determination of the seasons. All such special
occupations are sources of profit, though only the last of these
enables a man to dispense with the cultivation of PADI.
The lower class is made up of slaves captured in war and of their
descendants, and for this reason its members are of very varied
physical type. An unmarried slave of either sex lives with, and is
treated almost as a member of, the family of his or her master,
eating and in some cases sleeping in the family room. Slaves are
allowed to marry, their children becoming the property of their
masters. Some slave-families are allowed to acquire a room in the
house, and they then begin to acquire a less dependent position; and
though they still retain the status of slaves, and are spoken of as
"slaves-outside-the-room," the master generally finds it impossible
to command their services beyond a very limited extent, and in some
cases will voluntarily resign his rights over the family. But in this
case the family continues to belong to the lower class.
The members of each of these classes marry in nearly all cases within
their own class. The marriages of the young people of the upper
class are carefully regulated. Although they are allowed to choose
their partners according to the inscrutable dictates of personal
affinities, their choice is limited by their elders and the authority
of the chief. Many of them marry members of neighbouring villages,
while the other classes marry within their own village.
A youth of the upper class, becoming fond of some girl of the
middle class, and not being allowed to marry her (although this is
occasionally permitted), will live with her for a year or two. Then,
when the time for his marriage arrives (it having perhaps been
postponed for some years after being arranged, owing to evil omens,
or to lack of means or of house accommodation), he may separate from
his mistress, leaving in her care any children born of their union,
and perhaps making over to her some property -- as public opinion
demands in such cases. She may and usually will marry subsequently
a man of her own class, but the children born of her irregular
union may claim and may be accorded some of the privileges of their
father's class. In this way there is formed in most villages a class
of persons of ambiguous status, debarred from full membership in the
upper class by the bar-sinister. Such persons tend to become wholly
identified with the upper or middle class according to the degrees
of their personal merits.
Marriages are sometimes contracted between persons of the middle and
slave classes. In the case of a young man marrying a slave woman,
the owners of the woman will endeavour to persuade him to live with
her in their room, when he becomes a subordinate member of their
household. If they succeed in this they will claim as their property
half the children born to the couple. On the other hand, if the man
insists on establishing himself in possession of a room, he may succeed
in practically emancipating his wife, perhaps making some compensation
to her owners in the shape of personal services or brass ware. In this
case the children of the couple would be regarded as freeborn. It is
generally possible for an energetic slave to buy his freedom.
Less frequent is the marriage of a slave man with a free woman of the
middle class. In this case the man will generally manage to secure
his emancipation and to establish himself as master of a room, and to
merge himself in the middle class. In the case of marriage between two
slaves, they continue to live in the rooms of their owners, spending
by arrangement periods of two or three years alternately as members
of the two households. The children born of such a slave-couple are
divided as they grow up between the owners of their parents.
On the whole the slaves are treated with so much kindness and
consideration that they have little to complain of, and most of them
seem to have little desire to be freed. A capable slave may become
the confidant and companion of his master, and in this way may attain
a position of considerable influence in the village. A young slave is
commonly addressed by his master and mistress as "My Child." A slave
is seldom beaten or subjected to any punishment save scolding, and
he bears his part freely in the life of the family, sharing in its
labours and its recreations, its ill or its good fortunes. Nothing
in the dress or appearance of the slave distinguishes him from the
other members of the village.
The Family
Very few men have more than one wife. Occasionally a chief whose wife
has borne him no children during some years of married life, or has
found the labours of entertaining his guests beyond her strength,
will with her consent, or even at her request, take a second younger
wife. In such a case each wife has her own sleeping apartment within
the chief's large chamber, and the younger wife is expected to defer
to the older one, and to help her in the work of the house and of
the field. The second wife would be chosen of rather lower social
standing than the first wife, who in virtue of this fact maintains
her ascendancy more easily. A third wife is probably unknown; public
opinion does not easily condone a second wife, and would hardly
tolerate a third. In spite of the presence of slave women in the
houses, concubinage is not recognised or tolerated.
The choice of a wife is not restricted by the existence of any law
or custom prescribing marriage without or within any defined group;
that is to say, exogamous and endogamous groups do not exist. Incest
is regarded very seriously, and the forbidden degrees of kinship are
clearly defined. They are very similar to those recognised among
ourselves. A man may under no circumstances marry or have sexual
relations with his sister, mother, daughter, father's or mother's
sister or half sister, his brother's or sister's daughter; and in
the case of those women who stand to him in any of these relations
in virtue of adoption, the prohibitions and severe penalties are
if possible even more strictly enforced. First cousins may marry,
but such marriages are not regarded with favour, and certain special
ceremonies are necessitated; and it seems to be the general opinion
that such marriages are not likely to prove happy. Many young men of
the upper class marry girls of the same class belonging to neighbouring
villages of their own people, aid in some cases this choice falls
on a girl of a village of some other tribe. A marriage of the latter
kind is often encouraged by the chiefs and elder people, in order to
strengthen or to restore friendly relations between the villages.
The initiative is taken in nearly all cases by the youth. He begins
by paying attentions somewhat furtively to the girl who attracts his
fancy. He will often be found passing the evening in her company
in her parents' room. There he will display his skill with the
KELURI, or the Jew's harp, or sing the favourite love-song of the
people, varying the words to suit the occasion. If the girl looks
with favour on his advances, she manages to make the fact known to
him. Politeness demands that in any case he shall be supplied by the
women with lighted cigarettes. If the girl wishes him to stay, she
gives him a cigarette tied in a peculiar manner, namely by winding
the strip which confines its sheath of dried banana leaf close to
the narrow mouth-piece; whereas on all other occasions this strip is
wound about the middle of the cigarette. The young man thus encouraged
will repeat his visits. If his suit makes progress, he may hope that
the fair one will draw out with a pair of brass tweezers the hairs
of his eyebrows and lashes, while he reclines on his back with his
head in her lap. If these hairs are very few, the girl will remark
that some one else has been pulling them out, an imputation which
he repudiates. Or he complains of a headache, and she administers
scalp-massage by winding tufts of hair about her knuckles and sharply
tugging them. When the courtship has advanced to this stage, the girl
may attract her suitor to the room by playing on the Jew's harp,
with which she claims to be able to speak to him -- presumably the
language of the heart. The youth thus encouraged may presume to remain
beside his sweetheart till early morning, or to return to her side
when the old people have retired. When the affair has reached this
stage, it becomes necessary to secure the public recognition which
constitutes the relation a formal betrothal. The man charges some
elderly friend of either sex, in many cases his father or mother,
to inform the chief of his desire. The latter expresses a surprise
which is not always genuine; and, if the match is a suitable one,
he contents himself with giving a little friendly advice. But if
he is aware of any objections to the match he will point them out,
and though he will seldom forbid it in direct terms, he will know
how to cause the marriage to be postponed.
If the chief and parents favour the match, the young man presents
a brass gong or a valuable bead to the girl's family as pledge of
his sincerity. This is returned to him if for any reason beyond his
control the match is broken off. The marriage may take place with
very little delay; but during the interval between betrothal and
marriage the omens are anxiously observed and consulted. All accidents
affecting any members of the village are regarded as of evil omen,
the more so the more nearly the betrothed parties are concerned in
them. The cries of birds and deer are important; those heard about the
house are likely to be bad omens, and it is sought to compensate for
these by sending a man skilled in augury to seek good omens in the
jungle, such as the whistle of the Trogan and of the spider-hunter,
and the flight of the hawk from right to left high up in the sky. If
the omens are persistently and predominantly bad, the marriage is put
off for a year, and after the next harvest fresh omens are sought. The
man is encouraged in the meantime to absent himself from the village,
in the hope that he may form some other attachment. But if he remains
true and favourable omens are obtained, the marriage is celebrated if
possible at the close of the harvest. If the marriage takes place at
any other time, the feast will be postponed to the end of the following
harvest.[40] After the marriage the man lives with his wife in the room
of his father-in-law for one, two, or at most three years. During this
time he works in the fields of his father-in-law and generally helps
in the support of the household, showing great deference towards
his wife's parents. Before the end of the third year of marriage,
the young couple will acquire for themselves a room in the house and
village of the husband, in which they set up housekeeping on their
own account. In addition to these personal services rendered to the
parents of the bride, the man or his father and other relatives give
to the girl's parents at the time of the marriage various articles
which are valuable in proportion to the social standing of the parties,
and which are generally appropriated by the girl's parents.[41]
Divorce is rare but not unknown among the Kayans. The principal grounds
of divorce are misconduct, desertion, incompatibility of temper and
family quarrels; or a couple may terminate their state of wedlock
by mutual consent on payment of a moderate fine to the chief. Such
separation by mutual consent is occasioned not infrequently by the
sterility of the marriage, especially if the couple fails to obtain a
child for adoption; the parties hope to procure offspring by taking
new partners; for the desire for children and pride and joy in the
possession of them are strongly felt by all. The husband of a sterile
wife may leave the house for a long period, living in the jungle and
visiting other houses, in the hope that his wife may divorce him on
the ground of desertion, or give him ground for divorcing her. On
discovery of misconduct on the woman's part the husband will usually
divorce her; the man then retains all property accumulated since
the marriage, and the children are divided between the parents. The
co-respondent and respondent are fined by the chief, and half the
amount of the fine goes to the injured husband. Misconduct on the
part of the man must be flagrant before it constitutes a sufficient
ground for his divorce by his wife. In this case the same rules are
followed. Among the Kayans the divorce is not infrequently followed
by a reconciliation brought about by the intervention of friends;
the parties then come together again without further ceremony. There
is little formality about the divorce procedure. In the main it takes
the form of separation by mutual consent and the condonation of the
irregularity by the community on the payment of a fine to the chief.
Adoption
Adoption is by no means uncommon. The desire for children, especially
male children, is general and strong; but sterile marriages seem to be
known among all the peoples and are common among the Kenyahs. When a
woman has remained infertile for some years after her marriage, the
couple usually seek to adopt one or more children. They generally
prefer the child of a relative, but may take any child, even a
captive or a slave child, whose parents are willing to resign all
rights in it. A child is often taken over from parents oppressed
by poverty, in many cases some article of value or a supply of PADI
being given in exchange. Not infrequently the parents wish to have
the child returned to them when their affairs take a turn for the
better, owing to a good harvest or some stroke of luck, and this is
a frequent cause of dissensions. Usually the adopted child takes in
every way the position of a child born to the parents.
Some of the Klemantans (Barawans and Lelaks in the Baram) practise a
curious symbolic ceremony on the adoption of a child. When a couple has
arranged to adopt a child, both man and wife observe for some weeks
before the ceremony all the prohibitions usually observed during
the later months of pregnancy. Many of these prohibitions may be
described in general terms by saying that they imply abstention from
every action that may suggest difficulty or delay in delivery; E.G. the
hand must not be thrust into any narrow hole to pull anything out of
it; no fixing of things with wooden pegs must be done; there must be
no lingering on the threshold on entering or leaving a room. When the
appointed day arrives, the woman sits in her room propped up and with a
cloth round her, in the attitude commonly adopted during delivery. The
child is pushed forward from behind between the woman's legs, and,
if it is a young child, it is put to the breast and encouraged to
suck. Later it receives a new name.
It is very difficult to obtain admission that a particular child
has been adopted and is not the actual offspring of the parents;
and this seems to be due, not so much to any desire to conceal the
facts as to the completeness of the adoption, the parents coming to
regard the child as so entirely their own that it is difficult to find
words which will express the difference between the adopted child and
the offspring. This is especially the case if the woman has actually
suckled the child.
Proper Names
The child remains nameless during the first few years, and is spoken
of as UKAT if a boy, OWING if a girl, both of which seem to be best
translated as Thingumybob; among the Sea Dayaks ULAT (the little grub)
is the name commonly used. It is felt that to give the child a name
while its hold of life is still feeble is undesirable, because the
name would tend to draw the attention of evil spirits to it. During
its third or fourth year it is given a name at the same time as a
number of other children of the house.[42] The name is chosen with
much deliberation, the eldest son and daughter usually receiving
the names of a grandfather and grandmother respectively. Male and
female names are distinct. The name first given to any person is
rarely carried through life; it is usually changed after any severe
illness or serious accident, in order that the evil influences that
have pursued him may fail to recognise him under the new name; thus
the first or infant name of Tama Bulan was Lujah. After bearing it a
few years he went through a serious illness, on account of which his
name was changed to Wang. Among the Klemantans it is usual under these
circumstances to name the child after some offensive object, E.G. TAI
(dung), in order to render it inconspicuous, and thus withdraw it from
the attention of malign powers. After the naming of a couple's first
child, the parents are always addressed as father and mother of the
child; E.G. if the child's name is OBONG, her father becomes known as
TAMA OBONG, her mother as INAI OBONG, and their original names are
disused and almost forgotten,[43] unless needed to distinguish the
parents from other persons of the same name, when the old names are
appended to the new; thus, Tama Obong Jau, if Jau was the original
name of Tama Obong; and thus Tama Bulan received this name on the
naming of his first child, Bulan (the moon), and when it is wished to
distinguish him in conversation from other fathers of the moon he is
called Tama Bulan Wang. If the eldest child OBONG dies, the father,
Tama Obong Jau, becomes OYONG JAU; if one of his younger children
dies, he becomes AKAM JAU; if his wife dies, he becomes ABAN JAU;
if his brother died, he would be called YAT JAU; and if his sister,
HAWAN JAU; and if two of these relatives are dead, these titles are
used indifferently; but the deaths of wife and children are predominant
over other occasions for the change of name. An elderly man who has
no children receives the title LINGO, and a woman, the title APA
prefixed to his or her former name. A widow is called BALU. The names
of father and mother are never assumed by the children, and their
deaths do not occasion any change of name, except the adoption of
the title OYAU on the loss of the father, and ILUN on the loss of
the mother. These titles would be used only until the man became a
father. When a man becomes a grandfather his title is LAKI (E.G. LAKI
JAU), and this title supersedes all others. A child addresses, and
speaks of, his father as TAMAN, and his mother as INAI or TINAN,
and all four grandparents as POI. The parent commonly addresses the
child, even when adult, as ANAK, or uses his proper name. A father's
brother is addressed as AMAI, but this title is used also as a term
of respect in addressing any older man not related in any degree,
even though he be of a different tribe or race. They use the word
INAI for aunt as well as for mother, and some have adopted the Malay
term MA MANAKAN for aunt proper. The same is true of the words for
nephew and niece -- the Malay term ANAK MANAKAN being used for both.
The terms used to denote degrees of kinship are few, and are used
in a very elastic manner. The term of widest connotation is PARIN
IGAT, which is equivalent to our cousin used in the wider or Scotch
sense; it is applied to all blood relatives of the same generation,
and is sometimes used in a metaphorical sense much as we use the
term brother. There are no words corresponding to our words son and
daughter, ANAK meaning merely child of either sex. There are no words
corresponding to brother and sister; both are spoken of as PARIN,
but this word is often used as a title of endearment in addressing or
speaking of a friend of either sex of the same social standing and age
as the speaker. The children of the same parents speak of themselves
collectively as PANAK; this term also is sometimes used loosely and
metaphorically. A step-father is TAMAN DONG; father-in-law is TAMAN
DIVAN; forefather is SIPUN, a term used of any male or female ancestor
more remote than the grandparents; but these are merely descriptive
and not terms of address. A man of the upper class not uncommonly
has a favourite companion of the middle class, who accompanies him
everywhere and renders him assistance and service, and shares his
fortunes (FIDUS ACHATES in short); him he addresses as BAKIS, and the
title is used reciprocally. A title reciprocally used by those who are
very dear friends, especially by those who have enjoyed the favours
of the same fair one, is TOYONG (or among the Sea Dayaks -- IMPRIAN).
This list includes all the important Kayan terms used to denote
personal relations and kinship, so far as we know; and we think it
very improbable that any have escaped us. There seem to be no secret
names, except in so far as names discarded on account of misfortune are
not willingly recalled or communicated; but a child's name is seldom
used, and adults also seem to avoid calling on one another by their
proper names, especially when in the jungle, the title alone, such as
OYONG, or ABAN being commonly used; apparently owing to some vaguely
conceived risk of directing to the individual named the attentions
of malevolent powers.[44]
The foregoing account of the social organisation of the Kayans applies
equally well to the Kenyahs, except that some of the titles used
are different. The Klemantans and Muruts, too, present few important
differences except that the power of the chiefs is decidedly less,
and the distinction of the social strata less clearly marked, and
slaves are less numerous. The Sea Dayak social organisation is also
similar in most of its features. The most important of the differences
presented by it are the following: -- Polygamy is not allowed, and
occurs only illicitly. Both parties are fined when the facts are
discovered. Divorce is very common and easily obtained; the marriage
relation, being surrounded with much less solemnity, is more easily
entered into and dissolved. Infidelity and mutual agreement are the
common occasions of divorce. Either party can readily secure his or
her freedom by payment of a small fine. There are both men and women
who have married many times; a tenth husband or wife is not unknown;
and a marriage may be dissolved within a week of its consummation.
The Sea Dayak, like all the other peoples, regards incest very
seriously, and the forbidden degrees of kinship are well understood
and very similar to those of Kayans.
A Sea Dayak village consists in almost every case of a single house,
but such houses are generally grouped within easy reach of one
another. Very few slaves are to be found in their houses, since the
Ibans usually take the heads of all their conquered enemies rather
than make slaves of them.
Inheritance of Property
At a man's death his property is divided between his widow and
children. But in order to prevent the disputes, which often arise
over the division of inheritance, an old man may divide his property
before his death. The widow becomes the head of the room, though a
married son or daughter or several unmarried children may share it
with her. She inherits all or most of the household utensils. Such
things as gongs and other brass ware, weapons, war-coats, and boats,
are divided equally among the sons, the eldest perhaps getting a
little more than the others. The girls divide the old beads, cloth,
bead-boxes, and various trifles. The male slaves go to the sons,
the female slaves to the daughters. Bird's nest caves and bee trees
might be divided or shared among all the children.
It happens not infrequently that one son or daughter, remaining
unmarried, continues to live in the household of the parents and to
look after them in their old age. To such a one some valuable article,
such as a string of old beads or costly jar, is usually bequeathed.
Among the Sea Dayaks the old jars, which constitute the chief part
of a man's wealth, are distributed among both sons and daughters;
if the jars are too few for equal distribution, they are jointly
owned until one can buy out the shares of his co-owners.
The members of a Kayan household are bound together, not merely by
their material circumstances, such as their shelter under a common
roof and their participation in common labours, and not merely by
the moral bonds such as kinship and their allegiance to one chief and
loyalty to one another, but also by more subtle ties, of which the most
important is their sharing in the protection and warning afforded to
the whole house by the omen-birds or by the higher powers served by
these. For omens are observed for the whole household, and hold good
only for those who live under the one roof, This spiritual unity of
the household is jealously guarded. Occasionally one family may wish
for some reason, such as bad dreams or much sickness, to withdraw
from the house. If the rest of the household is unwilling to remove
to a new house, they will oppose such withdrawal, and, if the man
insists on separating, a fine is imposed on him, and he is compelled to
leave undisturbed the roof and all the main structure of his section
of the house; though the room would be left unoccupied. Conversely
Kayans are very unwilling to admit any family to become members of
the household. They never or seldom add sections to a house which
has once been completed; and young married couples must live in
their parents' rooms, until the whole household removes and builds
a new house. Occasionally a remnant of a household which has been
broken up by the attack of enemies is sheltered by a friendly house;
but the newcomers are lodged in the gallery only until the time comes
for building a new house, when they may be allowed to build rooms for
themselves, and to become incorporated in the household. Another plan
sometimes adopted is to build a small house for the newcomers closely
adjoining the main house, but joined to it only by an open platform.
Appendix to Chapter V
Tables showing Kinship of the Kenyahs of Long Tikan (Tama
Bulan's house) in the Baram District of Sarawak.
We have made out tables showing the kinship of the inhabitants of
several Kenyah long houses and of one Sea Dayak house, following
the example and method of Dr. W. H. R. Rivers. These tables have
not revealed to us indications of any peculiar system of kinship;
but we think it worth while to reproduce one of them as an appendix
to the foregoing chapter. The table includes all the inhabitants of
the house living in the year 1899, as well as those deceased members
of whom we are able to obtain trustworthy information. The arrangement
is by door or room, but since on marriage some shifting from one room
to another takes place, some individuals appear under two doors.
In these tables the names of males are printed in ordinary type,
those of females in italics; and the following signs are used: --
= for married to.
= indicates the children of a married couple.
implies that the individual below whose name it occurs reached adult
life, but died without issue.
implies a child dead at early age, sex and name unknown.
[male] implies male child not yet named.
[female] implies female child not yet named
? individual of unknown name.
(1) Sidi Karang's Door.
Sidi Karang = SIDI PENG (A Long Paku Kenyah).
Baiai Gau = ULAU.
x
Other Members of the Room.
Tama Aping Layong = BALU BUON.
Lutang (nephew of Sidi Karang).
SUKUN.
Mang = BORU TELLUN.
Luat = ?
Lim.
o
Ukang.
o
Lesun = BALU ULAN.
Usun.
Luyok = OYONG TURING. (See Door 6.)
Linjau.
o
ITANG WING = Lara Wan.
(2) Ajong's Door.
Mawa Ontong (Long Belukun Kenyah) = ? (Long Belukun Kenyah woman).
BALU LARA.
Anjong = NGINO (Long Tikan).
[male]
[female]
x
x
(3) Mawa Jungan's Door.
Mawa Hungan (see Imoh's door) = MAWA UJONG.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Weak-minded.
Kading.
[female]
(4) Imoh's Door.
Jilo = ?
Imoh = TINA APING POYONG, (sister of NGINO, see Door 2)
formerly = Tama Aping Lalo. (see Door 5).
Lirim.
(5) Pallavo's Door.
Maga = ?
PALLAVO (unmarried at 60).
Tugan (weak-minded slave).
o
Tama Aping Lalo = (1st wife) TINA APING POYONG (see Door 4) = (2nd
wife) USUN (Likan Kenyah).
Anie Tapa (weak-minded) = ?
Tigiling (weak-minded).
(6) Oyong Turing's Door.
Seling = ?
Sidi Ontong = ?
OYONG LUJOK = Oyong Turing.
x
Maga.
BALU ATING = ?
Laro Libo (Long Palutan Kenyah) = LARA ULAU.
ASONG.
Sapo.
Lalo.
LUNGA.
USUN.
SINGIM.
x
x
x
x
(7) Balu Kran's Door.
Lingan (a Likan Kenyah) = ?
Tama Aping Mawa = BALU KRAN (see Door 8).
LAUONG.
Siggau.
Oyu Apa.
[female] weak-minded.
(8) Balu Uding's Door.
Sawa Taja = ?
BALU KRAN.
BALU UDING = Mawa Imang.
Oyu Suo.
Luat.
o
KENING (unmarried sister of Mawa Imang).
(9) Aban Moun's Door.
Kamang.
Aban Moun = TELUN.
Tama Sook Bilong = TINA SOOK BUNGAN.
Sook (weak-minded).
x unnamed.
x unnamed.
Tama Aping Salo = ? (Long Belukun Kenyah).
x unnamed.
x unnamed.
TINA APING ODING.
(10) Aban Magi's Door.
Aban Magi (see Door 13) = TINA APING KRAN.
Anie Liran.
(11) Lara Wan's Door.
Mawa Liva = (1st wife) TINA WAN = (2nd wife) UTAN URING
Lara Wan = LARA LANAN (Long Paku).
Jalong.
Katan.
JULUT.
Jawing.
Kuleh.
Balu Mening.
o
(12) Tama An Lahing's Door.
Batan = TINA LAHING.
Tama an Lahing = TINA AN PIKA.
ODING = Balari.
x
x
ULAU.
SILALANG.
x
BALU TATAN = Wan Tula (son of Balaban).
Tago.
Ballan.
x
KENING.
Tama Owing Laang = NOWING UBONG (daughter of Aban Imang,
an Uma Poh Kayan).
MENING.
MUJAN.
x
(13) Oyu Irang's Door.
Sorang (Long Tikan) = SINJAI (Long Tikan) (sister of Aban Magi,
see Door 10; and Lara Libo, see Door 6).
x
x
Oyu Irang.
Pakat.
Kupit.
Other members in the Room.
BALU TUBONG (sister of Sorang) = ? (a Long Tikan man).
ABING URAI (sister of Balu Tubong) = Aban Madan (Long Paku).
(14) Balu Usan's Door.
BALU USAN (Long Palutan) = Aban Siliwa (Long Palutan).
x
Oyu Sijau.
BALU MENO (niece of Balu Usan) = Aban Meggang (Long Peku).
Lirong.
o
ULAN.
[female]
(15) Balu Buah's Door.
Tegging = BALU MUJAN.
BALU BUAH = Lara Lalu (Long Belukun Kenyah).
x
x
x
x
UTAN URING.
Abing Liran = LOONG LAKING.
UTAI USUN.
BAYIN.
Apa.
Baja.
[female]
[female]
(16) Oyong Kalang's Door.
Oyong Kalang (Long Palutan Kenyah) = OYONG NONG (Long Palutan Kenyah).
x
x
Sago = ?
INO.
Angin.
Ngau.
Uya.
(17) Sidi Jau's Door.
Tama Owing Lawai (Lepu Tau) = TINA OWING KLING (sister of Tama
Bulan Wang).
Sidi Jau = PAYAH LAH (Uma Poh Kayan).
Kuleh.
Libut.
Balari = UDING.
x
x
Other People in the Room.
TINA APING UDING (Long Palutan) = Tama Aping Toloi (Long Tikan).
POYONG.
ULAU.
LOGAN.
BALA KEYONG = Aban Batu.
Oyu Baung.
Oyu Lalu = ?
LUJOK.
Aban Jok (Murut x Kayan).
KANGIN (sister to Mang, see Door 1).
Aban Oyu (Murut) = BALU MONG.
(18) Aban Tingan's Door.
Aban Langat (Punan) = TINA OYU (Punan).
Aban Tingan = BELVIUN (2nd wife).
Kalang.
Paran.
MUJAN.
x
Brothers.
Tama Lim Balari = ?
Balari.
Livang.
Laki Ludop (see Door 19) = OAN BUNGAN (Long Belukun).
Tama Bulan (see Door 19).
Aban Tingan = PAYA (1st wife, daughter of Paran Libut,
his 1st cousin).
Wan.
LAN = Balan (Long Belukun Kenyah)
Aping.
o
JULAN.
Madang.
Tina Owing Kling (see Door 17).
Slaves.
Aban Muda (Murut) = NUING LABAI
Nawam.
URAI.
SUAI.
Nurang.
Abo = BALU VANG.
Oyu Biti.
Jipong.
[female]
Oan Igan, child of Mapit (Long Palutan), brother of Jilo (see Imoh's
room).
Apoi
Lujah } brothers.
ULAU (Kalabit).
Padan.
(19) Tama Bulan's Door.
Laki Ludop = BUNGAN (see Door 18).
Tama Bulan Wang = (1st wife) PENG = (2nd wife) PAYAH WAN
(Uma Poh Kayan).
BULAN = Luja (Uma Plian Kayan).
Balari and Livang (1st cousins of Tama Bulan, adopted
by him as sons).
OBONG = Wan (son of Aban Tingan her 1st cousin).
LEVAN.
Linjau.
CHAPTER 6
Agriculture
For all the peoples of the interior of Borneo, the Punans and
Malanaus excepted, the rice grown by themselves is the principal
food-stuff. Throughout the year, except during the few weeks when the
jungle fruit is most abundant, rice forms the bulk of every meal. In
years of bad harvests, when the supply is deficient, the place of rice
has to be filled as well as may be with wild sago, cultivated maize,
tapioca, and sweet potatoes. All these are used, and the last three,
as well as pumpkins, bananas, cucumbers, millet, pineapples, chilis,
are regularly grown in small quantities by most of the peoples. But
all these together are regarded as making but a poor substitute for
rice. The cultivator has to contend with many difficulties, for in
the moist hot climate weeds grow apace, and the fields, being closely
surrounded by virgin forest, are liable to the attacks of pests of
many kinds. Hence the processes by which the annual crop of PADI is
obtained demand the best efforts and care of all the people of each
village. The plough is unknown save to the Dusuns, a branch of the
Murut people in North Borneo, who have learnt its use from Chinese
immigrants. The Kalabits and some of the coastwise Klemantans who
live in alluvial areas have learnt, probably through intercourse with
the Philippine Islanders or the inhabitants of Indo-China, to prepare
the land for the PADI seed by leading buffaloes to and fro across it
while it lies covered with water. The Kalabits lead the water into
their fields from the streams descending from the hills.
With these exceptions the preparation of the land is everywhere very
crude, consisting in the felling of the timber and undergrowth, and
in burning it as completely as possible, so that its ashes enrich
the soil. After a single crop has been grown and gathered on land so
cleared, the weeds grow up very thickly, and there is, of course,
in the following year no possibility of repeating the dressing of
wood ashes in the same way. Hence it is the universal practice to
allow the land to lie fallow for at least two years, after a single
crop has been raised, while crops are raised from other lands. During
the fallow period the jungle grows up so rapidly and thickly that by
the third year the weeds have almost died out, choked by the larger
growths. The same land is then prepared again by felling the young
jungle and burning it as before, and a crop is again raised from
it. When a piece of land has been prepared and cropped in this way
some three or four times, at intervals of two, three, or four years,
the crop obtainable from it is so inferior in quantity that the
people usually undertake the severe labour of felling and burning
a patch of virgin forest, rather than continue to make use of the
old areas. In this way a large village uses up in the course of some
twelve or fifteen years all the land suitable for cultivation within
a convenient distance, I.E. within a radius of some three miles. When
this state of affairs results, the, village is moved to a new site,
chosen chiefly with an eye to the abundance of land suitable for the
cultivation of the PADI crop. After ten or more years the villagers
will return, and the house or houses will be reconstructed on the old
site or one adjacent to it, if no circumstances arise to tempt them
to migrate to a more distant country, and if the course of their life
on the old site has run smoothly, without misfortunes such as much
sickness, conflagrations, or serious attacks by other villages. After
this interval the land is regarded as being almost as good as the
virgin forest land, and has the advantage that the jungle on it can
be more easily felled. But since no crop equals that obtainable from
virgin soil, it is customary to include at least a small area of it
in the operations of each year.
Each family cultivates its own patch of land, selecting it by
arrangement with other families, and works as large an area as the
strength and number of the roomhold permits. A hillside sloping down
to the bank of a river or navigable stream is considered the choicest
area for cultivation, partly because of the efficient drainage,
partly because the felling is easier on the slope, and because the
stream affords easy access to the field.
When an area has been chosen, the men of the roomhold first cut down
the undergrowth of a V-shaped area, whose apex points up the hill, and
whose base lies on the river bank. This done, they call in the help of
other men of the house, usually relatives who are engaged in preparing
adjacent areas, and all set to work to fell the large trees. In the
clearing of virgin forest, when very large trees, many of which have
at their bases immense buttresses, have to be felled, a platform of
light poles is built around each of these giants to the height of about
15 feet. Two men standing upon this rude platform on opposite sides
of the stem attack it with their small springy-hafted axes (Fig. 11)
above the level of the buttresses (Pl. 55). One man cuts a deep notch
on the side facing up the hill, the other cuts a similar notch about
a foot lower down on the opposite side, each cutting almost to the
centre of the stem. This operation is accomplished in a surprisingly
short time, perhaps thirty minutes in the case of a stem two to three
feet in diameter. When all the large trees within the V-shaped area
have been cut in this way, all the workers and any women, children,
or dogs who may be present are called out of the patch, and one or
two big trees, carefully selected to form the apex of the phalanx,
are then cut so as to fall down the hill.[45] In their fall these
giants throw down the trees standing immediately below them on the
hillside; these, falling in turn against their neighbours, bring
them down. And so, like an avalanche of widening sweep, the huge
disturbance propagates itself with a thunderous roar and increasing
momentum downwards over the whole of the prepared area; while puny
man looks on at the awful work of his hand and brain not unmoved,
but dancing and shouting in wild triumphant delight.
The fallen timber must now lie some weeks before it can be burnt. This
period is mainly devoted to making and repairing the implements to
be used in cultivating, harvesting, and storing the crop, and also
in sowing at the earliest possible moment small patches of early
or rapidly growing PADI together with a little maize, sugar-cane,
some Sweet potatoes, and tapioca. The patches thus sown generally lie
adjacent to one another. If the weather is fine, the fallen timber
becomes dry enough to burn well after one month. If much rain falls
it is necessary to wait longer in the hope of drier weather. Choosing
a windy day, they set fire to all the adjacent patches after shouting
out warnings to all persons in the fields. While the burning goes on,
the men "whistle for the wind," or rather blow for it, rattling their
tongues in their mouths. Some of the older men make lengthy orations
shouted into the air, adjuring the wind to blow strongly and so fan
the fire. The fire, if successful, burns furiously for a few hours
and then smoulders for some days, after which little of the timber
remains but ashes and the charred stumps of the bigger trees. If the
burning is very incomplete, it is necessary to make stacks of the
lighter timbers that remain, and to fire these again. As soon as the
ashes are cool, sowing begins. Men and women work together; the men go
in front making holes with wooden dibbles about six inches apart; the
women follow, carrying hung round the neck small baskets of PADI seed
(Fig. 12), which they throw into the holes, three or four seeds to
each hole. No care is taken to fill in the holes with earth. By this
time the relatively dry season, which lasts only some two months,
is at an end, and copious rains cause the seed to shoot above the
ground a few days after the sowing. Several varieties of PADI are in
common use, some more suitable for the hillsides, some for the marshy
lands. On any one patch three or four kinds are usually sown according
to the elevation and slope of the part of the area. Since the rates of
growth of the several kinds are different, the sowings are so timed
that the whole area ripens as nearly as possible at the same moment,
in order that the birds and other pests may not have the opportunity
of turning their whole force upon the several parts in turn. The men
now build on each patch a small hut, which is occupied by most of the
able-bodied members of the roomhold until harvest is completed, some
fourteen to twenty weeks after the sowing of the PADI, according to
the variety of grain sown. They erect contrivances for scaring away
the birds; they stick bamboos about eight feet in length upright in
the ground every 20 to 30 yards. Between the upper ends of these,
rattans are tied, connecting together all the bamboos on each area
of about one acre. The field of one roomhold is generally about four
acres in extent; there will thus be four groups of bamboos, each
of which can be agitated by pulling on a single rattan. From each
such group a rattan passes to the hut, and some person, generally a
woman or child, is told off to tug at these rattans in turn at short
intervals. Upon the rattans between the bamboos are hung various
articles calculated to make a noise or to flap to and fro when the
system is set in motion. Sometimes the rattan by which the system of
poles is set in movement is tied to the upper end of a tall sapling,
one end of which is thrust deeply into the mud of the floor of the
river. The current then keeps the sapling and with it the system of
bamboos swaying and jerking to and fro. The Kayans admit that they have
learnt this last "dodge" from the Klemantans. The watcher remains in
the hut all day long, while his companions are at work in the field;
he varies the monotony of his task by shouting and beating with a pair
of mallets on a hollow wooden cylinder. The watcher is relieved from
time to time, but the watch is maintained continuously day and night
from the time that the corn is about two feet above the ground until
it is all gathered in. In this way they strive with partial success
to keep off the wild pigs, monkeys, deer, and, as the corn ripens,
the rice-sparrow (MUNIA).
When the hut and the pest-scaring system have been erected, the men
proceed to provide further protection against wild pig and deer by
running a rude fence round a number of closely adjacent patches of
growing corn. The fence, some three to four feet high, is made by
lashing to poles thrust vertically into the ground and to convenient
trees and stumps, bamboos or saplings as horizontal bars, five or
six in vertical row. When this is completed the men take no further
part until the harvest, except perhaps to lend a hand occasionally
with the weeding. This is the time generally chosen by them for long
excursions into the jungle in search of rattans, rubber, camphor,
and for warlike expeditions or the paying of distant visits.
It is the duty of the women to prevent the PADI being choked by
weeds. The women of each room will go over each patch completely
at least twice, at an interval of about one month, hoeing down the
weeds with a short-handled hoe; the hoe consists of a flat blade
projecting at right angles from the iron haft (Fig. 13). The latter
is bent downwards at a right angle just above the blade, in a plane
perpendicular to that of the blade, and its other end is prolonged
by a short wooden handle, into the end of which it is thrust. The
woman stoops to the work, hoeing carefully round each PADI plant, by
holding the hoe in the right hand and striking the blade downwards and
towards her toes with a dragging action. In working over the patch in
this careful fashion some three weeks are consumed. In the intervals
the women gather the small crops of early PADI, pumpkin, cucumbers,
and so forth, spending several weeks together on the farm, sleeping
in the hut. In a good season this is the happiest time of the year;
both men and women take the keenest interest and pleasure in the
growth of the crop.
During the time when the grain is formed but not yet ripe, the people
live upon the green corn, which they prepare by gathering the heads and
beating them flat. These are not cooked, but merely dried in the sun,
and though they need much mastication they are considered a delicacy.
During the time of the ripening of the corn a spirit of gaiety and
joyful anticipation prevails. It is a favourite time for courtship,
and many marriages are arranged.
The harvest is the most important event of the year. Men, women, and
children, all take part. The rice-sparrows congregate in thousands as
the grain begins to ripen, and the noisy efforts of the people fail
to keep them at a distance. Therefore the people walk through the
crop gathering all ripe ears. The operation is performed with a small
rude knife-blade mounted in a wooden handle along its whole length
(Figs. 14, 15). This is held in the hollow of the right hand, the ends
of a short cross bar projecting between the first and second fingers
and between thumb and first finger. The thumb seizes and presses the
head of each blade of corn against the edge of the knife. The cars
thus cropped are thrown into a basket slung round the neck. As soon
as a large basket has been filled by the reapers, its contents are
spread out on mats on a platform before the hut. After an exposure of
two or three days, the grain is separated from the ears by stamping
upon them with bare feet. The separated grain passes through the
meshes of the coarse mat on to a finer mat beneath. The grain is then
further dried by exposure to the sun. When the whole crop has been
gathered, threshed, and dried in this way, it is transported in the
large shoulder baskets amid much rejoicing and merry-making to the
PADI barns adjoining the house, and the harvest festival begins.
The elaborate operations on the BADI FARM that we have described might
seem to a materialist to be sufficient to secure a good harvest;
but this is not the view taken by the Kayans, or any other of the
cultivators of Borneo. In their opinion all these material labours
would be of little avail if not supplemented at every stage by the
minute observance of a variety of rites. The PADI has life or soul,
or vitality, and is subject to sickness and to many vaguely conceived
influences, both good and bad.
Determination of the Seasons
The determination of the time for sowing the seed is a matter of so
great importance that in each village this duty is entrusted to a man
who makes it his profession to observe the signs of the seasons. This
work is so exacting that he is not expected to cultivate a crop of
PADI for himself and family, but is furnished with all the PADI he
needs by contributions from all the other members of the village.
It is essential to determine the approach of the short dry season, in
order that in the course of it the timber may be felled and burned. In
Borneo, lying as it does upon the equator, the revolution of the
year is marked by no very striking changes of weather, temperature,
or of vegetation. In fact, the only constant and striking evidences
of the passage of the months are the alternations of the north-east
and the south-west monsoons. The former blows from October to March,
the latter from April to September, the transitions being marked by
variable winds. The relatively dry season sets in with the south-west
monsoon, and lasts about two months; but in some years the rainfall
during this season is hardly less abundant than during the rest of
the year.
The "clerk of the weather" (he has no official title, though the
great importance of his function secures him general respect) has
no knowledge of the number of days in the year, and does not count
their passage. He is aware that the lunar month has twenty-eight
days, but he knows that the dry season does not recur after any
given number of completed months, and therefore keeps no record of
the lunar months. He relies almost entirely upon observation of the
slight changes of the sun's altitude. His observations are made by
the help of an instrument closely resembling the ancient Greek gnomon,
known as TUKAR DO or ASO DO (Pl. 60).
A straight cylindrical pole of hardwood is fixed vertically in the
ground; it is carefully adjusted with the aid of plumb lines, and
the possibility of its sinking deeper into the earth is prevented by
passing its lower end through a hole in a board laid horizontally on
the ground, its surface flush with the surface of the ground which
is carefully smoothed. The pole is provided with a shoulder which
rests upon this board. The upper end of the pole is generally carved
in the form of a human figure. The carving may be very elaborate,
or the figure may be indicated only by a few notches. The length of
the pole from the collar to its upper extremity is made equal to
the span from tip to tip of outstretched arms of its maker, plus
the length of his span from tip of the thumb to that of the first
finger. This pole (ASO DO) stands on a cleared space before or behind
the house, and is surrounded by a strong fence; the area within the
fence, some three or four yards in diameter, being made as level and
smooth as possible. The clerk of the weather has a neatly worked flat
stick, on which lengths are marked off by notches; these lengths are
measured by laying the stick along the radial side of the left arm,
the butt end against the anterior fold of the armpit. A notch is
then cut at each of the following positions: one notch about one
inch from the butt end, a second opposite the middle of the upper
arm, one opposite the elbow, one opposite the bend of the wrist,
one at the first interphalangeal joint, one at the finger-tip. The
other side of the rod bears a larger number of notches, of which the
most distal marks the greatest length of the mid-day shadow, the next
one the length of the mid-day shadow three days after it has begun
to shorten, the next the length of the shadow after three more days'
shortening, and so on. The mid-day shadow is, of course, the minimal
length reached in the course of the day, and the marks denoting the
changes in length of the shadow are arrived at, purely empirically,
by marking off the length of the mid-day shadow every three days.
The clerk of the weather measures the shadow of the pole at mid-day
whenever the sun is unclouded. As the shadow grows shorter after
reaching its maximal length, he observes it with special care, and
announces to the village that the time for preparing the land is near
at hand. When the shadow reaches the notch made opposite the middle
of the arm, the best time for sowing the grain is considered to have
arrived; the land is therefore cleared, and made ready before this time
arrives. Sowing at times when the shadow reaches other notches is held
to involve various disadvantages, such as liability to more than the
usual number of pests -- monkeys, insects, rats, or sparrows. In the
case of each successful harvest, the date of the sowing is recorded
by driving a peg of ironwood into the ground at the point denoting
the length of the mid-day shadow at that date. The weather prophet
has other marks and notches whose meaning is known only to himself;
his procedures are surrounded with mystery and kept something of
a secret, even from the chief as well as from all the rest of the
village, and his advice is always followed.
The method of observing the sun described above is universal among the
Kenyahs, but some of the Kayans practise a different method. A hole is
made in the roof of the weather-prophet's chamber in the long-house,
and the altitude of the mid-day sun and its direction, north or south
of the meridian, are observed by measuring along a plank fixed on
the floor the distance of the patch of sunlight (falling through the
hole on to the plank) from the point vertically below the hole. The
horizontal position of the plank is secured by placing upon it smooth
spherical stones and noting any inclination to roll. The sunbeam which
enters this hole is called KLEPUT TOH (=the blow-pipe of the spirit).
Some of the Klemantans practise a third method to determine when
the time for sowing is at hand, using a bamboo some feet in length
which bears a mark at a level which is empirically determined. The
bamboo is filled with water while in the vertical position. It is
then tilted till it points towards a certain star, when of course
some water escapes. After it has been restored to the vertical, the
level of the surface of the remaining water is noted. The coincidence
of this level with the mark mentioned above indicates that the time
for sowing is come.
The Sea Dayaks are guided by the observation of the position of
the Pleiades.
The appropriate season having been determined, it is necessary to
secure good omens before the preparation of the land can be begun. A
pig and a fowl having been sacrificed in the usual way, and their
blood sprinkled upon the wooden figures before the house,[46] two
men are sent out in a boat, and where they first see a spider-hunter
they land on the bank and go through the customary procedures. The
calls and appearances of various birds and of the MUNTJAC are of chief
importance. Some of these are good, some bad in various degrees. When
a preponderance of favourable omens has been observed, the men return
to the house to announce their success. They will wait two whole days
if necessary to secure a favourable result. During their absence
a strict MALAN or LALI (tabu) lies upon the house; no stranger may
enter it, and the people sit quietly in the house performing only
the most necessary tasks. The announcement of the nature of the omens
observed is made to the chief in the presence of a deeply interested
throng of both sexes. If the omens observed are considered to be bad,
or of doubtful import, the men go out for a second period; but if they
are favourable, the women of each room perform the private rites over
their stores of seed PADI, which are kept in their rooms. After the
pros and cons have been fully discussed, the chief names the day for
the beginning of the clearing operations.
At the beginning of the sowing the house is again subject to MALAN for
one day. During the growth of the PADI various charms and superstitious
practices are brought into use to promote its growth and health,
and to keep the pests from it. The PADI charms are a miscellaneous
collection or bundle of small articles, such as curious pebbles and
bits of wood, pigs' tusks of unusual size or shape, beads, feathers,
crystals of quartz. Kayans as a rule object to pebbles and stones
as charms. Such charms are generally acquired in the first instance
through indications afforded by dreams, and are handed down from
mother to daughter. Such charms contained in a basket are usually
kept in a PADI barn, from which they are taken to the field by the
woman and waved over it, usually with a live fowl in the hand, while
she addresses the PADI seed in some such terms as the following:
"May you have a good stem and a good top, let all parts of you grow
in harmony, etc. etc." Then she rapidly repeats a long customary
formula of exhortation to the pests, saying, "O rats, run away down
river, don't trouble us; O sparrows and noxious insects, go feed on
the PADI of the people down river." If the pests are very persistent,
the woman may kill a fowl and scatter its blood over the growing PADI,
while she charges the pests to disappear, and calls upon LAKI IVONG
(the god of harvests) to drive them out.
Women alone will gather the first ears of the crop. If they encounter
on their way to the fields any one of the following creatures,
they must at once return home, and stay there a day and a night, on
pain of illness or early death: certain snakes, spiders, centipedes,
millipedes, and birds of two species, JERUIT and BUBUT (a cuckoo). Or
again, if the shoulder straps of their large baskets should break
on the way, if a stump should fall against them, or the note of the
spider-hunter be heard, or if a woman strikes her foot by accident
against any object, the party must return as before.
It will be clear from the foregoing account that the women play the
principal part in the rites and actual operations of the PADI culture;
the men only being called in to clear the ground and to assist in
some of the later stages. The women select and keep the seed grain,
and they are the repositories of most of the lore connected with
it. It seems to be felt that they have a natural affinity to the
fruitful grain, which they speak of as becoming pregnant. Women
sometimes sleep out in the PADI fields while the crop is growing,
probably for the purpose of increasing their own fertility or that
of the PADI; but they are very reticent on this matter.
The Harvest Festival
When the crop is all gathered in, the house is MALAN to all outsiders
for some ten days, during which the grain is transported from the
fields to the village and stored in the PADI barns. When this process
is completed or well advanced, the festival begins with the preparation
of the seed grain for the following season. Some of the best of the
new grain is carefully selected by the women of each room, enough for
the sowing of the next season. This is mixed with a small quantity
of the seed grain of the foregoing seasons which has been carefully
preserved for this purpose in a special basket. The basket contains
grains of PADI from good harvests of many previous years. This is
supposed to have been done from the earliest time of PADI planting,
so that the basket contains some of the original stock of seed, or
at least the virtue of it leavening the whole. This basket is never
emptied, but a pinch of the old PADI is mixed in with the new, and
then a handful of the mixture added to the old stock. The idea here
seems to be that the old grain, preserving continuity generation after
generation with the original seed PADI of mythical origin,[47] ensures
the presence in the grain of the soul or spirit or vital principle of
PADI. While mixing the old with the new seed grain, the woman calls
on the soul of the PADI to cause the seed to be fruitful and to grow
vigorously, and to favour her own fertility. For the whole festival
is a celebration or cult of the principle of fertility and vitality --
that of the women no less than that of the PADI.[48]
The women who have been delivered of children during the past year
will make a number of toys, consisting of plaited work, in the shapes
of various animals filled with boiled rice (Fig. 16). These they
throw to the children of the house, who scramble for them in the
gallery. This seems to be of the nature of a thank-offering.
At this time also another curious custom is observed. Four water
beetles, of the kind that skates on the surface of the still water, are
caught on the river and placed on water in a large gong. Some old man
specially wise in this matter watches the beetles, calling to them to
direct their movements. The people crowd round deeply interested, while
the old man interprets the movements of the beetles as forecasting
good or ill luck with the crops of the following season, and invokes
the good-will of Laki Ivong. Laki Ivong is asked to bring the soul
of the PADI to their homes. Juice from a sugarcane is poured upon the
water, and the women drink the water, while the beetles are carefully
returned to the river. The beetles carry the messages to Laki Ivong.
When these observances have been duly honoured, there begins a
scene of boisterous fun. The women make pads of the boiled sticky
new rice, and cover it with soot from their cooking vessels. With
these they approach the men and dab the pads upon their faces and
bodies, leaving sooty marks that are not easily removed. The men
thus challenged give chase, and attempt to get possession of the rice
pads and to return the polite attention. For a short space of time a
certain license prevails among the young people; and irregularities,
even on the part of married people, which would be gravely reprobated
at all other times, are looked upon very much less seriously. It is,
in fact, the annual carnival. Each roomhold has prepared a stock of
BURAK from the new rice, and this now circulates freely among both men
and women, and large meals of rice and pork are usually eaten. All
join in dancing, some of the women dressed like men, some carrying
PADI-pestles; at one moment all form a long line marching up and
down the gallery in step to the strains of the KELURI; some young
men dance in realistic imitation of monkeys (DOK), or hornbills, or
other animals, singly or in couples. Others mimic the peculiarities
of their acquaintances. The women also dance together in a long line,
each resting her hands on the shoulders of the one going before her,
and all keeping time to the music of the KELURIES as they dance up
and down the long gallery. All this is kept up with good humour the
whole day long. In the evening more BURAK is drunk and songs are sung,
the women mingling with the men, instead of remaining in their rooms
as on other festive occasions. Before midnight a good many of the men
are more or less intoxicated, some deeply so; but most are able to
find their way to bed about midnight, and few or none become offensive
or quarrelsome, even though the men indulge in wrestling and rough
horseplay with one another. After an exceptionally good harvest the
boisterous merry-making is renewed on a second or even a third day.
The harvest festival is the time at which dancing is most
practised. The dances fall into two chief classes, namely, solo dances
and those in which many persons take part. Most of the solo dances take
the form of comic imitations of the movements of animals, especially
the big macaque monkey (DOK), the hornbill, and big fish. These dances
.seem to have no connection with magic or religion, but to be purely
aesthetic entertainments. The animals that are regarded with most awe
are never mimicked in this way. There are at least four distinct group
dances popular among the Kayans. Both men and women take part, the
women often dressing themselves as men for the occasion (Pl. 61). The
movements and evolutions are very simple. The LUPA resembles the dance
on return from war described in Chap. X. In the KAYO, a similar dance,
the dancers are led by a woman holding one of the dried heads which is
taken down for the purpose; the women, dressed in war-coats, pretending
to take the head from an enemy. The LAKEKUT Is a musical drill in which
the dancers stamp on the planks of the floor in time to the music. The
LUPAK is a kind of slow polka. In none of these do the dancers fall
into couples. A fifth dance, the dance of the departure of the spirit,
is a dramatic representation by three persons of the death of one of
them, and of his restoration to life by means of the water of life
(this is supposed to be brought from the country which is traversed
on the journey to the land of shades). This dance is sometimes given
with so much dramatic effect as to move the onlookers to tears.
CHAPTER 7
The Daily Life of a Kayan Long House
A little before dawn the cocks roosting beneath the house awaken the
household by their crowing and the flapping of their wings. The pigs
begin to grunt and squeal, and the dogs begin to trot to and fro in
the gallery. Before the first streaks of daylight appear, the women
light the fires in the private rooms or blow up the smouldering embers;
then most of them descend from the house, each carrying in a basket
slung on her back several bamboo water-vessels to be filled from the
river. Many of them bathe at this time in the shallow water beside
the bank, while the toilet of others consists in dashing water over
their faces, washing their mouths with water, and rubbing their teeth
with the forefinger. Returning to the house with their loads of water
(Pl. 63), they boil rice for the household breakfasts and for the
dinner of those who are to spend the day in the PADI field or the
jungle. The boiled rice intended for the latter use is made up in
packets wrapped in green leaves, each containing sufficient for a meal
for one person. About half-past six, when the daylight is fully come,
the pigs expectant of their meal are clamouring loudly for it. The
women descend to them by ladders leading from the private rooms, and
each gives to the pigs of her household the leavings of the meals
of the previous day. About the same time the men begin to bestir
themselves sluggishly; some descend to bathe, while others smoke
the fag ends of the cigarettes that were unfinished when they fell
asleep. Then the men breakfast in their rooms, and not until they are
satisfied do the women and children sit down to their meal. During all
this time the chronically hungry dogs, attracted by the odours of food,
make persistent efforts to get into their owner's rooms. Success in
this manoeuvre is almostly always followed by their sudden and noisy
reappearance in the gallery, caused by a smart blow with a stick. In
the busy farming season parties of men, women, and children will set
off in boats for the PADI fields taking their breakfasts with them.
After breakfast the men disperse to their various tasks. During some
three or four months of the year all able-bodied persons repair
daily to the PADI fields, but during the rest of the year their
employments are more varied. The old women and invalids remain all
day long in the rooms; the old men lounge all day in the gallery,
smoking many home-made cigarettes, and perhaps doing a bit of carving
or other light work and keeping an eye on the children. The young
children play in and out and about the house, chasing the animals,
and dabbling among the boats moored at the bank.
A few of the able-bodied men employ themselves in or about the house,
making boats, forging swords, spear-heads, iron hoes, and axes,
repairing weapons or implements. Others go in small parties to the
jungle to hunt deer and pig, or to gather jungle produce -- fruits,
rubber, rattans, or bamboos -- or spend the day in fishing in the
river. During the months of December and January the jungle fruits --
the durian, rambutan, mangosteen, lansat, mango, and numerous small
sour fruits (Pl. 65) -- are much more abundant than at other times;
and during these months all other work is neglected, while the people
devote themselves to gathering the fruit which forms for a time almost
their only food.
Except during the busy PADI season the work of the women is wholly
within the house. The heaviest part of their household labour is the
preparation of the rice. After breakfast they proceed to spread out
PADI on mats on the open platforms adjoining the gallery. While the
PADI is being dried by the exposure to sun and wind on these platforms,
it must be protected from the domestic fowls by a guardian who, sitting
in the gallery, drives them away by means of a long bamboo slung by
a cord above the platform. Others fill the time between breakfast and
the noonday dinner by bathing themselves and the children in the river,
making and repairing clothing, mats, and baskets, fetching more water,
cleaning the rooms and preparing dinner. This meal consists of boiled
rice with perhaps a piece of fish, pork, or fowl, and, like breakfast
and supper, is eaten in the private rooms.
As soon as dinner is over the pounding of the PADI begins
(Frontispiece, Vol. II.). Each mortar usually consists of a massive
log of timber roughly shaped, and having sunk in its upper surface,
which is a little hollowed, a pit about five inches in diameter and
nine inches in depth. Into this pit about a quarter of a bushel of
PADI is put. Two women stand on the mortar facing one another on
either side of the pit, each holding by the middle a large wooden
pestle. This is a solid bar of hardwood about seven feet long, about
two inches in diameter in the middle third, and some three or four
inches in diameter in the rest of its length. The two ends are rounded
and polished by use. Each woman raises her pestle to the full height
of her reach, and brings it smartly down upon the grain in the pit,
the two women striking alternately with a regular rhythm. As each
one lifts her pestle, she deftly sweeps back into the pit with her
foot the grain scattered by her stroke.
After pounding the PADI for some minutes without interruption,
one woman takes a winnowing pan, a mat made in the shape of an
English housemaid's dustpan, but rather larger than this article,
and receives in it the pounded grain which the other throws out of
the pit with her foot.
Both women then kneel upon a large mat laid beside the mortar; the
one holding the winnowing pan keeps throwing the grain into the air
with a movement which causes the heavier grain to fall to the back of
the pan, while the chaff and dust is thrown forward on to the mat. Her
companion separates the rice dust from the chaff by sifting it through
a sieve. A considerable quantity of the dust or finely broken rice
is formed by the pounding in the mortar, and this is the principal
food given to the pigs. The winnowed grain is usually returned to the
mortar to be put through the whole process a second time. The clean
rice thus prepared is ready for the cooking-pot.
The winnowing and sifting is often done by old women, while the
younger women continue the severer task of plying the pestle. In the
Kayan houses the mortars are in many cases double, that is to say,
there are two pits in the one block of timber, and two pairs of women
work simultaneously. In the middle of the afternoon the whole house
resounds with the vigorous blows of the pestles, for throughout the
length of the gallery two or more women are at work beside each room,
husking the day's supply of rice for each family.
For the women of all the peoples, except the Punans, the husking of
the PADI is a principal feature of the day's work, and is performed
in much the same fashion by all. The Kenyahs alone do their work out
of doors beside the PADI barns, sometimes under rude lean-to shelters.
When this task is completed the women are covered with dust; they
descend again to the river, and bathe themselves and the children
once more. They may gather some of the scanty vegetables grown in
small enclosures near most of the houses, and then proceed to prepare
supper with their rice and whatever food the men may have brought
home from the jungle. For now, about an hour before sundown, the men
return from expeditions in the jungle, often bringing a wild pig, a
monkey, a porcupine, or some jungle fruit, or young shoots of bamboo,
as their contribution to the supper table; others return from fishing
or from the PADI fields, and during the sunset hour at a large village
a constant stream of boats arrives at the landing-place before the
house. Most of the home-comers bathe in the river before ascending
to the house. This evening bath is taken in more leisurely fashion
than the morning dip. A man will strip off his waist-cloth and rush
into the water, falling flat on his chest with a great splash. Then
standing with the water up to his waist he will souse his head and
face, then perhaps swim a few double overhand strokes, his head going
under at each stroke. After rubbing himself down with a smooth pebble,
he returns to the bank, and having resumed his waist-cloth, he squeezes
the water from his hair, picks up his paddle, spear, hat, and other
belongings, and ascends to the gallery. There he hangs up his spear
by jabbing its point into a roof-beam beside the door of his chamber,
and sits down to smoke a cigarette and to relate the events of his
day while supper is preparing. As darkness falls, he goes to his
room to sup. By the time the women also have supped, the tropical
night has fallen, and the house is lit by the fires and by resin
torches, and nowadays by a few kerosene lamps. The men gather round
the fireplaces in the gallery and discuss politics, the events of the
day, the state of the crops and weather, the news obtained by meetings
with the people of neighbouring houses, and relate myths and legends,
folk-tales and animal stories. The women, having put the children
to bed, visit one another's rooms for friendly gossip; and young
men drop in to join their parties, accept the proffered cigarette,
and discourse the sweet music of the KELURI,[49] the noseflute,
and the Jew's harp (Figs. 17, 18, 19). Or Romeo first strikes up
his plaintive tune outside the room in which Juliet sits with the
women folk. Juliet may respond with a few notes of her guitar[50]
(Fig. 20), thus encouraging Romeo to enter and to take his place in
the group beside her, where he joins in the conversation or renews
his musical efforts. About nine o'clock all retire to bed, save a few
old men who sit smoking over the fires far into the night. The dogs,
after some final skirmishes and yelpings, subside among the warm ashes
of the fireplaces; the pigs emit a final squeal and grunt; and within
the house quietness reigns. Now the rushing of the river makes itself
heard in the house, mingled with the chirping of innumerable insects
and the croaking of a myriad frogs borne in from the surrounding
forest. The villagers sleep soundly till cock-crow; but the European
guest, lying in the place of honour almost beneath the row of human
heads which adorns the gallery, is, if unused to sleeping in a Bornean
long house, apt to be wakened from time to time throughout the night
by an outburst of dreadful yelpings from the dogs squabbling for the
best places among the ashes, by the prolonged fit of coughing of an
old man, by an old crone making up the fire, by the goats squealing
and scampering over the boats beneath the house, or by some weird
cry from the depths of the jungle.
In the old days the peace of the night was occasionally broken an hour
before the dawn by the yells of an attacking force, and by the flames
roaring up from bundles of shavings thrown beneath the house. But
happily attacks of this kind are no longer made, save in some few
remoter parts of the interior where the European governments have
not yet fully established their authority.
The even tenor of the life of a village is interrupted from time to
time by certain festivals or other incidents -- the harvest festival;
the marriage or the naming of a chiefs son or daughter; the arrival of
important guests (one or more chiefs with bands of followers coming
to make peace, or nowadays the resident magistrate of the district);
the funeral of a chief; the preparations for war or for a long
journey to the distant bazaar of Chinese traders in the lower part
of the river; the necessity of removing to a new site; an epidemic
of disease; the rites of formally consulting the omens, or otherwise
communicating with and propitiating the gods; the operations of the
soul-catcher. The more important of these incidents will be described
in later chapters. Here we need only give a brief account of the way
in which some of them affect the daily round of life in the long house.
A visiting chief will remain seated in his boat, while a follower
announces his arrival and ascertains that there is no MALAN (TABU) upon
the house which would make the presence of visitors unwelcome. Such
MALAN affecting the whole house or village obtains during the storing
of the PADI for ten consecutive days, during epidemics of sickness
in neighbouring villages, and at the time when the preparation
of the farm land begins. If a favourable answer is returned, the
visitor remains seated in his boat some few minutes longer, and
then makes his way into the gallery, followed by most of his men,
who leave their spears and shields in the boats. If the visitor is an
intimate friend, the chief of the house will send a son or brother
to welcome him, or will even go himself. Arrived in the gallery,
the visitor advances to the central platform where the chief of the
house awaits him, unstrings his sword from his waist, hangs it upon
any convenient hook, and sits down beside his host; while his men,
following his example, seat themselves with the men of the house in a
semicircle facing the two chiefs. The followers may greet, and even
embrace, or grasp by the forearm, their personal friends; but the
demeanour of the chief's is more formal. Neither one utters a word or
glances at the other for some few minutes; the host remains seated,
fidgeting with a cigarette and gazing upon the floor; the visitor
sitting beside him looks stolidly over the heads of his followers,
and perhaps clears his throat or coughs. Presently a woman thrusts
into the semicircle a tray of freshly made cigarettes. One of the
men of the house pushes it forward towards the principal visitor, who
makes a sign of acceptance by lightly touching the tray; the other,
crouching on his heels, lights a cigarette with an ember from the fire,
blowing it into a glow as he waddles up to present it to the visiting
chief. The latter takes it, but usually allows it to go out. By this
time the chief of the house is ready to open the conversation, and,
after clearing his throat, suddenly throws out a question, usually,
"Where did you start from to-day?" The embarrassing silence thus
broken, question and answer are freely exchanged, the cigarette of
the visitor is again lighted at the fire by a member of the household,
and conversation becomes general. Not infrequently the host, becoming
more and more friendly, throws an arm across his guest's shoulders
or strokes him endearingly with the palm of his hand.
In the meantime the women are busy preparing a meal, a pig having
been killed and hastily cut up. When it is ready, the visitors, if
old friends, are invited to partake of it in the chief's room. But
if they are not familiar acquaintances, the meal is spread for them
in the gallery on platters placed in a long row, one for each guest;
each platter containing many cubes of hot boiled pork and two packets
of hot boiled rice wrapped in leaves. The space is surrounded with a
slight bamboo fence to keep away the dogs. In either case the visitors
eat alone, their hosts retiring until the meal is finished. As the
chief's wife retires, she says, "Eat slowly, my children, our food is
poor stuff. There is no pork, no fish, nothing that is good." Before
withdrawing, one of the people of the house pours a little water from
a bamboo vessel on the right hand of the visiting chief, who then
passes on the vessel to his followers. With the hand thus cleansed
each guest conveys the food to his mouth, dipping his pieces of pork
in coarse salt placed in a leaf beside his platter; and when he has
finished eating, he drinks water from a bamboo vessel. The chief,
and perhaps also one or more of his upper-class companions, leaves a
little of the pork and a little rice on the platter to show that he
is not greedy or ravenous; and his good breeding prompts him to prove
his satisfaction with the meal by belching up a quantity of wind
with a loud and prolonged noise, which is echoed by his followers
to the best of their ability. After thus publicly expressing his
appreciation of his host's hospitality, he rinses out his mouth,
squirting out the water towards the nearest gap between the floor
boards, rubs his teeth with his forefinger, again rinses his mouth,
and washes his hand. Then relighting his cigarette, which he has kept
behind his ear or thrust through the hole in its shell, he rejoins
his host, who awaits him on the dais.
On such an occasion, and in fact on any other occasion suggestive
of festivity, the evening is enlivened with oratory, song, and
drink. After supper the men gather together about the chiefs, sitting
in close-set ranks on and before the dais. At a hint from the chief
a jar of BURAK (rice-spirit) is brought into the circle. This may be
the property of the chief or of any one of the principal men, who, by
voluntarily contributing in this way towards the entertainment of the
guests, maintains the honour of the house and of its chief. A little
is poured into a cup and handed to the house-chief, who first makes
a libation to the omen-birds and to all the other friendly spiritual
powers, by pouring a little on to the ground through some crevice of
the floor, or by throwing a few drops out under the eaves, saying,
as he does so, "Ho, all you friendly spirits." Then he drinks a little
and hands back the cup to the young man who has taken charge of the jar
of spirit. The latter, remaining crouched upon his heels, ladles out
another cupful of spirit and offers it in both hands to the principal
guest, who drinks it off, and expresses by a grunt and a smack of the
lips, and perhaps a shiver, his appreciation of its quality. The cup
is handed in similar formal fashion to each of the principal guests
in turn; and then more cups are brought into use, and the circulation
of the drink becomes more rapid and informal. As soon as each man
has had a drink, the house-chief rises to his feet and, addressing
himself to his guest, expatiates upon his admirable qualities, and
expresses eloquently the pleasure felt by himself and his people
at this visit. Then speaking in parables and in indirect fashion,
claiming perhaps indulgence on the ground that he is merely talking
in his sleep, he touches upon local politics at first delicately;
then warming up he speaks more directly and plainly. He may become
much excited and gesticulate freely, even leaping into the air and
twirling round on one foot with outstretched right arm in a fashion
that directs his remarks to each and all of the listening circle;
but, even though he may find occasion to admonish or reproach, or even
hint at a threat, his speech never transgresses the strictest bounds
of courtesy. Having thus unburdened himself of whatever thoughts
and emotions are evoked by the occasion, he takes from the attendant
Ganymede a bumper cup of spirit and breaks into song. Standing before
his guest and swinging the cup repeatedly almost to his (the guest's)
lips, he exhorts him in complimentary and rhyming phrases to accept his
remarks in a friendly spirit, and reminds him of the age and strength
of their family and tribal relations, referring to their ancestral
glories and the proud position in the world of their common race. At
the end of each sentence all the men of both parties break out into
a loud chorus, repeating the last word or two in deep long-drawn-out
musical cadence. Then, with the last words of his extemporised song,
the chief yields up the cup to the expectant guest, who, having sat
rigidly and with fixed gaze throughout the address, takes it in one
long draught, while the chorus swells to a deep, musical roar. At this
moment the circle of auditors, if much excited, will spring to their
feet and swell the noise by stamping and jumping on the resounding
planks. The house-chief smilingly strokes his guest from the shoulder
downwards and resumes his seat. The chorus and commotion die away,
and are followed by a moment of silence, during which the guest
prepares to make his reply in similar fashion. He rises and begins
by naming and lightly touching or pointing to his host and other of
the principal men present. Then he makes acknowledgment of the kind
and flattering reception accorded him, and his pleasure at finding
this opportunity of improving the understanding between himself and
his hosts. "The views so eloquently expressed by my friend (naming
him and using some complimentary title, E.G. brother or father)
are no doubt correct. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? But I have
been told so and so, and perhaps it may be, ..." and so he goes on
to state his own views, taking care to shift the responsibility for
any remaining dissension on to the shoulders of some distant third
party. He congratulates all parties on this free discussion of matters
of common interest, and with free gesticulation exhorts them to turn
a deaf ear to vague rumours and to maintain friendly relations. Then,
dropping down beside his host, he says "Take no notice of what I have
said, I am drunk." Ganymede again approaches him with a bumper cup, and
then rising to his feet and calling on his men, he addresses his host
in complimentary song and chorus, using the gestures and expressions
peculiar to his own people. The song culminates as before in a general
chorus, long drawn out, while the house-chief drains the cup.
The cups then circulate freely, and the smoking of cigarettes is
general; other shorter speeches may be made, perhaps by the sons or
brothers of the chiefs. As the evening wears away, both guests and
hosts become increasingly boisterous and affectionate; but few or none
on an occasion of this sort become intoxicated or quarrelsome. If a man
becomes a little too boisterous, he is led away to one of the sleeping
platforms in the gallery, and kept there until he falls asleep.
During an evening of this sort the women congregate in the adjacent
rooms, where they can overhear the proceedings; and if they find these
exceptionally interesting, they will congregate about the doors, but
will strictly abstain from interfering with, them in any way. The flow
of speech and song and conversation goes on uninterruptedly, except
when the occasional intrusion into the circle of some irrepressible
dog necessitates its violent expulsion; until, as midnight approaches,
the men drop away from the circle by twos and threes, the circle
being finally broken up when the visiting chief expresses a desire
to sleep. Each guest spreads his own mat on the platform assigned to
the party, and the men of the house retire to their rooms.
We will not conclude this chapter without stating that among the
Kayans, Kenyahs, and most of the Klemantans, alcoholic intoxication is
by no means common. At great feasts, such as are made at the close of
the harvest or on the return of a successful war-party, much BORAK
is drunk, the women joining in, and a few of the men will usually
become quite drunk; but most of them will hardly go further than a
state of boisterous jollity.
Although in a year of good PADI harvest each family constantly renews
its supply of BORAK, yet the spirit is never drunk in private, but
only on festive occasions of the kind described above, or when a man
entertains a small party of friends in his own chamber.
The account given above of the reception and entertainment of guests
would apply with but little modification to the houses of the Kenyahs
and Klemantans. In the Sea Dayak house the reception and entertainment
of guests is less ceremonious, and is carried out by the unorganised
efforts of individuals, rather than by the household as a whole
with the chief at its head. On the arrival of a party of visitors,
the people of each room clamorously invite the guests to sit down
before their chamber. The guests thus become scattered through the
house. First they are offered betel nut and sirih leaf smeared with
lime to chew, for among the Sea Dayaks this chewing takes the place of
the smoking of cigarettes which is common to all the others; and they
are then fed and entertained individually, or by twos and threes, in
various rooms. No pig is killed or rice-spirit offered, though possibly
a toasted bat or bit of salted wild pig will be served as a relish.
At great feasts the Sea Dayaks drink more freely than the other
peoples, except the Muruts. Men and women alike drink deeply, and
many become intoxicated. The men take pride in drinking the largest
possible quantity; and when the stomach is filled, will vomit up
large quantities, and then at once drink more, the women pressing it
upon them. The Dayaks and Muruts alone thus sink in the matter of
drink to the level of those highly cultured Europeans among whom a
similar habit obtains: while among all the other tribes strong drink
is seldom or never abused, but rather is put only to its proper use,
the promotion of good fellowship and social gaiety.
CHAPTER 8
Life on the Rivers
With the exception of the Punans and some of the Muruts who inhabit the
few regions devoid of navigable streams, all the peoples of Borneo make
great use of the rivers. The main rivers and their principal branches
are their great highways, and even the smallest tributary streams are
used for gaining access to their PADI fields. It is only when hunting
or gathering jungle produce that they leave the rivers. Occasionally
PADI is cultivated at a distance of a mile or more from the nearest
navigable stream, and a rough pathway is then made between the field
and the nearest point of the river. Here and there also jungle paths
are made connecting points where neighbouring rivers or their navigable
tributaries approach closely to one another. In the flat country near
the coast, where waterways are less abundant than in the interior,
jungle tracks are more used for communication between villages. Where
a route crosses a jungle swamp, large trees are felled in such a way
that their stems lie as nearly as possible end to end. Their ends
are connected if necessary by laying smaller logs from one to the
other. In this way is formed a rude slippery viaduct on which it is
possible for an agile and bare-footed man to walk in safety across
swamps many miles in extent.
But the jungle paths are only used when it is impossible to reach the
desired point by boat, or if the waterway is very circuitous. On the
lower and deeper reaches of the rivers the paddle is the universal
instrument of propulsion. It is used without any kind of rowlock --
the one hand, grasping the handle a little above the blade, draws
the blade backwards through the water; the other hand, grasping the
T-shaped upper end, thrusts it forward. The lower hand thus serves
as a fulcrum for the other.
A small boat may be propelled by a single rower, who, sitting at the
stern, uses the paddle on one side only, and keeps the boat straight
by turning the paddle as he finishes his stroke. In a boat of medium
size one man seated at the stern devotes himself to steering with his
paddle, although here and there among the coast-people a fixed rudder
is used. In a war boat of the largest size, the two men occupying
the bow-bench and the four men on the two stern-most benches are
responsible for the steering; the former pull the bow over, or lever
it in the opposite direction.
During a day's journey the crew of a boat will from time-to-time
lighten their labour with song, one man singing, the others joining
in the chorus; and if several boats are travelling in company the
crews will from time to time spurt and strive to pass one another in
good-humoured rivalry. At such times each crew may break out into a
deep-pitched and musical roar, the triumphal chorus of a victorious
war party.
In the upper reaches of the rivers there are numerous rapids, and
here and there actual falls. The boat is usually propelled up a rapid
by poling. Each member of the crew has beside him a stout pole some
eight or nine feet long; and when the boat approaches a rapid, the
crew at a shout from the captain, usually the steersman, spring to
their feet, dropping their paddles and seizing their poles. Thrusting
these against the stony bottom in perfect unison, the crew swings the
boat up through the rushing water with a very pleasant motion. If the
current proves too strong and the boat makes no progress, or if the
water is too shallow, three or four men, or, if necessary, the whole
crew, spring into the water and, seizing the boat by the gunwale, drag
it upstream till quieter water is reached. It is necessary for a man
or boy to bale out the water that constantly enters over the gunwale
while the boat makes the passage of a rapid. All through these exciting
operations the captain directs and admonishes his men unremittingly,
hurling at them expressions of a strength that would astonish a crew
on the waters of the Cam or Isis: "Matei tadjin selin" (may you die
the most awful death) is one of the favourite phrases. These provoke
no resentment, but merely stimulate the crew to greater exertions.
Sometimes, when much water is coming down after heavy rains, the
current is so swift in deep places that neither paddling, poling,
nor wading is possible. Then three or four men are landed on the bank,
or on the boughs of the trees, and haul on the boat with long rattans,
scrambling over rocks and through the jungle as best they can.
The passage down stream in the upper reaches of a river is even more
exciting and pleasurable. The crew paddles sufficiently to keep good
steerage way on the boat, as it glides swiftly between the rocks and
shallows; as it shoots over the rapids, the steersman stands up to
choose his path, the water splashes and gurgles and leaps over the
gunwale, and the men break out into song. The smaller waterfalls do
not check its onward rush; as the boat approaches a fall, several
men near the bow stand up to see if there is sufficient water; then,
as they resume their seats, all paddle with might and main until
the boat takes the leap. Occasionally a boat is upset during such
an attempt, and rarely one or two of the crew are lost through being
hurled against rocks and drowned while stunned.
In making a long journey the nights are passed if possible in friendly
villages. When no such village can be reached, the night is passed
either in the boats moored to the bank or on the river-bank. In
the former case the leaf mats, of which each man carries at least
one in his basket, are used to roof the boat; in the latter case a
rude hut is quickly built, a framework of saplings lashed together,
roofed with the mats, and floored at a level of some feet above the
ground with bamboos or slender saplings. On camping in the evening
and before starting in the morning, rice is cooked and eaten; and
about mid-day the journey is interrupted for about an hour while
the party lands on the bank, or, if possible, on a bed of pebbles,
to rest and to cook and eat the midday meal.
Fishing
Fish are caught in the rivers in several ways, and form an important
part of the diet of most of the peoples. Perhaps the cast net is
most commonly used. This is a net which, when fully extended in
the water, covers a circular patch about six yards in diameter,
while its central part rises in a steep cone, to the peak of which a
strong cord is tied. The main strands run radially from this central
point, increasing in number towards the periphery. They are crossed
by concentric strands. The periphery is weighted with bits of metal
or stone. This net is used both in deep and in shallow water. In the
former case one man steers and paddles a boat, while the other stands
at the prow with the cord of the net wound about the right hand. The
bulk of the net is gathered up on his right arm, the free end is
held in the left hand. Choosing a still pool some two fathoms in
depth, he throws a stone into the water a little ahead of the boat,
in the expectation that the fish will congregate about the spot as
they do when fruit falls from the trees on the banks. Then, as the
boat approaches the spot he deftly flings the net so that it falls
spread out upon the surface; its weighted edge then sinks rapidly
to the bottom, enclosing any fish that may be beneath the net. If
only small fish are enclosed, the net is twisted as it is drawn up,
the fish becoming entangled in its meshes, and in pockets formed about
its lower border. If a large fish is enclosed, the steersman will dive
overboard and seize the lower part of the net so as to secure the fish.
Or the boat is paddled to the foot of a small rapid; the fisherman
springs out and runs to the head of the rapid, and casts his net in
the still water immediately above it where fish frequently congregate.
Or a party takes the same net to the mouth of a small tributary, and,
while some hold the net so as to block the mouth almost completely,
others run through the jungle to a point some hundred yards up the
stream, and then drive down the fish by wading down stream splashing
and shouting. As soon as a number of fish come down against the net
its upper border is thrown down so as to enclose them.
Another net, made quite flat and some fifteen yards long by four feet
wide, is suspended by wooden floats across a small river so that the
fish may become entangled in its meshes.
Another net is used only by the women. In shape it is like a deep
basin; its wide mouth is attached to a stout circle of rattan, and
a wooden bar is tied across the mouth to serve as handle. With this
the women catch the sucker fish in the shallow rapids, one turning
up stones, the other catching in the net the fish that dart from
beneath them.
Yet another mode of netting fish is to suspend a square of net
attached by its corners to the ends of two crossed and downward bending
sticks. The net is suspended by cords from its corners to the end of
a long bamboo, which rests upon a post about its middle. The fisherman
lowers the net into the water by raising the landward end of the bamboo
lever, and when he sees fish swimming above it, attracted by a bait,
he suddenly depresses his end of the bamboo, so as to bring the net
quickly above the surface. On the coast drag nets are used.
The SELAMBO is used in small streams where fish are abundant. A
fence of upright bamboos is built out from either bank, starting at
opposite points and converging down stream to two points near the
middle of the stream and about seven feet apart; where each terminates
a stout pole is driven firmly into the bed of the river. These two
poles are connected by a stout cross-piece lashed to them a little
above the level of the water. The cross-piece forms a fulcrum for a
pair of long poles joined together with cross-pieces, in such a way
that their downstream ends almost meet, while up stream they diverge
widely. They rest upon the fulcrum at a point about one-third of their
length from their downstream ends. Between the widely divergent parts
up stream from the fulcrum a net is loosely stretched. The net lies
submerged until fish coming down stream are directed on to the net by
the convergent fences. The fisherman stands on a rude platform grasping
the handle-end, and, feeling the contacts of the fishes with the net,
throws his weight upon the handle, so bringing the net quickly above
the surface. Beside him he has a large cage of bamboo standing in the
water, into which the fish are allowed to slide from the elevated net.
A rod and line and baited hook are also in common use. The Kayans
make a hook of stout brass wire, cutting a single barb. The Kenyahs
use a hook made of rattan thorns. A strip is cut from the surface of
a rattan bearing two thorns about an inch apart; this is bent at its
middle so that the cut surfaces of the two halves are brought into
opposition, and the thorns, facing outward opposite one another,
form the barbs. The line is tied to the bend, and the bait is placed
over the tip projecting beyond the thorns. When the fish takes the
hook into his mouth and swallows the bait, the barbs being released
spring outward and secure the fish.
A rough kind of spoon bait is also used with rod and line.
Fish are taken also in traps. The most generally used is the BUBU. This
varies in length from eighteen inches to eight feet or even more. The
body of the trap is a conical cage of bamboo. From the wide mouth of
the cone a second smaller flatter cone passes upwards within the outer
one; the slender bamboo strips of which it is made come almost together
in the centre, their inner ends being free and pliable. This is fixed
beside the bank, its mouth turned down stream, and a few stakes are
driven into the bed of the river to guide the fish into the mouth;
or it may be laid in shallow water, two barriers of stones converging
to its mouth. The fish working up stream pass in at the mouth, and,
when they have passed the inner lips, cannot easily pass out again.
A still simpler trap consists merely of a long slender cone of bamboo
strips. The fish entering the mouth and passing up to the confined
space of the other end become wedged fast in it.
A Sea Dayak trap found in the south-west of Borneo is a cylindrical
cage of bamboo attached to a pole driven vertically into the bed of the
river. (Fig. 21). At one side of the cage is a circular aperture. Into
this fits a section of bamboo, the end of which within the cage is cut
into longitudinal strips that are made to converge, forming a cone,
through the apex of which the fish can push his way into the cage,
but which prevents his return. It is an application of the same valve
principle as that used in the trap first described above.
A larger trap is the KILONG, which is used in the lower reaches of the
rivers and also on the coast. It consists of a fence of stakes running
out from the bank or shore into water some two fathoms in depth. The
free end of the fence is wound in a spiral of about two turns. One
or two gates are made between the outer and the inner chambers of
the spiral on the side nearest to the bank or shore, and are left
open when the trap is set. The fish, finding themselves confined by
the fence, make for deeper water, and, entering the central chamber,
do not readily return. The fisherman then closes the gate and takes
out the fish with a landing net.
A prawn trap consists of a cylinder of heavy bark. One end is closed
with a conical valve of bamboo strips like that of the two traps
described above; the other flattened end is hinged to open for the
extraction of the catch. The trap is baited with decaying cocoanut and
thrown into the river with a long rattan attached to it and tied to
a pole; the trap sinks to the bottom and is examined from time to time.
Tuba Fishing
Fish are caught on the largest scale by poisoning the water with
the juice of the root of the tuba plant. This is usually practised
in the smaller rivers at times of slack water, all the people of a
village co-operating. The TUBA plant is cultivated in patches on the
PADI fields. Pieces of the roots are cut off without destroying the
plants. When a large quantity has been gathered, a fence is built
across the river at the spot chosen, and big BUBU traps are let into
it facing up stream. Then all the available small boats are manned
and brought into the reaches of the river extending about a mile above
the fence. Each boat carries a supply of tuba root, which the people
bruise by pounding it with wooden clubs against stumps and rocks
on the bank or against the side of the boat. Water is thrown into
the bottom of the boat and the pounded root is rinsed in the water,
pounded again, and again rinsed, until all its poisonous juice is
extracted. The water in all the boats, become milky with the juice,
is poured at a given signal into the river, either by baling or by
overturning the boats. After some twenty minutes the fish begin to
rise to the surface and rush wildly to and fro. In the meantime the
boats have been put to rights, and now begin to pursue the fish,
the men armed with fish-spears, the women with landing-nets. The
sport goes on for several hours. Some men armed with clubs stand
upon a platform which slopes up at a low angle out of the water and
rests upon the fence. Big fish come leaping upon this platform and
are clubbed by the men, who have to exert their agility to avoid
the spikes with which some of the fish are armed. Large quantities
of fish are sometimes taken in this way; what cannot be eaten fresh
are dried and smoked over the fires in the house.
While the TUBA fishing is being arranged and the preparations are
going forward, great care is taken to avoid mentioning the word TUBA,
and all references to the fish are made in oblique phrases, such as
"The leaves (I.E. the fishes) can't float over this fence." This
precaution is observed because it is believed that the birds and the
bats can understand human speech, and may, if they overhear remarks
about the preparations, give warning to their friends the fish, whose
magician[51] (a bony fish called BELIRA), will then make rain, and, by
thus swelling the river, prevent the successful poisoning of the water.
Tickling is also practised with success, the men standing in the
edge of a lake among the grass and sedges, where the fish seek cooler
water in the heat of the day.
All the methods of taking fish described above are practised by most
of the peoples, except of course the use of the drag-net in the sea.
The crocodiles, which are numerous in the lower reaches of the rivers,
are not hunted or attacked, save on provocation, by any of the peoples
of Borneo except the Malays.[52] Occasionally a bather is seized
by one of them while in the water or standing on a log floating in
deep water; and more rarely a person is dragged out of a small boat,
while drifting quietly on deep water at evening. If men and boats
are at hand they turn out promptly to attack the crocodile, if it
rises to the surface; but there is small chance of rescue. If the
victim has sufficient presence of mind and strength to thrust his
thumbs against the eyes of the reptile it may release him, escape
in this way is not unknown. In the case of a fatal issue, the men of
the village turn out to avenge the outrage, and, in the case of the
seizure of an important person, those of neighbouring villages will
join them. All available boats are manned by men armed with spears,
some of which are lashed to the ends of long poles. Congregating in
their boats near the scene of the disaster, the men prod the bed of the
river with their spears, working systematically up and down river and
up the small side streams. In this way they succeed in stabbing some
of the reptiles; and in this case, though they usually do not rise to
the surface, their bodies are found after some days in the creeks,
death having ensued from the inflammation set up in the wounds. The
wound caused by a spear-thrust would seldom be fatal to the crocodile,
but that the wound is liable to the perpetual assaults of smaller
creatures -- fish while he is in the water, flies when he lies on
the bank. These irritate and extend the wound. The stomachs of those
crocodiles that are captured are opened in search of traces of the
person taken, traces which usually remain there for some time in the
shape of hair or ornaments. If no trace is found the people's vengeance
is not satisfied, and they set baited hooks, or pay Malays to do so,
partly because the Malays are experts and claim to have potent charms
to bring the offender to the hook, partly because a Kayan does not
care to take upon himself the individual responsibility of catching
a crocodile, though he does not shrink
from the collective pursuit. The decaying body of a fowl, monkey, or
other animal (Malays sometimes use a living dog) is bound to a strong
bar of hard-wood, sharpened at both ends and some fifteen inches in
length. A number of small rattans are tied to the bar about its middle,
their other ends being made fast to a log. This arrangement is allowed
to float down river; if it does not float freely, the crocodile will
not take the bait. When a crocodile rises to the bait and swallows
it, the bar gets fixed cross-wise in his gullet as he pulls on the
rattans. The hunters, having kept the log in sight, then attach the
ends of the rattans to the boat, tow the reptile to the bank, and
haul him up on dry land. They secure his tail and feet with nooses,
which they lash to a pole laid along his back, and lash his jaws
together. Throughout these operations the crocodile is addressed
deferentially as LAKI (grandfather). He is then left exposed to
the sun, when he soon dies; in this way the people avoid the risks
attaching to slaying the crocodile with their own hands.
CHAPTER 9
Life in the Jungle
All the peoples of Borneo support themselves in part by hunting and
trapping the wild creatures of the jungle, but for the Punans alone
is the chase the principal source of food-supply; the various natural
products of the jungle are, with the exception of cultivated sago in
some few regions, their only marketable commodities.
Hunting
The wild pig (SUS BARBATUS[53]) is the principal object of the chase,
but deer of several species are also hunted and trapped. The largest
of these (CERVUS EQUINUS) is rather bigger than the English fallow
deer; the smallest is plandok, or mouse deer (TRAGULUS NAPU and
T. JAVANICUS), standing only about eight inches at the shoulder;
intermediate in size is the muntjac (CERVULUS MUNTJAC). There are
also small herds of wild cattle (BOS SONDAICUS), a small rhinoceros
(R. SUMATRANUS), large lizards (VARANUS), various apes and monkeys,
and a large porcupine (HESTRIX CRASSISPINUS), and several small
mammals, such as otters (LUTRA), bear-cats (ARCTICTIS), and civet
cats (PARADOAURUS) of various species, all of which are hunted for
their flesh, as well as several birds. The tiger-cat (FELIS NEBULOSA)
and the bear (URSUS MALAYANUS) are hunted for their skins and teeth,
and the dried gall-bladder of the bear is sold for medicine.
The pig and deer are most commonly hunted on foot by a party of
several men with a pack of four or five dogs. The dogs, having found
the trail, chase the pig until he turns on them. The dogs then surround
the pig, barking and yelping, and keep it at bay till the men run up
and despatch it with their spears. Both men and dogs sometimes get
severely bitten and torn by the tusks. During the fruit season the pigs
migrate in large herds and cross the rivers at certain places well
known to the hunters. The people lie in wait for them in little huts
built on the banks, and kill them from their boats as they swim across.
Kenyahs and Klemantans sometimes catch deer by driving them into a
JARING. This consists of a strong rope of plaited rattans stretched in
a straight line across the jungle, from tree to tree, some five feet
above the ground. It is generally laid so as to complete the enclosure
of an area that is almost surrounded by the river. Dependent from the
whole length of the rattan rope is a series of running nooses also
of rattan, each of which, overlapping its neighbours on both sides,
forms a loop about two feet in diameter. Men armed with spears are
stationed along the JARING, at short intervals, and the rest of the
party with the dogs beat the jungle driving any deer in the enclosed
space headlong towards the JARING. Some of the deer may escape, but
some will usually run their heads into the nooses and fall victims to
the spears of the watchers. Both pig and deer are sometimes brought
down with the blow-pipe, especially by the Punans, whose favourite
weapon it is.
The wild cattle are very wary and dangerous to attack. They sometimes
take to the water and are then easily secured. Punans, who hunt
without dogs (which in fact they do not possess) will lie in wait
for the rhinoceros beside the track by which he comes to his daily
mud-bath, and drive a spear into his flank or shoulder; then, after
hastily retiring, they track him through the jungle, until they come
upon him again, and find an opportunity of driving in another spear
or a poisoned dart through some weak spot of his armour.
Birds and monkeys are chiefly killed with the blow-pipe.
Traps
Traps of many varieties are made. For pig and deer a trap is laid at a
gap in the fence about the PADI field. It consists of a bamboo spear
of which the end is sharpened and hardened in the fire. This is laid
horizontally about two feet from the ground, resting on guides. Its
butt end is lashed to one end of a springy green pole at right angles
to its length; the pole is laid horizontally, one end of it being
firmly fixed to a tree, and the other (that carrying the spear) bent
forcibly backwards and held back by a loop of rattan. This spring is
set by means of an ingenious trigger, in such a way that an animal
passing through the gap must push against a string attached to the
trigger, and so release the spring, which then drives the bamboo
spear across the gap with great force. (The drawing (Fig. 22) Will
make clear the nature of the trigger.)
In one variety of this trap the spring is set vertically. The trap is
varied in other ways. A curious practice of the Ibans on setting such
a trap is to measure the appropriate height of the spear by means of
a rod surmounted with a carving of a human figure (Fig. 23).
Of many ingenious traps for small animals the JERAT is the most widely
used (see Fig. 24 and Pl. 85). A rude fence some hundreds of yards,
in some cases as much as a mile, in length, is made by filling up with
sticks and brushwood the spaces between the trees and undergrowth of
the jungle. At intervals of ten or twenty yards narrow gaps are left,
and in each of these a JERAT is set to catch the small creatures that,
in wandering through the jungle and finding their course obstructed
by the fence, seek to pass through the gaps. The gap is floored with
a small platform of light sticks, six to eight inches long, laid
across it parallel to one another in the line of the fence. The ends
of these are supported at one side of the gap, about two inches above
the ground, by a cross-stick lying at right angles to them. This stick
in turn is supported about one inch above the ground in the following
way: the two ends of a green stick are thrust firmly into the ground
forming an arch over the end of the platform, and the extremities
of the cross-stick are in contact with the pillars of the arch, and
kept a little above the ground by being pulled against them by the
spring trigger. This consists of a short stick attached by a cord
to a strong springy pole thrust vertically into the ground. To set
the trigger it is pulled down, bending the pole, and passed under the
arch from the platform side outwards; the upper end of the trigger is
then kept by the pull of the cord against the curve of the arch, and
its lower end is pulled against the middle of the cross-stick. The
pressure being maintained by the tension of the cord, this end of
the platform is supported by the friction between the trigger and the
cross-stick. The cord is prolonged beyond the trigger in a slip noose
which lies open on the platform completely across the gap, so that
any small animal entering the gap, and stepping upon the platform,
necessarily places its feet within the goose. A few leaves are laid
on the platform and cord to disguise them. When, then, a pheasant or
other creature of appropriate size and weight steps on the platform,
its weight causes the cross-stick to slip down from the hold of the
trigger, and this, being released, is violently jerked with the noose
into the air by the elastic reaction of the bent pole; in a large
proportion of cases the noose catches the victim's feet and jerks
him into the air, where he dangles by the feet till the arrival of
the trapper, who visits his traps twice a day.
Another very curious and strikingly simple plan is employed by the Sea
Dayaks for catching the Argus pheasant, whose beautiful wing feathers
are highly valued. The cock-birds congregate at certain spots in the
jungle, where they display their feathers and fight together. These
spots they clear of all obstacles, pulling and pushing away sticks and
leaves with their heads and necks, as well as scratching with their
feet. The Dayaks, taking advantage of this habit, thrust vertically
into the ground slips of bamboo, the edges of which are hardened in
the fire and rendered very sharp. In the course of their efforts
to remove these obstructions, the birds not infrequently inflict
serious wounds about their necks, and weakened by loss of blood,
are found by the Dayaks at no great distance from the fighting ground.
Traps of many other kinds are made for animals both large and small,
especially by the. Sea Dayaks, who use traps more frequently than
the other peoples. Our few descriptions will serve to illustrate
the ingenuity displayed, the complexity of the mechanical
principles involved in some of them, and the extreme simplicity of
others. Previous writers have described many of these in detail,
and we content ourselves with referring the curious reader to their
accounts.[54]
The Klemantans and some of the Kenyahs catch a small ground pigeon
(CHALCOPHAPS INDICA) in large numbers by the aid of a pipe or whistle,
by blowing softly on which the cooing notes of the bird are closely
imitated. The instrument consists of a piece of large bamboo closed at
one end and having a small hole about its middle (Fig. 25). The hunter,
concealed behind a screen of leafy branches, blows across this hole
through a long slender tube of bamboo; and when a bird approaches the
whistle, he slips over its head a fine noose attached to the end of
a light bamboo and, drawing it behind the screen, puts it alive into
a cage.
Small parrots are sometimes caught with bird-lime, made with the
juice of a rubber-tree.
The Gathering of Jungle Produce
The principal natural products gathered by the people in addition
to the edible fruits are, gutta-percha, rubber, camphor, various
rattans, beeswax and honey, vegetable tallow, wild sago, damar-resin
from various trees, and the edible birds' nests.
Small parties of men and boys go out into the jungle in search of
these things, sometimes travelling many days up river before striking
into the jungle; for it is only in the drier upland forests that such
expeditions can be undertaken with advantage. The party may remain
several weeks or months from home. They carry with them a supply of
rice, salt, and tobacco, cooking-pots and matches, a change of raiment,
spears, swords, shields, blowpipes, and perhaps two or three dogs. On
striking into the jungle, they drag their boat on to the bank and
leave it hidden in thick undergrowth. While in the jungle they camp
in rude shelters roofed with their leaf mats and with palm leaves,
moving camp from time to time. They vary their labours and supplement
their food-supply by hunting and trapping. Such an expedition is
generally regarded as highly enjoyable as well as profitable. As
in camping-parties in other parts of the world, the cooking is
generally regarded as a nuisance to be shirked if possible. The Sea
Dayaks indulge in these expeditions more frequently than others,
and such parties of them may often be found at great distances
from their homes. In the course of such long excursions they not
infrequently penetrate into the regions inhabited by other tribes,
and many troubles have had their origin in the truculent behaviour of
such parties. Such parties of Sea Dayaks have been known to accept
the hospitality of unsuspecting and inoffensive Klemantans, and to
outrage every law of decency by taking the heads of old men, women,
and children during the absence of their natural defenders.
Valuable varieties of gutta-percha are obtained from trees of more
than a score of species. The best is known as Kayan gutta, because it
is gathered and sent to the bazaars by the Kayans in a pure form. The
trees are felled and the stem and branches are ringed at intervals
of about eighteen inches, a narrow strip of bark being removed at
each ring. The milky viscid sap drips out into leaf-cups, which are
then emptied into a cylindrical vessel of bark. Water is then boiled
in a large pan beside the tree, a little common salt is added to the
water, and the gutta is poured into the boiling water, when it rapidly
congeals. Then, while still in a semiviscid state, it is kneaded with
the feet and pressed into a shallow wooden frame, which in turn is
compressed between two planks. In this way it is moulded into a slab
about one and a half inches thick, about a foot long, and about six
inches across at one end, two inches across at the other. While it is
still warm a hole is pierced through the narrower end; and the slab
is then thrown into cold water, where it sets hard. In this form it
reaches the market at Singapore, where it is valued at about five
hundred dollars ([pound sterling]50) the hundredweight.
Gutta of an inferior quality is obtained in large quantities by
tapping a large tree (JELUTONG) which grows abundantly in the
low-lying jungles.
The best rubber, known as PULUT by the Kayans, is obtained by them from
a creeper, the stem of which grows to a length of fifty to a hundred
feet and a diameter of six inches or more. It bears a brilliant red
luscious fruit which is eaten by the people; its seeds being swallowed
become distributed in this way. The Punans carefully sow the seed
they have swallowed, and transplant the young seedlings to the most
suitable positions. The milky juice of the creeper is gathered and
treated in much the same way as the gutta. It is rolled up while
hot into spherical lumps, each of which is pierced with a hole for
convenient transportation.
Camphor is formed in the crevices of the sterns of old trees of the
species DRYOBALANOPS AROMATICA, when the heart is decayed leaving
a central hollow. The tree is cut down, the stem split up, and the
crystalline scales of pure camphor are shaken out on to mats. It
is then made up in little bundles wrapped in palm leaves. The
large-flaked camphor fetches as much as [pound sterling]6 a pound
in the Chinese bazaar. Special precautions are observed by men in
search of camphor. A party of Kayans, setting out to seek camphor,
commonly gets the help of Punans, who are acknowledged experts in this
business. Omens are taken before setting out, and the party will not
start until favourable omens have been observed. The party is LALI
from the time of beginning these operations. They will speak to no one
outside the party, and will speak no word of Malay to one another;
and it is considered that they are more likely to be successful if
they confine themselves to the use of a peculiar language which seems
to be a conventional perversion of the Punan speech.
On entering a small river the party stretches a rattan across its
mouth; and, where they leave the river, they erect on the bank a
pole or frayed stick.[55] Other persons seeing such sticks set up
will understand and respect the party's desire for privacy. They then
march through the jungle to the place where they expect to find a group
of camphor trees, marking their path by bending the ends of twigs at
certain intervals in the direction in which the party is moving. Having
found a likely tree they cut into the stem with a small long-bladed
axe, making a deep small hole. An expert, generally a Punan, then
smells the hole and gives an opinion as to the chances of finding
camphor within it. If he gives a favourable opinion, the tree is cut
down and broken in pieces as described above. On cutting down the tree,
an oil which smells strongly of camphor sometimes pours out and is
collected. The party remains LALI until the collection of the camphor
is completed; no stranger may enter their hut or speak with them. The
practice of collecting camphor in this way is probably a very ancient
one,[56] whereas the collection of gutta and rubber has been undertaken
only in recent years in response to the demands of the European market.
Many varieties of the rattan palm grow luxuriantly in the forests of
Borneo, some attaining a length of 150 to 200 feet. It is a creeper
which makes its way towards the light, suspending itself to branches
and twigs by means of the curved spines which prolong the midribs of
the leaves. The cane is collected by cutting through the stem near its
root, and hauling on it, several men combining their t'efforts. The
piece cut down is dragged through the jungle to the river-bank. There
it is cut into lengths of fifteen feet, I.E. two and a half spans, and
dried in the sun. If the sap is thoroughly dried out, the cane assumes
a permanent yellow colour; but if any is left, the cane darkens when
soaked in water. When a large number of bundles has been collected,
they are bound together to form a raft. On this a hut is erected,
and two or three men will navigate the raft down river to the Chinese
bazaar, which is to be found in the lower part of every large river.
The small yellow fruit of the rattan is gathered in large quantities
and subjected to prolonged boiling. The fluid becomes of a bright
crimson colour; this, boiled down till it has the consistency of
beeswax, is known as dragon's blood, and is used by the people as a
colouring matter and also exported for the same purpose.
Honey and beeswax are found in nests which are suspended by the
wild bee from high branches of the MINGRIS (COOMPASSIA) and TAPANG
(ARBOURIA) trees, sometimes many nests on one tree. To reach the nest
the men climb the tree by the aid of a ladder somewhat in the fashion
of a steeple-jack. A large number of sharpened pegs of ironwood are
driven into the softer outer layers of the stem in a vertical row
about two feet apart, and bamboos are lashed in a single vertical row
to the pegs and to one another and to the lower branches. The ladder
is built up until at some sixty or eighty feet from the ground it
reaches a branch bearing a nest. The taking of the nests is usually
accomplished after nightfall. A man ascends the ladder carrying in
one hand a burning torch of bark, which gives off a pungent smoke,
and on his back a large hollow cone of bark. Straddling out along
the bough, he hangs his cone of bark beneath the nest, smokes out
the bees, and cuts away the nest from the bough with his sword,
so that it falls into the cone of bark. Then, choosing a piece of
comb containing grubs, he munches it with gusto, describing from his
position of advantage to his envious friends the delicious quality of
the grubs. After thus gathering two or three nests he lets down the
cone with a cord to his eagerly expectant comrades, who then feast
upon the remaining grubs and squeeze out the honey into jars. The
tree having been cleared of nests in this way, the wax is melted in
an iron pot and moulded in balls. The honey is eaten in the houses;
the wax is sold to the Chinese traders at about a shilling a pound.
Vegetable tallow is procured from the seeds of the ENGKABONG tree
(SHOREA). The seeds are crushed and the tallow melted out and gathered
in bamboos. It is used as a food, generally smeared on hot rice. It
is sometimes a principal feature of the Punan's diet for considerable
periods.
Wild sago is abundant and is much used by Punans, and occasionally
by most of the other peoples when their supply of PADI is short. The
sago tree is cut down and its stem is split into several pieces with
wedges. The pith is knocked out with a bamboo mallet. The sago is
prepared from the pith by the women, who stamp it on coarse mats,
pouring water upon it. The fine grains of sago are carried through on
to a trough below. It is then washed and boiled in water, when it forms
a viscid mass; this is eaten with a spoon or with a strip of bamboo
bent double, the two ends of which are turned round in the sago and
withdrawn with a sticky mass adherent; this is plunged in the gravy OF
pork and carried to the mouth. It is generally considered a delicacy.
Many varieties of the forest trees exude resins, which are collected
and used for torches and for repairing boats, as well as brought to
the bazaars, where the best kinds fetch very good prices. Sometimes
the resin is found in large masses on the ground where it has dripped
from the trees.
A curious and valuable natural product is the bezoar stone. These
stones are found in the gall-bladder and intestines of the
long-tailed monkey SEMNOPITHECUS (most frequently of S. HOSEI and
S. RUBICUNDUS). They are formed of concentric layers of a hard,
brittle, olive-green substance, very bitter to the taste. A soft brown
variety is found in the porcupine. Both kinds are highly valued by
the Chinese as medicine. The monkeys and porcupines are hunted for
the sake of these stones. A similar substance, also highly valued as
a medicine by the Chinese, is sometimes found as an accretion formed
about the end of a dart which has been broken off in the flesh of
S. HOSEI and has remained there for some long period.
The most important of the natural products gathered by the people
are the edible nests of three species of swift: COLLOCALIA FUCIPHAGA,
whose nest is white; C. LOWII, whose nest is blackish; and C. LINCHII,
whose nest contains straw and moss as well as gelatine. All three
kinds are collected, but those of the first kind are much more valuable
than the others. The nest, which is shaped like that of our swallow,
consists wholly of a tough, gelatinous, translucent substance, which
exudes from the bill of the bird as it builds. We do not understand
the physiology of this process. The people generally believe that
the substance of the nest is dried seafoam which the birds bring from
the sea on returning from their annual migration.
The nests are built always on the roofs and walls of large caves:
the white nests in low-roofed caves, generally in sandstone rock; the
black in the immense lofty caves formed in the limestone rocks. The
latter are reached by means of tall scaffoldings of strong poles
of bamboo, often more than a hundred feet in height. The nests are
swept from the rock with a pole terminating in a small iron spatula,
and carrying near the extremity a wax candle; falling to the ground,
which is floored with guano several feet thick, they are gathered
up in baskets. The white nests are gathered three times in the year
at intervals of about a month, the black nests usually only twice;
as many as three tons of black nests are sometimes taken from one
big cave in the course of the annual gathering. Each cave, or, in
the case of large caves, each natural subdivision of it, is claimed
as the property of some individual, who holds it during his lifetime
and transmits it to his heirs. During the gathering of the nests of
a large cave, the people live in roofless huts built inside it. The
nests are sold to Chinese traders -- the black nests for about a
hundred dollars a hundredweight, and the white nests for as much as
thirty or forty shillings per pound.
CHAPTER 10
War
The Kayans are perhaps less aggressive than any other of the interior
peoples with the exception of the Punans. Nevertheless prowess in
war has made them respected or feared by all the peoples; and during
the last century they established themselves in the middle parts of
the basins of all the great rivers, driving out many of the Klemantan
communities, partly by actual warfare, partly by the equally effective
method of appropriating to their own use the tracts of jungle most
suitable for the cultivation of PADI.
The fighting quality of the individual Kayan, the loyalty and obedience
of each household to its chief, the custom of congregating several long
houses to form a populous village upon some spot carefully chosen for
its tactical advantages (generally a peninsula formed by a deep bend
of the river), and the strong cohesion between the Kayans of different
and even widely separated villages, -- all these factors combine to
render the Kayans comparatively secure and their villages immune from
attack. But though a Kayan village is seldom attacked, and though
the Kayans do not wantonly engage in bloodshed, yet they will always
stoutly assert their rights, and will not allow any injury done to any
member of the tribe to go unavenged. The avenging of injuries and the
necessity of possessing heads for use in the funeral rites are for them
the principal grounds of warfare; and these are generally combined,
the avenging of injuries being generally postponed, sometimes for
many years, until the need for new heads arises. Though an old dried
head will serve all the purposes of the rites performed to terminate a
period of mourning, yet it is felt that a fresh head (or heads) is more
desirable, especially in the case of mourning for an important chief.
When an old head is used in these rites, it is customary to borrow
it from another house or village, and it is brought to the house by
a party of warriors in the full panoply of war, who behave both on
setting out and returning as though actually on the war-path.
It may be said generally that Kayans seldom or never wage war on
Kayans, and seldom attack others merely to secure heads or in sheer
vainglory, as the Ibans not infrequently do. Nor do they attack others
merely in order to sustain their prestige, as is sometimes done by
the Kenyahs, who in this respect carry to an extreme the principle
that attack is the most effective mode of defence.
War is generally undertaken by the Kayans very deliberately, after much
preparation and in large well-organised parties, ranging in numbers
from fifty to a thousand or more warriors, made up in many cases from
several neighbouring villages, and under the supreme command of one
chief of acknowledged eminence.
The weapons and war-dress are similar among all the peoples. The
principal weapon is the sword known as PARANG ILANG, or MALAT, a heavy
blade (Pl. 91) of steel mounted in a handle of horn or hardwood. The
blade, about twenty-two inches in length, has the cutting edge slightly
bowed and the blunt back edge slightly hollowed. The edges diverge
slightly from the handle up to a point about five inches from the tip,
where the blade attains its maximum width of nearly two inches. At this
point the back edge bends sharply forward to meet the cutting edge at
the tip. A very peculiar feature of the blade is that it is slightly
hollowed on the inner surface (I.E. the thumb side or left side in the
case of the PARANG, of a right-handed man, the right side in case of
one made for a left-handed man), and is convex in transverse section
to a corresponding degree on the other surface. This peculiar shape
of the blade is said to render the PARANG, more efficient in sinking
into or through either limbs or wood, and is more easily withdrawn
after a successful blow. This weapon is carried in a wooden sheath
suspended by a plaited waist-strap, and is the constant companion
of every man; for it is used not only in warfare, but also for a
variety of purposes, such as the hewing down of jungle undergrowth,
cutting rattans and bamboos, the rough shaping of wooden implements.
The weapon second in importance is the spear (Pl. 92). It consists of
a flat steel blade, about one foot in length, of which the widest part
(between one and two inches) is about four inches from the tip. The
tip and lateral edges of the blade are sharp, and its haft is lashed
with strips of rattan to the end of a wooden shaft. The extremity
of the haft is bent outwards from the shaft, to prevent its being
dragged off from the latter. The shaft is of tough wood and about
seven feet in length; its butt end is usually shod with iron. The
spear is used not only for thrusting, but also as a javelin and as a
parrying stick for warding off the spears hurled by the foe. It is
always carried in the boat when travelling on the river, or in the
hand during excursions in the jungle.
The blow-pipe, which projects a poisoned dart, is used by many of
the Kayans in hunting, but is hardly regarded as a weapon for serious
use in warfare.
Beside the principal spear, two or three short spears or javelins,
sometimes merely pointed bars of hardwood, are usually carried in
the left hand when an attack is being made.
Beside the sword and the spears the only weapons commonly used are
heavy bars of ironwood, sharpened at both ends and flung so as to
twirl rapidly in the air. They are chiefly used in defending houses
from attack, a store of them being kept in the house. For the defence
of a house against an expected attack, short sharp stakes of split
bamboo are thrust slantingly into the ground, so as to present the
fire-hardened tip towards the feet of the oncoming foe.
The interior peoples have long possessed a certain number of
European-made muskets (mostly flint-locks) and small Bruni-made brass
cannon, obtained from the Malay and Chinese traders. The latter were
chiefly valued for the defence of the house, but were sometimes mounted
in the bows of the war-boats. The difficulty of obtaining supplies of
gunpowder has always restricted greatly the use of firearms, and in
recent years the European governments have strictly limited the sale
of gunpowder and firearms; and even at the present day any war-party
commissioned by one of the governments to execute any police measure,
such as apprehending, or burning the house of, people who have wantonly
killed others, has to rely in the main on its native weapons.
The equipment of the fighting-man consists, in addition to his weapons,
of a war-cap and war-coat and shield (Pl. 93 and Fig. 26). The former
is a round closely-fitting cap woven of stout rattans split in halves
longitudinally. It affords good protection to the skull against the
stroke of the sword. It is adorned with two of the long black-and-white
barred feathers of the hornbill's tail in the case of, any man who
has earned this distinction by taking part in successful expeditions.
The war-coat is made of the skin of the goat, the bear, or (in case
of distinguished chiefs) of the tiger-cat. The whole of the skin in
one piece is used, except that the skin of the belly and of the lower
parts of the forelimbs are cut away. A hole for the warrior's head is
made in the mid-dorsal line a little behind the skin of the head, which
is flattened out and hangs over the chest, descending to the level of
the navel; while the skin of the back, flanks, and hind limbs in one
large flap, covers the back and hind parts of the warrior as far as
the bend of the knees. A large pearly shell usually adorns the lower
end of the anterior flap. The warrior's arms are thus left free, but
unprotected. In the finest coats there is a patch of brightly coloured
beadwork at the nape of the neck, and the back-flap is adorned with
rows of loosely dangling hornbills' feathers; but these again are
considered appropriate only to the coats of warriors of proved valour.
The Kayan shield is an oblong plate cut from a single piece of soft
wood. Its ends are pointed more or less acutely; the length between
the points is about four feet. The inner surface forms a flat hollow;
the outer is formed by two flat surfaces meeting in a flat obtuse
angle or ridge extending from point to point. The grain of the wood
runs longitudinally, and a downward falling PARANG is liable to split
the wood and become wedged fast in it. In order to prevent the shield
becoming divided in this way, and to hold fast the blade of the sword,
it is bound across with several stout strips of rattan which are laced
closely to the wood with finer strips. The handle, carved out of the
same solid block of wood as the body of the shield, is in the middle of
the concave surface; it is a simple vertical bar for the grasp of the
left hand. The Kayan shield is commonly stained red with iron oxide,
and touched up with black pigment, but not otherwise decorated.
Wooden shields of this kind are used by almost all the tribes, but
some of them decorate their shields elaborately. The two surfaces
of almost all Kenyah shields (Fig. 27) are covered with elaborate
designs picked out in colours, chiefly red and black. The designs
are sketched out on the wood with the point of a knife, and the
pigment is applied with the finger and a chisel-edged stick. The
principal feature of the designs on the outer surface is in all
cases a large conventionalised outline of a face with large eyes,
indicated by concentric circles in red and black, and a double row
of teeth with two pairs of canines projecting like huge tusks. This
face seems to be human, for, although in some shields there is nothing
to indicate this interpretation, in others the large face surmounts
the highly conventionalised outline of a diminutive human body, the
limbs of which are distorted and woven into a more or less intricate
design. Each extremity of the outer surface is covered by a similarly
conventionalised face-pattern on a smaller scale. On the inner side
each longitudinal half is covered with an elaborate scroll-pattern,
generally symmetrical in the two halves; the centre of this pattern
is generally a human figure more or less easily recognisable; the
two halves sometimes bear male and female figures respectively.
The shields most prized by the Kenyahs are further decorated with
tufts of human hair taken from the heads of slain enemies. It is put
on in many rows which roughly frame the large face with locks three
or four inches in length on scalp, cheeks, chin, and upper lip; and
the smaller faces at the ends are similarly surrounded with shorter
hair. The hair is attached by forcing the ends of the tufts into
narrow slits in the soft wood and securing it with fresh resin.
The Klemantan shields are, in the main, variations on the Kenyah
patterns. The Murut shields closely resemble those of the Kayans,
though the Dusuns, who have the domesticated buffalo, use a shield of
buffalo-hide attached to the forearm by a strap -- a feature unknown
in all the other types, which are borne by the handle only. The Sea
Dayaks nowadays make a greater variety of shields, copying those of
the other tribes with variations of their own. The shield originally
used by them before coming into contact with many other tribes,
but now discarded, was made of strips of bamboo plaited together and
stiffened with a longitudinal strip of wood (Fig. 28). It was of two
shapes, both oblong, one with rounded, the other with pointed ends.
The Land Dayaks still use a shield of tough bark (Fig. 29), and it is
not improbable that these were used by other tribes at no distant date.
Every Kayan household possesses, beside the many smaller boats, one or
more boats especially designed for use in war. A typical war-boat is
about 100 feet in length, from six to seven feet wide in its middle
part, and tapers to a width of about three and a half feet at bow
and stern. In some cases the length of the war-boat, which is always
made from a single log, is as much as 145 feet in length (Pl. 96),
but so large a boat is unwieldy in use, and its construction costs an
excessive amount of labour. The ordinary war-boat carries from sixty
to seventy men seated two abreast on the cross-benches. It is steered
by the paddles of the two bow-men and the four next the stern. One
of these war-boats, manned by sixty or seventy paddlers, can maintain
a pace about equal to that of our University racing eights.[57]
War is only undertaken after formal consultation and many discussions
between the chief or chiefs and all the leading men. If the village
primarily concerned does not feel itself strong enough to achieve its
ends, it will seek the help of some neighbouring village, usually,
but not always one of its own tribe. The discussion may be renewed
day after day for some little time, before the decision to fight is
taken and the time for the expedition is fixed.
The next step is to seek favourable omens, and two men are told off for
this work. They repair to some spot in the jungle, or more commonly
on the bank of the river, where they build a small hut; they adorn
it by fraying the poles of its framework, and so secure themselves
against interruptions by passing acquaintances. The sight or sound
of certain birds and beasts is favourable, of others unfavourable;
but the favourable creatures must be observed in a certain order,
if the omens are to be entirely satisfactory. If very bad omens are
observed, the men return home to report the fact, and will make another
attempt after a few days. If the omens are of mixed character, they
will persist for some time, hoping to get a sufficient number of good
omens to counteract or nullify the bad. When seeking for their place
of observation, their choice is determined by seeing a spider-hunter
(ARACHNOTHERA) flying across the river, chirping as it flies. When this
is seen they stop the boat, calling out to the bird, "O friend ISIT,
protect us and give us success." One of the men lands on the bank,
hews out a pole about eight feet long, cuts upon it bunches of shavings
without detaching (Pl. 97) them from the pole, and thrusts one end of
it into the ground so that it remains sloping towards the abode of the
foe. While this is being done on the bank, fire of some sort (if only
a cigarette) is lighted in the boat, and the position is explained
more fully to the bird, but without any mention of the name of the
enemy. The observers then erect a hut near the omen-pole for their
shelter, and pass the night there before looking out for the omen-bird
next desired. This is the trogan (HARPACTES DUVAUCELII), which has
a peculiar soft trilling note and a brilliant red chest. When this
bird appears, it is addressed in the same way as the spider-hunter;
and this second step of the process is also marked by a feathered stick
thrust into the ground before the hut. Then they spend another night in
the hut hoping for significant dreams. To dream of abundance of fruit
(which symbolises heads) is favourable; any dream of a disagreeable
or fearful situation is unfavourable. After a favourable dream comes
the most important stage of the business, the observation of the
hawks. They look for LAKI NEHO from the door of their hut about nine
o'clock in the morning. As soon as a hawk is seen, they light a fire
and call on him to go to the left, waving a feathered stick in that
direction, and, shouting at the top of his voice, one of them pours
out a torrent of words addressed to the hawk. If he goes out of sight
towards the right, they console themselves by remarking that he is one
of low degree, and they sit down to wait for another. If two hawks are
seen to fight in the air, that foretells much bloodshed. They are not
satisfied until they see a hawk sail far away out of sight towards
the left. Then a break is made; after which they observe the hawks
again, until they see one sail out of sight towards the right. If
all this is accomplished without the intervention of unfavourable
omens, they return home to report progress; but immediately return
to the hut and remain there. Then for one, two, or even three days,
all the men of the house stay at home quietly, busying themselves in
preparing boats and weapons. The chief, or some deputy, then performs
the rites before the altar-post of the war-god that stands before
the house in the way described in Chap. XV. The omens given by the
hawks on this occasion are guarantees for the safety of the house
and those left in it, and against accidents and sickness incidental
to the journey; they have no reference to the actual fighting.[58]
All the men of the war-party then proceed in their war-boats to the
spot where the war-omens have been observed, and camp round about
it in roughly built huts. Here they will remain at least two days,
establishing their connection with the favourable omen-birds. From
this encampment they may not return to the house, and, if they are
expecting a party of allies, they may await them here. By this time
the war-fever is raging among them, and rumours of the preparations
of the enemy are circulating. Spies or scouts may be sent out to
seek information about the enemy; but usually such information is
sought from the liver of a pig with the customary ceremony. A sharp
ridge on the liver dividing their own region from that of the enemy
is unfavourable, a low soft ridge is favourable.
From the moment of leaving the village the men of the war-party must
observe many tabus until their return home. They may not eat the head
of a fish; they must use only their home-made earthen pots; fire must
be made only by friction (see Pl. 89); they must not smoke; boys may
not lie down, but must sleep sitting. The people who remain at home
are not expected to observe these tabus; they may go to the farms, but
must keep quiet, and undertake nothing outside the ordinary routine.
If the object of the attack is a village in their own river, the
expedition paddles steadily day after day until it reaches the mouth
of some small stream at a distance of some miles from the enemy's
village. Forcing their boats some two or three miles up this stream
they make a camp. Here two solid platforms are built about twenty feet
apart, and a large beam is laid from one to the other. The chiefs
and principal men take their seats on the platforms, and then every
man of the party in turn approaches this beam, the fighting leader,
who is usually not one of the chiefs, coming first. If he is willing
to go through with the business, I.E. to take part in the attack, he
slashes a chip from the beam with his PARANG and passes under it. On
the far side of the beam stands a chief holding a large frond of fern,
and, as each man passes under, he gives him a bit of the leaf, while
an assistant cuts a notch on a tally-stick for each volunteer. If
for any reason any man is reluctant to go farther, he states his
excuse, perhaps a bad dream or illness, or sore feet, and returns
to the boats, amid the jeers of those who have passed the ordeal,
to form one of a party to be left in charge of the camp and boats.
Next, all the left-handed men are sorted out to form a party whose
special duty is to ambush the enemy, if possible, at some favourable
spot. These are known as the hornets (SINGAT). If any swampy ground
or other obstruction intervenes between their camp and the enemy's
village, a path is made through or over it to facilitate retreat
to the boats. A password is agreed upon, which serves as a means
of making members of the party known to one another upon any chance
meeting in the dark.
Scouts are sent out at dusk and, if their reports are favourable, the
attack is made just before dawn. About half the warriors are provided
with large bundles of dry shavings, and some will carry torches. When
the attacking party has quietly surrounded the house or houses, the
bundles of shavings are ignited, and their bearers run in and throw
them under the house among the timbers on which it is supported. Then
ensues a scene of wild confusion. The calm stillness of the tropical
dawn is broken by the deep war-chorus of the attacking party, by the
shouts and screams of the people of the house suddenly roused from
sleep, by the cries and squeals of the frightened animals beneath the
house, and the beating of the alarm signal on the TAWAK. If the house
is ignited, the encircling assailants strive to intercept the fleeing
inhabitants. These, if the flames do not drive them out before they
have time to take any concerted measures, will hurl their javelins
and discharge their firearms (if they have any) at their assailants;
then they will descend, bringing the women and children with them, and
make a desperate attempt to cut their way through and escape to the
jungle or, sometimes, to their boats. Kayans conducting a successful
attack of this kind will make as many prisoners as possible, and will
as a rule kill only those men who make desperate resistance, though
occasionally others, even women and children, may be wantonly killed
in the excitement of the moment. It is not unusual in the case of an
able-bodied man who has surrendered, but shown signs of attempting to
escape or of renewing his resistance, to deal him a heavy blow on the
knee-cap, and so render him lame for some time. It usually happens
that the greater part of the fugitives escape into the jungle; and
they are not pursued far, if the victors have secured a few heads and
a few prisoners. The head is hacked off at once from the body of any
one of the foe who falls in the fight; the trunk is left lying where
it fell. If any of the assailants are killed in the course of the fray,
their heads are not taken by their friends, and their corpses are left
upon the field covered with boughs, or at most, in the case of chiefs,
are dragged into the jungle and covered up with boughs and twigs, in
order to prevent their heads being taken by the enemy. If any of the
enemy remain so badly wounded that they are not likely to recover,
their heads are taken; and if no other heads have been secured,
the head of one of the more seriously wounded captives is taken,
or of one who is deformed or incapacitated in any way. If a captive
dies of his wounds his head is taken; but it is a rare exception for
Kayans to kill any of their captives after the short excitement of
the battle is over. The attacking party, even though it has gained a
decisive victory, usually returns with all speed, but in good order,
to its boats, carrying with it through the jungle all the loot that
is not too cumbersome for rapid portage, especially old beads, gongs,
and brass-ware; for they are always in danger of being cut off by
a party of their enemies, rallied and reinforced by parties from
neighbouring friendly villages. Still more are they liable to be
pursued and cut off, if the attack on the village has failed through
the defenders having been warned; for an attack upon a strong house or
village has little chance of success if the defenders are prepared for
and expecting it. The pursuit of the retreating party may be kept up
throughout one or two days, and, if the pursuers come up with them,
a brisk and bloody battle is the natural outcome; and it is under
these circumstances that the most severe fighting takes place. But
here again it is seldom that any large proportion of either party is
slain; for the dense jungle everywhere offers abundant opportunities
of concealment to those who condescend to seek its shelter, and there
are few, even among the Kayans and Kenyahs, who will fight to the
bitter end, if the alternative of flight is open to them.
A successful war-party returning home makes no secret of its
success. The boats are decorated with palm leaves (DAUN ISANG),
and a triumphal chorus is raised from time to time, especially on
passing villages. As the villagers come out to gaze on them, those who
have taken heads stand up in the boats. The heads, slightly roasted,
are wrapped up in palm leaves and placed in baskets in the stern of
the boat. If the return home involves a journey of several days,
the victors will, if possible, pass the nights in the houses of
friendly villages, where they are made much of, especially those
who have taken heads; and on these occasions the glamour of victory
is apt to turn the heads of some of the women and to break down the
reserve that modesty normally imposes upon them.
On approaching their own village, whither the rumour of their
success usually precedes them, the war-party is received with loud
acclamations, the people coming down to the riverside to receive
them. Before they ascend to the house, the heads have to be safely
lodged in a small hut specially built for their reception; and the
young boys are brought down to go through their first initiation in
the arts of war. Each child is made to hold a sword and, with the
assistance of some aged warrior, to strike a blow at one of the newly
captured heads. The older boys, some nine or ten years of age, who
are ripe for their second participation in mock warfare, also strike
at a head in a similar way, but engage also in mimic battles with one
another, using wooden swords and spears, and, curiously enough, small
roughly made bows and arrows.[59] It is customary for the victorious
warriors to spend the first night after their return encamped before
the house. A strip of green DAUN ISANG is tied about the left wrist
of each man who has taken part in the expedition, and also of each of
the young boys. Those who have taken heads adorn also their war-caps
with the same leaf and with feathered sticks. On the following day
a tall post of bamboo (BALAWING) is erected near the figure of the
war-god. It is covered with frayed palm leaves (DAUN ISANG), and from
its tip a single head, also wrapped in leaves, is suspended by a long
cord (Pl. 66). Before the altar-post of the war-god several shorter
thicker posts are erected, and to each of these two or three small
pieces of human flesh, brought home from the corpses of the slain
enemies for this purpose, are fastened with skewers. These pieces of
flesh seem to be thank-offerings to the hawks to whom the success is
largely attributed. These bits of flesh are dried over a fire at the
first opportunity on the return journey, in order to preserve them.[60]
As soon as the news of the taking of heads reaches the house, the
people go out of mourning, I.E. they shave the parts of the scalp
surrounding the crown and pull out eyebrows and eyelashes (which have
been allowed to grow during mourning); they put off their bark-cloth
garments and resume their cotton-cloths and ornaments.
If, as is usually the case on the return of a war-party, mourning for
a chief is to be terminated, one of the heads is carried down river
to his tomb, followed by most of the men, while the women wail in
the house. The head is first brought before the house, but not into
it. An old man shoots a dart into the air in the direction of the
enemy, and then, pattering out a long formula in the usual way, he
slaughters a fowl and puts a part of the carcase upon a short stick
thrust into the earth. The men of the party then march past, each
touching the carcase with his knee, and saying as he does so, "Cast
out sickness, make me strong and healthy, exalt me above my enemies,
etc. etc." Beside the tomb a tall pole is set up, and the head dressed
in leaves is suspended by a cord from its upper end. A number of pigs
will already have been slain in preparation for the feast, and their
lower jaws are hung about the tomb on poles. The deep war-chorus is
shouted by the party as it travels to and from the tomb. In returning
the whole party bathes in the river, and while they are in the water
an old man waves over them some of the ISANG leaves with which the
head has been decorated, wishing them health and long life.
A few days (not less than four) after the return of the war-party,
the heads are brought into the house with much rejoicing and
ceremony. Every family kills a pig and roasts its flesh,[61] brings
out stores of rice-spirit, and prepares cakes of rice-flour. The pigs'
livers are examined, and their blood is smeared upon the altar-post
of the war-god with a sort of brush (PLA) made by fraying the end of
a stick in a more than usually elaborate manner. Each head, adorned
with a large bunch of DAUN ISANG, is carried by an elderly man or
woman into the house, followed by all the people of the house -- men,
women, and children -- in long procession. The procession marches
up and down the whole length of the gallery many times, the people
shouting, singing, stamping, and pounding on the floor with PADI
pestles, or playing the KELURI. This is followed by a general feast
and drinking bout, each family preparing its feast in its own chamber,
and entertaining friends and neighbours who come to take part in the
general rejoicing. In the course of the feasting the women usually
take temporary possession of the heads, and perform with them a wild,
uncouth dance, waving the heads to and fro, and chanting in imitation
of the men's war-song (Pl. 102). The procession may be resumed at
intervals until the heads are finally suspended beside the old ones
over the principal hearth of the gallery. The heads have usually
been prepared by removal of the brain through the great foramen,
by drying over a fire, and by lashing on the lower jaw with strips of
rattan. The suspension of the head is effected by piercing a round hole
in the crown, and passing through it from below, by way of the great
foramen, a rattan knotted at the end. The free end of the rattan is
passed through and tied in a hole in the lower edge of a long beam
suspended parallel to the length of the gallery from the beams of
the roof (Pl. 68). The Kenyahs suspend the heads in the same way as
the Kayans, but most of the Klemantans and Ibans use in place of the
long beam a strong basket-work in the shape of a cone, the apex being
attached to the roof beams, and the heads tied in two or three tiers
in the wall of the cone. In either case the heads hang some five or
six feet above the floor, where they are out of reach of the dogs.
Defence
Since every Bornean long-house is, or until recently was, liable
at almost any time to a night attack of the kind described above,
the situation of the house is chosen with an eye to defence. The site
chosen is in nearly all cases on the bank of a river or stream large
enough for the navigation of small boats; a high and steep river-bank
is commonly preferred; and spits of land between two converging streams
or peninsulas formed by sharp bends of the rivers are favoured spots.
Beside the natural situation, the prime defence of the house is its
elevation some 10 to 30 feet above the level of the ground, joined
with the difficulty of access to the house by means of narrow ladders
easily drawn up or thrown down. This elevation of the house serves
also to secure its contents against sudden risings of the river,
and also against the invasion of evil odours from the refuse which
accumulates below it; but its primary purpose is undoubtedly defence
against human enemies. The interval between the low outer wall of the
gallery and the lower edge of the roof is the only aperture through
which missiles can be hurled into the house, and this is so narrow
as to render the entry of any missiles well-nigh impossible.
When a household gets wind of an intended attack, they generally put
the house into a state of defence by erecting a fence of vertical
stakes around it, some three yards outside the posts on which it is
supported and some six to eight feet in height. This fence is rendered
unclimbable by a frieze consisting of a multitude of slips of bamboo;
each of these is sharpened at both ends, bent upon itself, and thrust
between the poles of the palisade so that its sharp points (Pl. 100)
are directed outwards. This dense jungle of loosely attached spikes
constitutes an obstacle not easily overcome by the enemy; for the
loosely fitting bamboo slips can neither be hacked away nor removed
individually without considerable expenditure of time, during which
the attackers are exposed to a shower of missiles from the house. A
double ladder in the form of a stile is placed across the fence
to permit the passage of the people of the house. If there is any
definite pathway leading to the house, a log is sometimes suspended
above it by a rattan passing over a branch of a tree and carried to
the house. This can be allowed to fall upon the approaching enemy by
severing the rattan where it is tied within the house (Klemantan).
A further precaution is to stick into the ground round about the house
a large number of slips of bamboo. Each slip is some six inches in
length, and its sharp, fire-hardened point projects upwards and a
little outwards.
If the attacking party is likely to approach by the river, a trap
may be arranged at some point where, by reason of rapids or rocks,
the boats are likely to be delayed. Here a large tree overhanging
the river is chosen for the trap. Stout rattans are made fast to its
branches, brought over the branches of a neighbouring tree, and made
fast in some spot within reach of a hidden watcher. The stem of the
overhanging tree is then cut almost through, so that a few blows of
a sword, severing the supporting rattans, may cause the tree to fall
upon the passing boat.
When a hostile war-party enters a section of a river in which there
is a number of villages of one tribe or of friendly tribes, its
approach may be signalled throughout the district by the beating
of the TAWAK. The same peculiar rhythm is used for this purpose by
all the tribes, though it probably has been copied from the Kayans
by all the others. It consists in a rapid series of strokes of
increasing rate upon the boss, followed by one long deep note, and
two shorter ones struck upon the body and once repeated. Whenever
this war-alarm is heard in a village, it is repeated, and so passed
on from village to village. The people working in the farms or in the
jungle, or travelling on the river, return at once to their villages on
hearing the alarm, and the houses are prepared for defence. When the
news of the approach of a hostile party has been spread in this way
throughout the river, it has little chance of successfully attacking
a house or village, and it will, unless very numerous, content itself
with attempting to cut off some of the people returning home from
the farms. If the invading party is very strong, it may surround a
house whose defenders have been warned of their coming, and attempt
to starve them into submission. In the old days it was not uncommon
for a strong party of Kayans to descend upon a settlement of the more
peaceable coastwise people, and to extort from them a large payment of
brass-ware as the price of their safety. If the unfortunate household
submitted to this extortion, the Kayans would keep faith with them,
and would ratify a treaty of peace by making the headman of the
village blood-brother of their chief.
Some features of the tactics adopted by the Kayans are worthy of
more detailed description. If a strong party determines to attack a
house in face of an alert defence, they may attempt to storm it in
broad daylight by forming several compact bodies of about twenty-five
men. Each body protects itself with a roof of shields held closely
together, and the several parties move quickly in upon the house
simultaneously from different points, and attempt to carry it by
assault. The defenders of the house would attempt to repel such an
attack by hurling heavy bars of iron-wood, sharpened at both ends, in
such a way that the bar twirls in the air as it hurtles through it;
and this is one of the few occasions on which the blow-pipe is used
as a weapon of defence.
A village that has been warned of the approach of the foe may send out
a party to attempt to ambush the attackers at some difficult passage of
the river or the jungle. Scouts are sent out to locate the enemy. Some
climb to the tops of tall trees to look for the smoke of the enemy's
fires. Having located the enemy, the scouts approach so closely as to
be able to count their numbers and observe all their movements; and,
keeping in touch with the party, they send messages to their chief. If
the defenders succeed in ambushing the attackers and in killing
several of them, the latter usually withdraw discouraged, and may for
the time give up the attempt. If the defending party should come upon
the enemy struggling against a rapid, and especially if the enemy is
in difficulties through the upsetting of some of their boats, or in
any other way, they may fall upon them in the open bed of the river,
and then ensues the comparatively rare event, a stand-up fight in the
open. This resolves itself in the main into hand-to-hand duels between
pairs of combatants, as in the heroic age. The warriors select their
opponents and approach warily; they call upon one another by name,
hurling taunts and swaggering boastfully in the heroic style. Each
abuses the other's parents, and threatens to use his opponent's
skin as a war-coat, or his scrotum as a tobacco-pouch, to take
his head and to use his hair as an ornament for a PARANG-handle;
or doubt as to the opponent's sex may be insinuated. While this
exchange of compliments goes on, the warriors are manoeuvring for
favourable positions; each crouches, thrusting forward his left leg,
covering himself as completely as possible with his long shield,
and dodging to and fro continually. The short javelins and spears
are first hurled, and skilfully parried with spear and shield. When
a man has expended his stock of javelins and has hurled his spear,
he closes in with his PARANG. His enemy seeks to receive the blow of
the PARANG on his shield in such a way that the point, entering the
wood, may be held fast by it. Feinting and dodging are practised;
one man thrusts out his left leg to tempt the other to strike at it
and to expose his head in doing so. If one succeeds in catching his
enemy's PARANG in his shield, he throws down the shield and dashes
upon his now weaponless foe, who takes to his heels, throwing away
his shield and relying merely on his swiftness of foot. When one of
a pair of combatants is struck down, the other springs upon him and,
seizing the long hair of the scalp and yelling in triumph, severs the
neck with one or two blows of the PARANG. The warrior who has drawn
first blood of the slain foe claims the credit of having taken his
head. Such a free fight seldom lasts more than a few minutes. Unless
one party quite overwhelms the other in the first few minutes, both
draw off, and the fight is seldom renewed.
Since the establishment of the European governments in Borneo,
punitive expeditions have been necessary from time to time in order
to put a stop to wanton raiding and killing. In this respect the
Ibans and some of the Klemantans have been the chief offenders;
while the Kayans and Kenyahs have seldom given trouble, after once
placing themselves under the established governments. In the Baram
river, in which the Kayans form probably a larger proportion of the
population than in any other, no such expedition against them has
been necessary since they accepted the government of H.H. the Rajah
of Sarawak nearly twenty-five years ago.
In organising such an expedition, the European governments, especially
that of Sarawak, have usually relied in the main on the services
of loyal chiefs and their followers, acting under the control of a
European magistrate, and supported usually by a small body of native
police or soldiers armed with rifles. There is usually no difficulty
in securing the co-operation of any desired number of native allies or
volunteers; for in this way alone can the people now find a legitimate
outlet for their innate and traditional pugnacity. Sometimes the
people to be punished desert their village, hiding themselves in
the jungle; and in such cases the burning of their houses is usually
deemed sufficient punishment. In cases of more serious crime, such as
repeated wanton bloodshed and refusal to yield to the demands of the
government, it becomes necessary to apprehend the persons primarily
responsible, and, for this purpose, to pursue the fugitives. These
sometimes establish themselves on a hill-top surrounded by precipices
which can be scaled only by the aid of ladders, and there defy the
government forces until the hill is carried by assault, or by siege,
or the defenders are enticed to descend. One such hill in the basin
of the Rejang (Sarawak), Bukit Batu by name, consists of a mass of
porphyry some 1500 feet in height, and several miles in diameter,
with very precipitous sides. This has been used again and again as a
place of refuge by recalcitrant offenders, being so strong a natural
fortress that it has never been possible to carry it by assault. On
the last occasion on which Bukit Batu was used in this way, two Iban
chiefs established themselves on the hill and defied the government
of Sarawak for a period of four years, during which the hill became a
place of refuge for all evil-doers and outlaws among the Ibans of the
Rejang and neighbouring districts, who built their houses on ledges
of the mountain some four hundred feet above the level of the river.
The punitive expedition that we briefly describe in Chapter XXII. was
but a small affair compared with some, in which as many as 10,000
or 12,000 men have mustered under the government flag. So large a
number is seldom necessary or desired by the government; but when
contingents from all the loyal communities of a large district eagerly
offer their services, it is difficult to deny any of them permission
to take part. Kenyahs and Kayans will co-operate harmoniously, and
also Klemantans; but the former distrust the Sea Dayaks and will not
join forces with any large number of them.
The modes of warfare of the other tribes are similar in most respects
to that of the Kayans described above; but some peculiarities are
worthy of note.
Kenyah warfare is very similar to Kayan, save in so far as their
more impetuous temper renders their tactics more dashing. While the
Kayans endeavour to make as many captives as possible, the Kenyahs
attach little value to them. While Kayans never attack communities of
their own tribe, such "civil war" is not unknown among the Kenyahs,
whose tribal cohesion is less intimate in many respects. From these
two differences it results that the Kenyah war-parties are generally
smaller than those of the Kayans, more quick-moving, and more prone to
attack groups of the enemy encountered on farms or on the river. Like
the Ibans, the Kenyahs make peace more readily than the Kayans, who
nurse their grievances and seek redress after long intervals of time.
The Ibans conduct their warfare less systematically, and with far
less discipline than the Kayans and Kenyahs. An attack upon a house
or village by Bans is usually made in very large force; the party
is more of the nature of a rabble than of an army; each man acts
independently. They seek above all things to take heads, to which they
attach an extravagant value, unlike the Kayans and Kenyahs who seek
heads primarily for the service of their funeral rites; and they not
infrequently attack a house and kill a large number of its inmates in
a perfectly wanton manner, and for no other motive that the desire to
obtain heads. This passion for heads leads them sometimes into acts
of gross treachery and brutality. The Ibans being great wanderers,
small parties of them, engaged perhaps in working jungle produce, will
settle for some weeks in a household of Klemantans, and, after being
received hospitably, and sometimes even after contracting marriages
with members of the household, will seize an opportunity, when most
of the men of the house are from home, to take the heads of all the
men, women, and children who remain, and to flee with them to their
own distant homes.
So strong is this morbid desire of the Ibans to obtain human heads,
that a war-party will sometimes rob the tombs of the villages of
other tribes and, after smoking the stolen heads of the corpses,
will bring them home in triumph with glowing accounts of the stout
resistance offered by the victims. Their attitude in this matter is
well expressed by a saying current among them, namely, "Why should
we eat the hard caked rice from the edge of the pot when there's
plenty of soft rice in the centre?" The Iban women urge on the men
to the taking of heads; they make much of those who bring them home,
and sometimes a girl will taunt her suitor by saying that he has not
been brave enough to take a head; and in some cases of murder by Sea
Dayaks, the murderer has no doubt been egged on in this way.
Nevertheless, we repeat that there is no ground for the oft-reprinted
assertion that the taking of a head is a necessary prelude to
marriage.[62] Like other tribesmen Ibans do not bring home the heads
of their companions who have fallen in battle; but while men of other
tribes are content to drag the corpses of their fallen friends into
some obscure spot and to cover them with branches, Ibans frequently
cut off the heads and bury them at a distance from the scene of battle,
in order to prevent their being taken by the enemy.
The Ibans use a rather greater variety of weapons than the Kayans,
in that they have spears whose blades bear barbs which prevent the
withdrawal of the blade from the body of the enemy without great
violence.
The Klemantan tribes are on the whole far less warlike than Kayans,
Kenyahs, and Ibans. Their offensive warfare is usually on a small
scale, and is undertaken primarily for revenge. Their warlike ambition
is easily satisfied by the taking of a single head, or even by a
mere hostile demonstration against the enemy's house. Nevertheless,
like all the other tribes, except the Punans, the Klemantans need a
human head to terminate a period of mourning.
We venture to append to this chapter a few speculations on the
origin and history of head-hunting. From what we have said above it
is clear that the Ibans are the only tribe to which one can apply the
epithet head-hunters with the usual connotation of the word, namely,
that head-hunting is pursued as a form of sport. But although the Ibans
are the most inveterate head-hunters, it is probable that they adopted
the practice some few generations ago only (perhaps a century and a
half or even less) in imitation of Kayans or other tribes among whom
it had been established for a longer period. The rapid growth of the
practice among the Ibans was no doubt largely due to the influence
of the Malays, who had been taught by Arabs and others the arts of
piracy, and with whom the Ibans were associated in the piratical
enterprises that gave the waters around Borneo a sinister notoriety
during the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Until
the middle of the nineteenth century, the settlements of Ibans were
practically confined to the rivers of the southern part of Sarawak;
and there the Malays of Bruni and of other coast settlements enlisted
them as crews for their pirate ships. In these piratical expeditions
the Malays assigned the heads of their victims as the booty of their
Iban allies, while they kept for themselves the forms of property of
greater cash value. The Malays were thus interested in encouraging in
the Ibans the passion for head-hunting which, since the suppression of
piracy, has found vent in the irregular warfare and treacherous acts
described above. It was through their association with the Malays in
these piratical expeditions that the Ibans became known to Europeans
as the Sea Dayaks.
It seems not impossible that the practice of taking the heads of
fallen enemies arose by extension of the custom of taking the hair
for the ornamentation of the shield and sword-hilt. It seems possible
that human hair was first applied to shields in order to complete the
representation of a terrible human face, which, as we have seen, is
commonly painted on the shield, and which is said to be valued as an
aid to confusing and terrifying the foe. It is perhaps a difficulty
in the way of this view that the use of human hair to ornament
the shield is peculiar to the Kenyahs and some of the Klemantans
(the latter probably having imitated the former in this), and does
not occur among the Kayans. The Kenyahs themselves preserve the
tradition of the origin of the taking of heads; and the suggestion
is further borne out by the legend of TOKONG, which is widely known,
but is probably of Kenyah origin (see Chapter XVII.), according to
which the frog admonished a great Kenyah chief that he should cease to
take only the hair of the fallen foe, but should take their heads also.
A second plausible view of the origin of head-taking is that it arose
out of the custom of slaying slaves on the death of a chief, in order
that they might accompany and serve him on his journey to the other
world. We have pointed out several reasons for believing that this
practice was formerly general, and that it has fallen into desuetude,
but is hardly yet quite extinct. It is obvious that since the soul
of the dead man is regarded as hovering in the neighbourhood of the
body for some little time after its death, it would be felt that the
despatch of a companion soul was not a matter of immediate urgency;
and considerations of economy might well lead the mourners to prefer
capturing and killing members of some hostile community to slaying one
or more of their slaves, highly valued and sometimes affectionately
regarded as they are. It would then be felt that the relatives of
the deceased should continue to display signs of mourning until they
should have discharged this last duty to their departed friend. The
next step would be to supplant the practice of capturing a member of a
hostile community, and bringing him home to be slain, by the simpler,
less troublesome, and more merciful one of slaying the enemy on the
field of combat and bringing home only his head. In this way we may,
with some plausibility, seek to account for the origin of the practice
of taking heads, and of the tradition that the taking of a head is
necessary for the termination of a period of mourning. This second
suggestion is strongly supported by the fact that Kayans, Kenyahs,
and Klemantans occasionally, on returning home from a successful raid,
will carry one of the newly taken heads to the tomb of the chief for
whom they are mourning, and will hang it upon, or deposit it within,
the tomb beside the coffin. The head used for this purpose is thickly
covered with leaves (DAUN ISANG) tied tightly about it. It is possible
that this thick covering was first applied in order to disguise the
fact that the head is that of an enemy, and that the sacrifice of the
life of a domestic slave, originally demanded by custom and piety,
has been avoided by this process of substitution.
We have suggested above two different origins of the custom of
taking the heads of enemies. These two possibilities are by no means
mutually exclusive, and we are inclined to think that both substitutive
processes may have co-operated in bringing about this custom.
It seems probable that the taking of heads was introduced to Borneo
by Kayans when they entered the island, probably some few centuries
ago, and that the Klemantans and other tribes, like the Ibans, have
adopted the custom from their example.
We will conclude this chapter by questioning yet another of the
stories, the frequent repetition of which has given the tribes of the
interior the reputation of being savages of the worst type, namely,
the story that it is the practice of Kayans to torture the captives
taken in battle. This evil repute is, we have no doubt, largely
due to the fact that very few Europeans have acquired any intimate
first-hand acquaintance with the Kayans or Kenyahs; and that too
often the stories told by Sea Dayaks have been uncritically accepted;
for the Sea Dayaks have been bitterly hostile to the Kayans ever since
the tribes have been in contact; and the Iban is a great romancer. It
will be found that many of the alleged instances of torture by Kayans
have been described by Sea Dayaks; and we think there is good reason
for hesitating to accept any of these. But we would point out that,
if some of these accounts have been founded on fact, the Sea Dayak
victims, or their companions, have in all probability provoked the
Kayans to severe, reprisals by their atrocious behaviour, and may be
fairly said to have deserved their fate.
It is true that Kayans have been guilty of leaving a slave or captive
bound upon a tomb until he has died from exposure to the sun. We know
also of one instance in which a Murut slave, having treacherously
murdered the only son of a great Kayan chief in the Baram, at the
instigation of Bruni Malays, was killed by a multitude of small stabs
by the infuriated Kayan women, on being brought captive to the house.
But such occurrences as these by no means justify the statement that it
is the practice of Kayans to torture their captives; and we have heard
of no well-attested instances that give any colour to it. As we have
said above, Kayans commonly treat their captives so kindly that they
soon become content to remain in the households of their captors. The
Kayan feeling about torture is well illustrated by the fact that the
Kayan village responsible for the exposure of the slave mentioned
above was looked at askance by other Kayans. The spot was regarded
with horror by them, and they regard as a consequence of this act the
failure of the line of the chief of that village to perpetuate itself.
We have to admit that some of the Klemantans cannot be so
whole-heartedly defended against the charge of torturing their
captives. But we believe that it is not regularly practised by any
Klemantan tribe, but rather only on occasions which in some way evoke
an exceptional degree of emotional excitement. Thus, in one instance
known to us, the Orang Bukit of the Bruni territory, having lost the
most highly respected of their chiefs, purchased a slave in Bruni to
serve as the funereal victim, and, having shut him in a wicker cage,
killed him with a multitude of stabs, some eight hundred persons
taking part in the act. But even this act was, it must be observed,
of the nature of a pious and religious rite rather than an act of
wanton cruelty.
We cannot leave this subject without this last word. If we are quite
frank, we shall have to admit that, even though the worst accounts of
Kayan cruelty were substantially true, such behaviour would not in the
least justify the belief that the Kayans are innately more cruel than
ourselves. If we are tempted to take this view, let us remember that,
after our own race had professed Christianity for many generations,
the authority of Church and State publicly decreed and systematically
inflicted in cold blood tortures far more hideous and atrocious than
any the Kayan imagination has ever conceived.
CHAPTER 11
Handicrafts
In any account of the arts and crafts of the Kayans, the working of
iron claims the first place by reason of its high importance to them
and of the skill and knowledge displayed by them in the difficult
operations by which they produce their fine swords. The origin of
their knowledge of iron and of the processes of smelting and forging
remains hidden in mystery; but there can be little doubt that the
Kayans were familiar with these processes before they entered Borneo,
and it is probable that the Kayans were the first ironworkers in
Borneo, and that from them the other tribes have learnt the craft
with various measures of success.[63] However this may be, the Kayans
remain the most skilful ironworkers of the country, rivalled only in
the production of serviceable sword-blades by the Kenyahs.
At the present day the Kayans, like all the other peoples, obtain
their iron in the form of bars of iron and steel imported from Europe
and distributed by the Chinese and Malay traders. But thirty years ago
nearly all the iron worked by the tribes of the interior was from ore
found in the river-beds, and possibly from masses of meteoric iron;
and even at the present day the native ore is still smelted in the
far interior, and swords made from it by the Kenyahs are still valued
above all others.
Smelting and forging demand a specialised skill which is attained
by relatively few. But in each Kayan village are to be found two or
three or more skilled smiths, who work up for a small fee the metal
brought them by their friends, the finishing touches being generally
given by the owner of the implement according to his own fancy.
The smelting is performed by mixing the ore with charcoal in
a clay crucible, which is embedded in a pile of charcoal. The
charcoal being ignited is blown to a white heat by the aid of four
piston-bellows. Each of the bellows consists of a wooden cylinder
(generally made from the stem of a wild sago palm) about four feet in
length and six inches in diameter, fixed vertically in a framework
carrying a platform, on which two men sit to work the pistons (see
Pl. 107). The lower end of each cylinder is embedded in clay, and
into it near its lower end is inserted a tube of bamboo, which, lying
horizontally on the ground, converges upon and joins with a similar
tube of a second cylinder. The common tube formed by this junction in
turn converges with the tube common to the other pair of cylinders,
and with it opens by a clay junction into a final common tube of clay,
which leads to the base of the fire. The piston consists of a stout
stick bearing at its lower end a bunch of feathers large enough to
fill the bore of the cylinder. When the piston is thrust downwards,
it drives the air before it to the furnace; as it is drawn upwards,
the feathers collapsing allow the entrance of air from above. The
upper extremity of each of the piston-rods is attached by a cord to
one end of a stout pliable stick, which is firmly fixed at its other
end in a horizontal position, the cord being of such a length that the
piston-head is supported by it near the upper end of the cylinder. Two
men squat upon the platform and each works one pair of the cylinders,
grasping a piston-rod in each hand, thrusting them down alternately,
and allowing the elastic reaction of the supporting rods above to
draw them up again. The crucible, having been brought to white heat
in the furnace, is allowed to cool, when a mass of metallic iron or
steel is found within it.
The forging of implements from the metal obtained is effected by the
aid of a charcoal furnace to which a blast is supplied by the bellows
described above, or sometimes by one consisting of two cylinders
only. Stone anvils and hammers were formerly used, and may still
be seen in use in the far interior (Fig. 31); but the Kayans make
iron hammers and an anvil consisting of a short thick bar of iron,
the lower end of which is fixed vertically in a large block of wood.
The peculiarly shaped and finely tempered sword-blade, MALAT, is
the highest product of the Kayan blacksmith. The smith begins his
operations on a bar of steel some eight inches in length. One end is
either grasped with pincers, or thrust firmly into a block of wood
that serves for a handle. The other end is heated in the furnace and
gradually beaten out until the peculiar shape of the blade is achieved,
with the characteristic hollow on the one side and convexity on the
other. If the blade is to be a simple and unadorned weapon, there
follow only the tempering, grinding, and polishing. But many blades
are ornamented with curled ridges projecting from the back edge. These
are cut and turned up with an iron chisel while the metal is hot and
before tempering.
Two methods of tempering are in use. One is to heat the blade in
the fire and to plunge it at a dull heat into water. The other is
to lay the cold blade upon a flat bar of red-hot iron. This has the
advantage that the degree of the effect upon the blade can be judged
from the change of its colour as it absorbs the heat. The Kayan smiths
are expert in judging by the colours of the surface the degree and
kind of temper produced. They aim at producing a very tough steel,
for the MALAT has to serve not only in battle, but also for hacking
a path through the jungle, and for many other purposes.
Many sword-blades are elaborately decorated with scroll designs along
the posterior border and inlaid with brass. The inlaid brass commonly
takes the form of a number of small discs let into the metal near the
thick edge; small holes are punched through the hot metal, and brass
wire is passed through each hole, cut off flush with the surface and
hammered flat. The designs are chased on the cold metal with a chisel
and hammer supplemented by a file. The polishing and sharpening are
done in several stages: the first stage usually by rubbing the blade
upon a block of sandstone; the second stage by the use of a hone of
finer grain; and the highest polish is attained by rubbing with a leaf
whose surface is hard and probably contains silicious particles. At
the present time imported files are much used.
Other implements fashioned by the smiths are the small knives,
spear-heads, hoes, small adzes, rods for boring the sumpitan, the
anvil, and the various hammers, and chisels, and rough files used by
the smiths.
Brass-work
Although brass-ware is so highly valued by all the peoples of the
interior, the only brazen articles made by them (with one exception
presently to be noticed) are the heavy ear-rings of the women. The
common form is a simple ring of solid metal interrupted at one point
by a gap about an eighth of an inch wide, through which is pulled the
thin band of skin formed by stretching the lobule of the ear. Other
rings form about one and a half turns of a corkscrew spiral. These
rings are cast in moulds of clay, or in some cases in moulds hollowed
in two blocks of stone which are nicely opposed.
The Malohs, a Klemantan sub-tribe in the upper basin of the Kapuas
river, are well known as brass-workers; their wares are bartered
throughout the country, and a few Maloh brass-workers may be found
temporarily settled in many of the larger villages of all tribes. They
make the brass corsets of the Iban women, tweezers for pulling out the
hair of the face, brass ear-rings, and a variety of small articles,
and they make use of the larger brass-ware of Malay and Chinese origin
as the source of their material.
Fire Piston
This very ingenious instrument for the making of fire is cast in
metal by the Ibans. (See Fig. 36 and Pl. 108.) It consists of a
hollow brass or leaden cylinder about five inches in length and one
inch in diameter, the bore being about one-quarter of an inch in
diameter and closed at one end. A wooden piston, which closely fits
the bore, bears a rounded knob; it is driven down the cylinder by a
sharp blow of the palm upon the knob and is quickly withdrawn. The
heat generated by the compression of the air ignites a bit of tinder
(made by scraping the fibrous surface of the leaf stem of the Arenga
palm) at the bottom of the cylinder. The cylinder is cast by pouring
the molten metal into a section of bamboo, while a polished iron rod
is held vertically in the centre to form the bore. When the cylinder
is cold the iron rod is extracted, and the outer surface is trimmed
and shaped with knife or file.
Boat-building
The Kayans make much use of boats, as described in Chapter VIII., and
are skilful boat-makers. The forest offers them an abundant variety
of timbers suitable for the different types of boat used by them.
The most ambitious efforts of this kind are devoted to the construction
of the great war-boats, fine specimens of which are as much as
100 feet in length, or even, in exceptional instances, nearly 150
feet. The foundation of every boat is a single piece of timber shaped
and hollowed by fire and adze. Several kinds of timber are used,
the best being the kinds known as AROH (SHOREA) and NGELAI (AFZELIA
PALAMBANICA). Sometimes a suitable stem is found floating down river
and brought to the bank before the house. But such good fortune is
exceptional, and commonly a tree is selected in the forest as near as
possible to the river bank. The tree is felled in the way described in
Chapter VI. (Pl. 55), its branches are hewed away, and the stem is cut
to the required length and roughly hewn into shape. About one-fourth
of the circumference of the stem is cut away along the whole length,
and from this side the stem is hollowed. When, by chopping out the
centre, the thickness of this shell has been reduced to a thickness of
some five inches, it is brought down to the river. This is effected
by laying through the jungle a track consisting of smooth poles laid
across the direction of progress; the hollowed stem is pulled endwise
over this track with the aid of rattans, perhaps a hundred or more men
combining their strength. If the stem proves too heavy to be moved
at any part of the journey by their direct pull and push, a rough
windlass is constructed by fixing the stem of a small tree across
two standing trees and winding the rattans upon this, the trimmed
branches of the tree serving as the arms of the windlass. The Kayans
are skilled in this kind of transport of heavy timber; for the building
of their houses and of the larger tombs involves similar difficulties,
though the timbers required for these purposes are not so huge as those
used for the war-boats. Arrived at the river bank, the hollowed stem
is launched upon the water and towed down stream to the village at a
time when the water is high. It is made fast to the bank before the
village at as high a point as the water will allow, so that when the
river subsides it is left high and dry. A leaf shelter is then built
over it to protect it and the workers from the sun. The shell is then
further hollowed, partly by firing it with shavings inside and out,
and by scraping away the charred surfaces. The inside is fired first;
then the hollow is filled with water, and the outside is fired.
When in this way the shell has been reduced to a thickness of a few
inches, it is opened out, while hot from firing and still filled
with water, by wedging stout sticks some six to seven feet in length
between the lateral walls, so that the hollow stem (which hitherto
has had the form of a hollow cylinder some three to four feet in
diameter, lacking along its whole length a strip about the fourth
of its circumference) becomes a shallow trough some six to seven
feet wide in the middle of its length. During the hollowing, small
buttresses are left along each side at intervals of about two feet to
form supports for benches. After the opening, the shell is left lying
covered with branches for some days, while the wood sets in its new
form. The outer surface is then shaved approximately to the required
degree, all irregularities are removed, and holes about half-an-inch
in diameter are bored through all parts of the shell at intervals of
some twenty inches. Wooden pegs are then hammered into these holes,
each peg bearing two marks or grooves at an interval equal to the
thickness of the shell desired at each part; the peg is driven in from
the outside until the outer groove is flush with the outer surface of
the shell, and the projecting part is cut away; the inner surface is
then further chipped and scraped in each area until it becomes level
with the inner groove on the peg. In this way the workers are enabled
to give to each part its appropriate thickness. The outer surface is
then finally smoothed to form about one-third of a cylinder, and the
foundation is complete. It only remains to lash the cross-benches to
their supports, to raise the sides by lashing on a gunwale, and to
fit in wedge-shaped blocks at bow and stern. The gunwale consists of
a tough plank some ten inches wide overlapping the outer edge of the
shell, and lashed firmly to it by rattan strips piercing both shell
and planks at intervals of about six inches. In some cases the gunwale
is further raised in its middle part by lashing on a second smaller
plank to the upper edge of the first. The block fitted in at the
prow presents to the water a flat surface inclined at a low angle;
and a similar block completes the shell at the stern. The prow is
often ornamented with the head of a crocodile or the conventional
dog's head carved in hard wood and painted in red and black.
The whole operation, like every other important undertaking, is
preceded by the finding of omens, and it is liable to be postponed
by the observation of ill omens, by bad dreams, or by any misfortune
such as a death in the house. In each house are certain men who are
specially skilled in boat-making, and by them the work is directed and
all the finer part of the work executed. In the case of a war-boat
which is to be the property of the household, these special workers
are paid a fee out of the store of valuables accumulated under the
care of the chief by way of fines and confiscations.
The smaller boats, ranging from a small canoe suitable for one
or two paddlers only, to one capable of carrying a score or more,
are generally private property. These, like the war-boats, are made
from a single stem. The larger ones are made in just the same way
as the war-boats. In the smaller ones the bow is shaped from the
solid block and is not opened out, as is the rest of the boat. The
craftsman who makes a boat for another is helped by his customer,
and is paid by him a fee in brass-ware or dollars, the usual fee
being a TAWAK varying in size according to the size of the boat.
If Kayans find themselves for any reason in immediate need of a
boat when none is at hand, they sometimes fashion one very rapidly
by stripping the bark from a big tree. The two ends of the sheet of
bark are folded and lashed with rattan to form bow and stern; the
middle part is wedged open with cross-pieces which serve as benches,
and the shell is strengthened with transverse ribs and longitudinal
strips. A serviceable boat capable of carrying several men and their
baggage may be completed in the course of two hours. Such a makeshift
boat is more commonly made by Sea Dayaks.
Of all the interior tribes the Kayans are probably the best
boat-makers; but most of them make their own boats in the same way as
the Kayans. There are, however, a few of the Klemantan sub-tribes who
never attempt to make anything more than a very rough small canoe
of soft wood, and who buy from others what boats they need. This
is a curious instance of the persistent lack of the tradition of a
specialised craft among communities that might have been expected to
acquire it easily from their neighbours.
For ordinary work a rough paddle made from iron-wood is generally used;
the blade and shaft are of one piece; the flat blade, nearly two feet
in length, is widest about six inches below its junction with the
shaft, and from this point tapers slightly to its square extremity;
the shaft is about three feet in length and carries, morticed to its
upper end, a cross-piece for the grip of the upper hand.
A few paddles, especially those made for women, are very finely
shaped and finished, and have their shafts ornamented with carving
of a variety of designs, generally one band of carving immediately
above the blade and a second below the cross-piece. Some of the
Klemantans excel the Kayans in this work, producing very beautiful
women's paddles, sometimes with designs of inlaid lead (Pl. 92).
House-building
A Kayan community seldom continues to inhabit the same spot for more
than about a dozen years; though in exceptional instances houses are
continuously inhabited for thirty or even forty years. House-building
is thus a craft of great importance, and the Kayans are seldom content
to build their houses in the comparatively flimsy style adopted
by the Ibans and some of the Klemantans, and even occasionally by
Kenyahs. The main features of the structure of a Kayan long-house
have been described in Chapter IV. Here it remains only to describe
some of the more peculiar and important processes of construction.
The great piles that support the house may be floated down river
from the old house to be used in the construction of the new;
[64] they are not dug from the ground, but are felled by cutting
close to the surface of the ground. The great planks of the floor,
the main cross-beams, and the wooden shingles of the roof, are also
commonly carried from the old house to the new. If a house has been
partially destroyed by fire, no part of the materials of the old
house is used in the construction of the new; for it is felt that
in some indefinable way the use of the old material would render the
new house very liable to the same fate, as though the new house would
be infected by the materials with the ill-luck attaching to the old
house.[65] In such cases, or upon migration to a different river,
the whole of the timbers for the house have to be procured from the
jungle, and shaped, and erected; and the process of construction is
extremely laborious. But once the timber has been brought together
upon the chosen site, the building goes on rapidly, and the whole of a
house some hundreds of yards in length may be substantially completed
within a fortnight. The main supports of the structure are four rows
of massive columns of iron-wood. Holes about four feet in depth are
dug for the reception of the butt ends of these. They are disposed
in the manner indicated in the diagrams (Figs. 37, 38, 39), so that
a single row supports the front of the house, another the back, and a
double row the middle.[66] The intervals between the columns of each
row are about twenty feet, or rather more. Each pile is erected by
raising the one end until the other slips into the hole. Rattans are
tied round it a little above its middle and passed over a tall tripod
of stout poles. A number of men haul on these while others shove up
the top end with their shoulders. The pile is thus suspended with its
butt end resting so lightly on the ground that it can easily be guided
into the hole prepared for its reception. Smaller accessory piles,
to serve as additional supports, are put under the main cross beams of
the floor when these have been laid. The columns of the double row in
the middle line are about six feet taller than those of the front and
back rows. For the support of the floor a massive squared transverse
tie is morticed through each set of four columns at a height of some
fifteen to twenty feet from the ground, and secured by a pin through
each extremity. A squared roof-plate, still more massive than the floor
ties, is then laid upon the crowns of the columns of the front row,
along its whole length, and a second one upon the back row. This is
dowelled upon the columns (I.E. the top of the column is cut to form a
pin which is let into the longitudinal beam); and the beams which make
up the roof-plate are spliced, generally in such a way that the top of
a column serves as the pin of the splice. Each of these heavy beams
is generally lifted into its place by tiers of men standing on poles
lashed at different heights across the columns, their efforts being
seconded by others pulling on rattans which run from the beam over
the topmost cross-pole. The framework of the roof is then completed
by laying stout roof-ties across the crowns of the double row of
columns of the middle line, and lashing their extremities to stout
purlins (longitudinal beams for the support of the rafters in the
middle of their length), and by laying the ridge-timber upon a line
of perpendicular struts. The ridge-timber and purlins, though less
heavy than the roof-plates, consist also of stout squared timbers,
spliced to form beams continuous throughout the whole length of the
house. The rafters are laid at an angle of about forty degrees and
at intervals of eighteen inches; they are lashed to the ridge-timber
and to the purlins, and lipped on to the roof-plates, beyond which
they project about four feet to form an cave. Strong flat strips or
laths are laid along the rafters parallel to the length of the house
at intervals of about sixteen inches. On these are laid the shingles
or slats of iron-wood in regular rows, in just the way in which roof
tiles are laid in this country. Each slat is a slab about
1 x 30 x 12 inches, and is
lashed by a strip of rattan, which pierces its upper end, to one
of the laths. The floor is completed by laying longitudinal joists
of stout poles across the main floor-ties; the poles are notched to
grip the ties. Upon these joists, transversely to them, are laid a
number of flat strips which immediately support the floor planks;
these are kept in place by their own weight.
In a well-built house these planks are between thirty and forty feet
in length, or even more, two to three feet in breadth, and three to
four inches thick. They are made from tough strong timber, but usually
not from the iron-wood trees. They are moved from house to house,
and some of those in use are probably hundreds of years old. A single
tree is generally made to yield two such planks. After being felled
it is split into halves longitudinally in the following way. A deep
groove is cut along one side, and wedges of hard tough wood are driven
in with rough heavy mallets. Deep transverse grooves are then cut in
the rounded surface of each half at intervals of three or four feet;
and the intervening masses of wood are split off. In this way it is
whittled down until it is only some six inche's thick. The plank is
then trimmed down to the desired thickness by blows of the adze struck
across the direction of the grain. The two ends are generally left
untrimmed until the plank has been transported to the site of the
house and has lain there for some time. This prevents its splitting
during the journey to the house and the period of seasoning.
When the floor has been laid, it only remains to make the main
partition wall which separates the gallery from the rooms along
the whole length of the house, and the walls between the several
rooms. These walls are made only some eight or nine feet in height. The
wall of the gallery is made of vertical planks lashed to horizontal
rails whose extremities are let into the columns of the anterior
set of the double median row. The wall thus divides the house into a
narrower front part, the gallery, and a broader back part; the latter
is subdivided by the transverse walls into the series of rooms each
of which accommodates one family.
The work of construction is carried on by all the men of the house;
the women and children lend what aid they can in the way of fetching
and carrying, and in preparing rattans. The ownership of each section
is arranged beforehand; the section of the chief being generally in
the middle, and those of his near relatives on either side of it. Each
man pays special attention to the construction of his own section,
and carries out the lighter work of that part, such as laying the
shingles, with the help of his own household. If any widow is the head
of a household, her section is constructed by her male neighbours or
relatives without payment.
Before beginning the building of a new house favourable omens must
be obtained; and the Kayans would be much troubled if bad omens
were observed during the building, especially during the first few
days. At this time, therefore, children are told off to beat upon
gongs hung about the new site, and so, by scaring away the birds
and obscuring the sound of their cries, to prevent the appearance of
bad omens from their side. Bad omens combined with ill-luck, such as
death, bad dreams, or an attack by enemies during building (even if
this were successfully repelled), would lead to the desertion of a
partially built house and the choice of another site.
All the interior peoples construct their houses on principles
similar to those described above, but with considerable diversity in
detail. The greatest diversity of plan is exhibited by the houses
of Ibans. An Iban community seldom remains in the same house more
than three or four years; it is, no doubt, partly on this account
that their houses are built in a less solid style than those of most
other tribes. The timbers used are lighter; the house is not raised so
high above the ground, and the floor is usually made of split bamboo
in place of the heavy planks used by Kayans and others. The plan of
construction is less regular. The numerous slight supporting piles
pass through the floor of the gallery in all sorts of odd positions;
the only part that is kept clear of them being a narrow gangway that
runs from end to end of the house; it adjoins the private chambers,
and is about four feet in width; it is called TEMPUAN.
Some of the Klemantans make houses very inferior to those of the
Kayans in respect to size, solidity, and regularity of construction;
lashed bamboos largely replace the strongly morticed timber-work
of the better houses; but the worst houses of all are made by those
Punans who have recently adopted the agriculture and settled habits
of the other peoples.
Other Kinds of Wood-working
The building of houses and the shaping of boats are by far the
most important kinds of wood-working; but there are many small
articles of wood in the making of which much skill and ingenuity are
displayed. Among these the shields and parang-sheaths deserve special
mention. The former have been described in Chapter X.
The sword-sheath is made from two slips of hard wood, cut to fit
together exactly, leaving a space accurately shaped for the lodgment
of the sword-blade. The two slips are neatly lashed together with
rattan, and in many cases are elaborately carved with varieties of
a peculiar conventional design in relief (see vol. i., p. 240).
Dishes of iron-wood, now almost superseded by European earthenware,
were formerly in general use (Figs. 6 and 7). Their shapes are very
good; the dish is generally provided with one or two "ears" or flanges
for the grip of the hands, and these are cunningly decorated with
carved designs or inlaid pieces of shell or pottery. Some have a spout
opposite the single handle. The hollowing and general shaping of such
dishes is done with a small adze, and they are finished with the knife.
Basket-work, etc.
The weaving of baskets, mats, and caps is one of the most important
handicrafts of the Kayans. It is chiefly practised by the women,
though the men help in collecting and preparing the materials. The
material chiefly used is strips of rattan. A rattan about one-third of
an inch in diameter is split into five strips, and the inner surface
of each strip is smoothed with a knife; but the stems of several
other jungle-plants are also used.
The most important of the baskets (Pl. 43), are the following:
The large one used for carrying PADI from the farms to the house;
the small basket hung on the back by a pair of shoulderstraps, and
always carried by the men on going far from home; the fish-baskets;
large baskets provided with lids and kept in the rooms for storing
clothing and other personal valuables; the winnowing trays, and the
large rough basket used for carrying on the back water-vessels or
any other heavy objects (Fig. 41).
Of the mats (see Pl. 43), the principal are the mat worn round the
waist for sitting upon; the large mats spread for seating several
persons in the gallery or private chambers; those spread on the
floor for catching the winnowed rice, or on the platforms outside
the gallery for exposing and drying the PADI before pounding it;
the mat which every person spreads to sleep upon.
Most of these baskets and mats are made from narrow strips of rattan
varying from 1/16 to 1/4 of an inch according to the size and use of
the article; the strips are closely woven with great regularity. The
commonest arrangement is for two sets of strips to cross one another
at right angles, each strip passing over and under two of the opposed
set. The basket-work so made is very pliable, tough, and durable. The
standard shapes are worked out with great precision. The Kayans are
generally content to make strong serviceable basket-ware without
ornamentation; but in a large proportion of basket-ware of this kind
made by the other peoples, strips of rattan dyed black are combined
with those of the natural pale yellow colour, and very effective
patterns are thus worked in. The dyeing of the strips is effected by
soaking them in a dye obtained by beating out in water the soft stem
and leaves of a plant known as TARUM. The dark stain is rendered still
blacker by subsequently burying the strips in the mud of the river for
some ten days, or by washing them in lime. The dyed strips are then
jet black with a fine polished surface, and the dye is quite permanent.
A form of mat-work deserving special notice is the LAMPIT, the mat
used largely for sleeping and sitting upon. It is made of stout
strips of rattan lying parallel to one another, and held together by
strings threaded through the strips at right angles to their length
at intervals of four or five inches. This mat has an extremely neat
appearance and allows itself to be neatly rolled up. The piercing of
the rattan strips at suitable intervals is facilitated by the use of
a block of wood grooved for the reception of the strip and pierced
with holes opening into the groove at the required intervals.
The most elaborately decorated and finely plaited basket-ware is made
by some of the Klemantan sub-tribes, especially the Kanowits and the
Tanjongs, and the Kalabits, who use, as well as the black dye, a red
dye (Pl. 110). The last is made by boiling the seeds of the rattan in
water and evaporating the product until it has the consistency of a
thick paste. The Punans also excel in this craft. These adepts barter
much of their handiwork in this kind with the people of communities
less skilled in it. This affords yet another illustration of the
fact that the various specialised handicrafts are traditional in
certain tribes and sub-tribes, and are practised hardly at all or
in an inferior manner only by the other tribes, who seem to find it
impossible to achieve an equal degree of mastery of these crafts.
Hat-making
The large flat circular hat worn by the Kayans for protection against
sun and rain is made by the women from the large leaves of a palm. It
is the only important handicraft practised by the women only. The hard
tough fluted leaves are pressed flat and dried, when the flutes form
ribs diverging from the stem. Triangular pieces of the length of the
radius of the hat (I.E. from twelve to eighteen inches) are cut and
then sewn together in a double layer; those of the upper layer radiate
from the centre; those of the under layer are disposed in the reverse
direction, so that their ribs diverge from the periphery, crossing
those of the upper layer at an acute angle. This arrangement gives
great rigidity to the whole structure. The two layers are stitched
together by threads carried round the hat in concentric circles at
intervals of about one inch. The peripheral edges are sewn to a slender
strip of rattan bent to form a circle, the two ends overlapping. The
centre is generally finished with a disc of metal or strong cloth on
the outer surface (Pl. 45). The hats hung upon the tombs are decorated
on the upper surface with bold designs painted in black and red.
Most of the other tribes make similar hats, and the Malanaus and
Land Dayaks are especially skilled in this craft. The former make
very large hats of similar shape, the upper surface being of strips
of rattan dyed red and black, and woven to form elaborate patterns.
Besides these sun-hats, the Kayans and Kenyahs and some of the
Klemantans weave with fine strips of rattan close-fitting skull-caps
and head-bands. The ends of the strips, some three or four inches in
length, are sometimes left projecting from the centre or forming a
fringe round the lower edge.
The close-fitting hemispherical war-cap is made of rattans about half
an inch thick split in halves.
The Making of the Blow-pipe
The blow-pipe or SUMPITAN is perhaps the finest product of native
Bornean craftmanship. It is made by Kayans, Kenyahs, and Punans,
and rarely by Ibans and Klemantans.
The best sumpitans are made from the hard straight-grained wood of
the JAGANG tree. Having chosen and felled the tree, often one of
large size, the craftsman splits from it long pieces about eight feet
in length. Such a piece is shaved with the adze until it is roughly
cylindrical and three to four inches in diameter (Pl. 112). The piece
may be carried home to be worked at leisure, or the boring may be
done upon the spot. A platform is erected about seven feet above the
ground; and the prepared rod is fixed vertically with the upper end
projecting through the platform, its lower end resting on the ground
(Pl. 113). Its upper end is lashed to the platform, its lower end to
a pair of stout poles lashed horizontally to trees, and its middle
to another pair of poles similarly fixed.
The next operation, the boring of the wood, is accomplished by the
aid of a straight rod of iron about nine feet long, of slightly
smaller diameter than the bore desired for the pipe, and having one
end chisel-shaped and sharpened. One man standing on the platform holds
the iron rod vertically above the end of the wood, and brings its sharp
chisel edge down upon the centre of the flat surface. Lifting the rod
with both hands he repeats his blow again and again, slightly turning
the rod at each blow. He is aided in keeping the rod truly vertical by
two or three forked sticks fixed horizontally at different levels above
the platform in such a way that the vertical rod slides up and down in
the forks, which thus serve as guides. The rod soon bites its way into
the wood. An assistant, squatting on the platform with a bark-bucket
of water beside him, ladles water into the hole after every two or
three strokes, and thus causes the chips to float out. This operation
steadily pursued for about six hours completes the boring. In boring
the lower part, the craftsman aims at producing a slight curvature
of the tube by very slightly bending the pole and lashing it in the
bent position; the pole on being released then straightens itself,
and at the same time produces the desired slight curvature of the
bore. This curvature is necessary in order to allow for the bending
of the blow-pipe, when in use, by the weight of the spearblade which
is lashed on bayonet-fashion. If the desired degree of curvature is
not produced in this way, the wooden pipe, still in the rough state
as regards its outer surface, is suspended horizontally on loops,
and weights are hung upon the muzzle end until, on sighting through
the bore, only a half circle of daylight is visible -- this being the
degree of curvature of the bore desired. The wood is then heated with
torches, and on cooling retains the curvature thus impressed on it.
It only remains to whittle down the rough surface to a smooth cylinder
slightly tapering towards the muzzle (Pl. 114), to polish the pipe
inside and out, to lash on the spear-blade to the muzzle end with
strips of rattan, and to attach a small wooden sight to the muzzle
end opposite the spear-blade. The polishing of the bore is effected by
working to and fro within it a long piece of closely fitting rattan;
that of the outer surface, by rubbing it first with the skin of a
stingray (which, although a marine fish, sometimes ascends to the
upper reaches of the rivers), and afterwards with the leaf (EMPLAS)
which is the local substitute for emery paper.
The shaft of the poisoned dart is made from the wood of the NIBONG and
wild sago palms. It is about nine inches in length and one-sixteenth
to one-eighth of an inch in diameter (Pl. 115). On to one end of this
is fitted a small tapering cylinder of tough pith, about one inch in
length, its greatest diameter at its butt end being exactly equal to
the bore of the pipe. The pith is shaved to the required diameter by
the aid of a small wooden cylinder of the standard size (Fig. 42);
this is prolonged in a pin of the same diameter as the shaft of the
dart. A piece of pith transfixed by the pin is shaved with a sharp
knife until its surface is flush with that of the wooden gauge.
The poison is prepared from the sap of the IPOH tree, ANTIARIS
TOXICARIA. The milky sap runs out when the bark is incised, and is
collected in a bamboo cup (Pl. 88). It is then heated slowly over a
fire in a trough made from the leaf stem of a palm, until it becomes
a thick paste of dark purple brown colour (Pl. 116). When the poison
is to be applied to the darts, it is worked into a thinner paste on
a palette with a spatula. A circular groove is cut round the shaft of
the dart about two inches from its tip, and the part so marked off is
rolled in the paste and then dried before a fire. For use against large
game, pig, deer, or human beings, a larger dose of poison is required
than can be carried on the tip of the shaft. A small triangular piece
of metal is affixed by splitting the tip of the shaft, thrusting in
the base of the triangular plate, and securing it with a fine thread
of rattan or fern-stem. The poison is then applied to the surface
of this metal. The metal is obtained nowadays from imported tin or
brass ware, but formerly a slip of hard wood was used, and, possibly,
in some cases stone.
The quiver for carrying the darts is a section of bamboo about four
inches in diameter and ten inches in length, fitted with a cap of the
same which fits over the shaved lip of the main piece (Fig. 44). A
wooden hook lashed to the quiver enables it to be hung from the
belt. The darts, mostly without piths, are wrapped in a squirrel skin
and thrust tip downwards into the quiver. A small gourd tied to the
quiver carries a supply of piths all ready to be placed on the darts.
Pottery
The importation of earthenware and of cooking pots of brass and
iron has now almost put an end to the native manufacture of pottery;
but in former times simple earthenware vessels for boiling rice were
made by Kayans, Kenyahs, Ibans, and some of the Klemantans. Those who
made no pots boiled their rice and sago in bamboos. The earthenware
cooking pot is a simple egg-shaped vessel, one end of which is open
and surrounded by a low everted lip or collar (Fig. 8, p. 60).
The clay is kneaded with water on a board until it has the desired
consistency. The vessel is then built up on a hollowed base by
squeezing the clay between a smooth rounded stone held by one hand
within the vessel and a flat piece of wood, with which the clay is
beaten from without. The roughly shaped vessel is allowed to dry in
the sun and baked in the fire. In some cases the surface is smoothed
and glazed by rubbing resin over its surface while hot.
Pots of this one shape only are made, but of several sizes. The
commonest size holds about a quart; the largest about two gallons. A
pot of this sort is carried in a basket made of fine unsplit rattans
loosely woven in the form of interlacing rings.
The Manufacture of Bark-cloth
The native cloth, which was in universal use among the tribes of the
interior until largely supplanted in recent years by imported cloth, is
made from the bark of trees of several species (principally the KUMUT,
the IPOH, and the wild fig). The material used is the fibrous layer
beneath the outer bark. A large sheet of it is laid on a wooden block
and beaten with a heavy wooden club in order to render it soft and
pliable. A piece of the required size and shape is cut from the sheet,
and sewn across the direction of the fibres with needle and thread at
intervals of about an inch. This prevents the material splitting along
the direction of the fibres. Before European needles were introduced,
the stitching was done by piercing holes with a small awl and pushing
the thread through the hole after withdrawing the awl (>Pl. 117).
Spinning and Weaving and Dyeing of Cloth
The Kayans, Kenyahs, and most of the Klemantans weave no cloth; but the
Kayans claim, probably with truth, that they formerly wove a coarse
cloth. In recent years the Ibans, Muruts, and a few of the Klemantan
tribes have been the only weavers. It may be said, we think, without
fear of contradiction, that this is the only craft in which the Ibans
excel all the other peoples. Their methods are similar to those of the
Malays, and have probably been learnt from them. The weaving is done
only by the women, though the men make the machinery employed by them.
The fibre used by the Ibans is cotton, which is obtained from shrubs
planted and cultivated for the purpose. The seed is extracted from
the mass of fibre by squeezing the mass between a pair of rollers
arranged like a rude mangle, while the fibre is pulled away by hand
(Pl. 118). Next the thread is spun from the mass of fibre by the aid
of a simple wheel, turned by the right hand while the left hand twists
the fibres (Pl. 119). The dyeing precedes the weaving if a pattern
is to be produced. The web is stretched on a wooden frame about six
feet long and twenty inches in width, by winding a long thread round
it from end to end. The parts of the web corresponding to the parts
of the cloth that are to remain undyed and of the natural pale brown
colour of the thread are tied round with dried strips of a fibrous leaf
(LEMBA), the upper and lower set of threads being wrapped up together
in the same bundles (Pl. 120). If only one colour is to be applied,
the web is then slipped off the frame. The threads are held in their
relative positions by the wrappings, but are further secured by tying
a string tightly about the whole bundle at each end. The web thus
prepared is soaked in the dye for some two or three days, and then
dried in a shady spot. The wrappings upon the threads are waterproof
and protect the wrapped parts from the dye. When, after the dyeing,
the web is stretched upon the loom, it presents the desired pattern in
colour upon the undyed ground. The undyed weft is then woven across
the web in the usual way. And since the threads of the weft do not
appear on the surface, the dyed parts of the web present a uniformly
coloured surface (Pl. 121).
In most cloths two colours, as well as the natural colour of the
thread, appear on the surface -- the commonest colour being a warm
brick red (obtained from the bark of the SAMAK tree) and a dark purple
(obtained from the leaves of the TARUM plant). Lime and gypsum are
sometimes mixed with the watery extracts as mordaunts, but these
are probably modern refinements. When two colours are to appear,
those parts of the web which are to be of one colour (say purple)
are wrapped up during the immersion in the red dye together with
the parts that are to appear uncoloured. When this first dyeing is
completed the web is prepared for the purple dye, by uncovering the
undyed parts which are to be purple, and wrapping up in bundles the
threads which have already been dyed red. After being soaked in the
purple dye and dried, all the wrappings are removed from the web,
and the desired pattern in three colours appears upon it when it is
stretched. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the operation of
dyeing is that the woman generally wraps up the threads in the way
required to produce the pattern without any guidance, judging the
length and number of the threads to be included in each bundle purely
by memory of the design aimed at.
The only striking peculiarity of the loom is its extreme
simplicity. The upper ends of the web are looped over a stout bar which
is fixed to a pair of uprights about a yard above the floor. The lower
ends of the web are looped over a stout rod, to the ends of which a
loop of cord is tied. The woman sits on the ground, (see Pl. 121) with
this loop around her waist, and thus stretches the web and maintains
the necessary tension of it. The manipulation of the shuttle and of the
threads of the web is accomplished without other mechanical aids than
the rods to which the one set of webthreads is tied by short threads.
CHAPTER 12
Decorative Art
All the tribes of Borneo practise a number of decorative arts. Some
of the Klemantans, notably the Malanaus, excel all other tribes,
in that they attain a high level of achievement in a great variety
of such arts; but each tribe and sub-tribe preserves the tradition
of some one or two decorative arts in which they are especially
skilled. Thus some of the Klemantan tribes specially excel in the
finer kinds of wood-carving (E.G. the decoration of paddles); the
Kayans in tatuing and in chasing designs on steel; the Kenyahs in the
painting of shields and in the production of large designs carved
in low relief on wood and used for adorning houses and tombs; both
Kayans and Kenyahs excel in the carving of sword-handles in deer's
horn; the Barawans and Sebops in beadwork; the Kalabits and Ibans in
tracing designs on the surface of bamboo; Punans in the decorative
mat-work; Kanowits and Tanjongs in basket-work.
Wood-carving is the most generally practised and on the whole the
most important of the decorative arts. Much of it is done on very hard
wood; and the principal tools are the sword, the small knife carried
in the sword-sheath, and adzes and axes of various sizes. The blade
of the knife is some three inches in length, resembling in general
shape the blade of the sword; it is wider in proportion, but has the
same peculiar convexity of the one side and concavity of the other
in transverse section. The shaft is sunk into the end of a rod of
hard wood and secured with gutta and fine rattan lashing. The handle
of hard wood is about a foot in length, half an inch in diameter,
and slightly bowed in the plane of the blade, the convexity being
in the direction of the cutting edge of the blade. The butt end of
the handle is cunningly carved in the shape of a crocodile's head, or
prolonged in a piece of carved deer's horn. The blade of the knife is
held between the thumb and finger of the right hand, the cutting edge
directed forwards, and the long handle is gripped between the forearm
and the lower ribs; the weight of the body can thus be brought to the
assistance of the arm in cutting hard material. With this knife most
of the finer carving is done, the adze and sword being used chiefly
for rough shaping.
The adze consists of a flat blade of steel in the shape of a highly
acute-angled triangle (Pl. 111). The slightly convex base is the
cutting edge. The upper half of the triangle (which may or may not be
marked by a shoulder) is buried in the lashings by which it is attached
to the wooden haft. The haft is a small bough of tough, springy wood,
cut from a tree, together with a small block of the wood of the stem;
the latter is shaved down until it forms an oblong block continuous
with the haft and at an angle to it of 70[degree] -- 80[degree]. The
upper half of the metal blade is laid upon the distal surface of
this block and lashed firmly to it with fine strips of rattan. A
piece of skin is often placed between the metal and the lashings;
this facilitates the removal of the blade, and enables the craftsman
to alter the angle between the cutting edge and the haft. Commonly
the blade is laid in the plane of the haft, and the implement is then
what we should call a small axe; on turning the blade through go',
it is converted to a small adze; and not infrequently the blade is
turned through a smaller angle, so that its plane forms an acute
angle with that of the haft.
Carved woodwork is commonly painted with black and red paint, prepared
respectively from soot and iron oxide mixed with sugar-cane juice
or with lime; the moist pigment is applied with the finger on larger
surfaces, and the finer lines and edges are marked out with the aid
of a chisel-edged stick of wood.
Beadwork
Old beads are much valued and sought after by all the tribes except
Ibans, especially by the Kayans. There are few families of the upper
class that do not possess a certain number of them.
Many varieties are well known, and some of the Kayan women are very
expert in recognising the genuine old specimens, and in distinguishing
these varieties from one another and from modern imitations.
Formerly these old beads were one of the principal forms of currency,
and they still constitute an important part of the wealth of many
families.
Most of these valuable old beads are of foreign manufacture, though a
few made from shell and agate are of the country. The old foreign-made
beads were probably imported by Arab and Chinese traders at various
dates. Some of them are probably of Chinese manufacture, others
probably came from the near East and even from Venice. Some are of
glass curiously marked and coloured, others of stone inlaid with bits
of different colours, others of some hard substance whose composition
defies description. Certain rare kinds are especially valued and
can hardly be bought at any price; they are reckoned to be worth at
least 100 dollars apiece. The most valuable of all is known as the
LUKUT SEKALA; the ownership of each such bead is as accurately known
throughout a large district as the ownership of the masterpieces of
ancient art in our own country. The wife of a rich chief may possess
old beads to the value of thousands of pounds, and will wear a large
part of them on any occasion of display (Pl. 130). These old beads are
worn threaded together to form necklaces and girdles, being arranged
with some reference to harmony of size and colour and to value, the
most valuable being placed in the middle where they will be shown to
best advantage. A single rare bead is sometimes worn on the wrist.
A woman who possesses a good stock of such beads will seldom be seen
without some of them on her person. She will occasionally exchange
a few for other varieties, and is generally eager to add to her
collection; she may occasionally make a present of one or two to some
highly esteemed friend or relative, and will generally assign them,
but without handing them over, to various female relatives before
her death.
Besides these valuable old beads there are in use among all the tribes
many small glass beads of modern European manufacture. These are
threaded to form a variety of designs, generally in two colours,
the combination of black and yellow being the most commonly
preferred. These strips of beadwork are put to many decorative uses:
they are applied to the women's head-bands, to the centre of the
sun-hat, to sword sheaths, to cigarette boxes, to the war-coat at the
nape of the neck, and, by some Klemantans, to the jackets of the women.
The designs worked in this way are but few, and most of them are
common to all the tribes. The thread used is prepared by rolling on
the thigh fibres drawn from the leaf of the pine-apple; it is very
strong and durable. The design to be reproduced is drawn or carved in
low relief on a board. A thread is fixed across the end of the board
and others are tied to it at short intervals; on these the beads are
threaded, neighbouring threads being tied together at short intervals;
and the colours of the beads are selected according to the demands
of the pattern over which they are worked.
Besides these designs on the flat, tassels, girdles, necklaces,
ear-rings, and cigarette rings are also made of these beads. The
modern imported beads used for these purposes are sometimes improved
by being ground flat on the two surfaces that adjoin their neighbours;
this is done by fixing a number of them into the cut end of a piece
of sugar-cane and rubbing this against a smooth stone. This treatment
of the beads gives to the articles made of them a very neat and highly
finished appearance.
Bamboo Decorations
The working of designs on the surface of pieces of bamboo is
done very simply, but none the less effectively. Among the bamboo
articles generally decorated in the way to be described are the native
drinking-cup, the tobacco-box, and tubes for carrying flint and steel
and all sorts of odds and ends.
The pattern to be produced is outlined with the point of the knife
upon the surface of the bamboo, the artist working from memory of the
desired pattern and adapting it to the proportions of the surface to
be covered. The Iban works more freely than others, working out the
pattern and modifying it to meet the exigencies of his material,
section by section, as he goes along. Others plan out the design
for the whole surface before working out any part in detail. It is
probable that in no case does a man sit down and produce a new pattern;
but the freer mode of working of the Iban leads him on to greater
modifications of the traditional designs; and it is probably partly
for this reason that a much larger variety of designs is applied in
this way by them than by the other tribes, among whom they are very
limited in number. But the greater variety of designs worked by the
Ibans is due also to the readiness with which he copies and adopts
as his own the patterns used by other tribes. The Kayans and Kenyahs
use almost exclusively varieties of the dog pattern and of the hook
and circle (see Fig. 47).
The design outlined by the point of the knife is made to stand out
boldly from the ground by darkening the latter. This is achieved in
two ways: (1) the ground is covered with parallel close-set scratches,
not running continuously throughout the larger areas of the ground,
but grouped in sets of parallel lines some few millimetres in length,
the various sets meeting at angles of all degrees; (2) the hard
surface of the bamboo is wholly scraped away from the ground areas
to a depth of about half a millimetre. In either case the black or
red paint is then smeared over the whole surface with the finger, and
when it has become dried the surface is rubbed with a piece of cloth
(Kayan), or scraped lightly with a knife (Iban). The pigment is thus
removed from the intact parts and remains adherent to the lines and
areas from which the hard surface layer has been removed. The design
is thus left in very low relief, and is of the natural colour of the
bamboo upon a black or dark-red ground, or on a ground merely darkened
by the parallel scratches (Pls. 126, 127).
Lashing
Lashing with strips of rattan and with coarse fibres from the leaf-stem
of some of the palms and ferns is applied to a great variety of
purposes, and largely takes the place of our nailing and screwing
and riveting. It is carried out extremely neatly and commonly has a
decorative effect. This effect is in some cases enhanced by combining
blackened threads with those of the natural pale yellow colour;
and the finer varieties of this work deserve to be classed with the
decorative arts. The finest lashing-work is done by the Kalabits,
who cover small bamboo boxes with a layer of close-set lashing,
producing pleasing geometrical designs by the combination of yellow
and black threads. The surface of the bamboo to which the lashing is
applied is generally scraped away to a depth of about one-sixteenth of
an inch; it is thus rendered less slippery than the natural surface,
and is therefore gripped more firmly by the lashing, and the surface
of the lashing is brought flush with the unlashed natural surface. The
effect is not only a highly ornamental appearance, but also a greatly
increased durability of the box, the natural tendency of the bamboo
to split longitudinally being very effectively counteracted.
Similar fine decorative lashing is used by all the tribes for binding
together the two halves of the sword sheath, and for binding the haft
of knife or sword where it grips the metal blade, though brass wire
is sometimes used for this purpose.
Closely allied to this lashing is the production of decorative
knots. A considerable variety of knots are in common use; they are
always well tied and practically effective, but some are elaborated
for decorative purposes to form rosettes, especially by Kayans in
making their sword sheaths.
Painting
We have stated above that the carved woodwork is often painted with
black, red, and white pigments. It must be added that wooden surfaces
are often painted on the flat, especially shields, the outer surfaces
of walls of PADI huts, and tombs, also grave hats and the gunwales of
boats, and decorative planks in the inner walls of the long gallery
of the house. The Kenyahs and some of the Klemantans, especially
the Skapans and Barawans, are most skilled in, and make most use of,
this form of decoration; but it is probably practised in some degree
by all the peoples.
The three pigments mentioned above -- black, red, and white, made
respectively from soot, iron oxide, and lime -- are, so far as we
know, the only native varieties; but at the present day these are
sometimes supplemented with indigo and yellow pigments obtained from
the bazaars. The pigment is generally laid on free-hand with the
finger-tip, a few guiding points only being put in.
It may be mentioned here that individuals of all the tribes will
occasionally amuse themselves by making rude drawings with charcoal
on the plank wall of the gallery. The drawings usually depict human
and animal figures, and scenes from the life of the people, and they
generally illustrate the particular form of occupation in which the
household is employed at the time, E.G. scenes from the PADI fields,
a group of people weeding, the return of a war-party, the collection
of honey, the capture of a large fish. These drawings are invariably
very crude; their nature is sufficiently indicated by Pl. 128. There
seem to be no noteworthy differences in this respect between the
different peoples.
The Punans, having no houses and therefore no walls on which to
draw pictures, have little opportunity to indulge any such tendency;
but we have seen rude hunting scenes depicted by them on the walls
of shallow caves; the technique consisted in scratching away the
soft rotted surface of the limestone rock to produce outlines of the
figures depicted.
The Malanaus, who live in the large limestone caves during the time
of harvesting the edible nests of the swift, sometimes make rude
drawings with charcoal on the walls of the cave.
The weaving of decorative designs on cloth is almost confined to the
Sea Dayaks. Some account of the designs will be given below.
Shell-work
Shells (chiefly nassas and the flat bases of cone-shells) are sometimes
applied by the Iban women to decorate their woven coats, by Kalabits
(in concentric circles on their sunhats), and more rarely by other
tribes in the decoration of baskets (Fig. 48). Fig. 49 represents
a garment decorated in this fashion by Iban women, and worn by them
when dancing with the heads of enemies in their hands.
The Decorative Designs
The Kayans make use in their decorative art of a large number of
conventional designs. The principal applications of these designs are
in tatu, beadwork, the production of panels of wood for the adornment
of houses, tombs, boats, and PADI barns, the decoration of bamboo
boxes, and the painting of hats, and the carving of highly ornate doors
to the rooms. All these applications involve the covering of flat or
curved surfaces with patterns either in low relief only or without
relief; and many of the designs are applied in all these different
ways, and all of them together form a natural group. Besides these
surface designs, a considerable variety of designs is used in giving
decorative form to solid objects such as the handles of swords and
paddles, the ends of main roof-beams in the houses, posts used in
various rites and in the construction of tombs, the figure-heads
of war-boats. These, with the exception of those used in carving
the sword handles, which are highly peculiar, form another group of
relatives. The designs chased upon the blades of the swords constitute
a fourth natural group distinct from the other two groups. A fifth
small group of designs is carved in the form of fretwork. We propose
to say a few words about the designs of each of these five groups.
(1) The designs of the first group are the most numerous and
most widely applied. A large proportion of them obviously are
conventionalised derivatives from animal forms. Of these animal forms
the human figure, the dog, and the prawn have been the originals
of the largest number of patterns; the macaque monkey and the large
lizard (VARANUS) are also traceable. Some designs vaguely suggest a
derivation from some animal form, but cannot confidently be assigned
to any one origin.
A few seemed to be derived from vegetable forms; while some few,
for example the hookpattern, seem to be derived from no animal or
vegetable form. The hook-pattern seems to be symbolical of conjunction
and acquisition in various spheres.
Of all the designs the derivatives from or variants of the dog are the
most numerous and the most frequently applied. The name dog-pattern
(KALANG ASU) is given to a very large number; and of these some
obviously reproduce the form of the dog, while the derivation of
the others from the same original can generally be made clear by
the inspection of a number of intermediate forms, although some of
them retain but very slight indications of the form or features of
the dog. The unmistakable dog-patterns are illustrated by one of the
panels shown in Pl. 124; and in Pls. 134 ET SEQ. we reproduce a number
of dog-patterns of more or less conventionalised characters. It will
be noticed that the eye is the most constant feature about which
the rest of the pattern is commonly centred; but that the eye also
disappears from some of the most conventionalised. It seems probable
that, although the name KALANG ASU continues to be commonly used to
denote all this group of allies, many of those who use the term, and
even of those who carve or work the patterns, are not explicitly aware
in doing so that the name and the patterns refer to the dog, or are
in any way connected with it; that is to say, both the words and the
pattern have ceased to suggest to their minds the meaning of the word
dog, and mean to them simply the pattern appropriate to certain uses.
We have questioned men who have been accustomed to apply the
dog-pattern as to the significance of the parts of the pattern, and
have led them to recognise that the parts of the dog, eye, teeth,
jaws, and so on, are represented; and this recognition has commonly
been accompanied by expressions of enlightenment, as of one making
an interesting discovery.[67] This ignorance of the origin of the
pattern is naturally true only of the more conventionalised examples,
whether of the dog or other natural forms. Probably a few who have
specially interested themselves in the designs have traced out their
connections pretty fully, but this is certainly quite exceptional. Most
of the craftsmen simply copy the current forms, introducing perhaps
now and then an additional scroll, or some other slight modification.
Some men are well known as experts in the production of designs,
and such a man can produce a wonderful variety, all or most being
well-known conventions. Their mode of working frequently implies
that the artist is working to a pattern, mentally fixed and clearly
visualised, rather than working out any new design. For he will
work first on one part of the surface, then on another, producing
disconnected fragments of the pattern, and uniting them later. Although
the women use these patterns in beadwork and in tatuing, they rely
in the main on the men for the patterns which they copy; these
being drawn on wood or cloth for beadwork, or carved in low relief
for tatuing. A Kayan expert may carry in mind a great variety of
designs. One such expert produced for our benefit, during a ten days'
halt of an expedition, forty-one patterns, drawn with pencil on paper;
most of these are of considerable complexity and elaboration.
(2) The designs carved in the solid or in high relief are for
the most part conventionalised copies of human and animal forms;
but the conventionalising is not carried so far as in those of the
first class, so that the carving generally constitutes an unmistakable
representation of the original. The posts set up as altars to the gods
are generally carved in the human form, and the degree of elaboration
varies widely from the rudest possible indication of the head and limbs
to a complete representation of all the parts. But in no case (with
the possible exception of some of the figures carved by Malanaus)
is the human form reproduced with any high degree of accuracy or
artistic merit (Figs. 50 -- 53)
The animal forms are used chiefly as the figureheads of war-boats and
at the ends of the main roof-beams of the houses; and some of these
are executed with a degree of artistry that must win our admiration,
especially when we reflect that the timber used is generally one of
the harder kinds (but not iron-wood) such as the mirabo (AFZELIA
PALEMBANICA), and that the only tools used are the axe, sword,
and knife. The animals most frequently represented are the dog,
crocodile, monkey, hornbill, and bear (Pls. 122, 125, Figs. 45,
46, 54 -- 57). Carved dogs, comparatively little conventionalised,
are sometimes used as the supports of low platforms upon which the
chiefs may sit on ceremonious occasions.
(3) The handles of the swords, generally of deer's antlers, but
sometimes of wood, exhibit a group of highly peculiar closely allied
designs. All these seem to be derived from the human form, although in
many cases this can only be traced in the light of forms intermediate
between the less and the more highly conventionalised (Pls. 129,
184). In examples in which the human form is most obvious, it has
the following position and character: -- The butt end of the blade
is sunk in a piece (about six inches in length) of the main shaft
of the antler at its distal or upper end. This piece constitutes
the grip of the handle or hilt. The proximal or lowest point of the
antler projecting at an angle of some 70[degree] from the grip is cut
down to a length of some four inches, forming a spur standing in the
plane of the blade and towards its cutting edge. The grip is lashed
with fine strips of rattan. The spur and the thick end in which the
spur and the grip unite are elaborately carved. If the sword is held
horizontally, its point directed forwards and its cutting edge upwards,
the butt end is presented with the spur vertically before the face
of the observer. It will then be seen that the surface turned to
the observer presents the principal features of the human figure,
standing with arms akimbo face to face with the observer. The key
to the puzzle Is the double row of teeth. Above this are the two
eyes. Below the level of the mouth the elbows project laterally, and
a little below these and nearer the middle line are the two hands;
and below these again the two legs stand out, carved not merely in
relief, but in the solid, and bent a little at the knee. The feet
are indicated below and more laterally. From the crown of the head
projects a ring of short hair made up of tufts white, black, and red
in colour. Another short tuft projects from the region of the navel
(? pubis), and a pair of tufts project laterally a little below the
level of the mouth. The extremity of the main shaft of the antler
projects a little beyond the feet of the human figure, and is carved in
a form which is clearly an animal derivative -- probably from the dog
or possibly the crocodile. From its open jaws projects a long tuft of
hair, and a pair of short tufts project laterally from the region of
its ears. The whole of the carved part of the hilt thus represents a
man standing upon the head of a dog (or crocodile). The interpretation
of the whole is much obscured by the fact that the parts of the human
figure named above are separated from one another by areas which are
covered with a continuous scroll design in low relief, and by the
fact that all the lateral parts of the carved area bear, scattered
irregularly in relief, reduplications of the various features of the
human figure, E.G. of the hands, elbows, knees, and even of the teeth,
as well as many pairs of interlocking hooks. These last, which recur
in other decorative designs, and which (as was said above) seem to
symbolise the taking of heads, form an important and constant feature
of the whole scheme of decoration. In the more elaborate examples
they are carved out of the solid; and usually one hole (or more)
about 5 mm. in diameter perforates the thickest part of the hilt,
and contains in the middle plane a pair of these interlocking hooks.
In the most elaborate examples of these carved sword hilts all obvious
trace of the human figure is lost in a profusion of detail, which,
however, is of the same general character as that of the examples
described above, and seems to consist of the various features of
the human and animal pattern combined in wild profusion with regard
only to decorative effect, and not at all to the reproduction of the
parent forms.
With the decorative designs of the hilt of the sword must be classed
those of its sheath. The sheath consists of two slips of TAPANG wood
firmly lashed together with finely plaited rattan strips, both strips
being hollowed so that they fit closely to the blade. It is provided
with a plaited cord, which buckles about the waist. The inner piece
of the sheath is smooth inside and out. The outer surface of the
outer piece is often elaborately decorated. The decoration consists
in the main of designs carved in relief; and these are composed of
the same elements as the design upon the sword hilt, namely, hooks,
single and interlocking, elbows, teeth, etc., all woven about with
a scroll design of relieved lines.
(4) The designs reproduced in fretwork are in the main adaptations
of some of those used in decorating surfaces, especially of the dog
pattern; but they are always conventionalised in a high degree (see
Pl. 130). The hook pattern is frequently introduced to fill up odd
corners. The human form is seldom or never traceable in work of this
kind. Fretwork is chiefly used to adorn the tombs of chiefs.
(5) The designs chased on the surfaces of the blades of swords and
knives and spear-heads form a distinctive group. They are flowing
scroll patterns containing many spiral and S-shaped curves in which
no animal or plant forms can be certainly traced, though suggestions
of the KALANG ASU may be found. The lack of affinity between these
patterns and those applied to other surfaces suggests that they may
have been taken over from some other people together with the craft
of the smith; but possibly the distinctive character is due only to
the exigencies of the material. Some of the designs painted on hats
and shields exhibit perhaps some affinity with these. This work is
almost confined to the Kayans.
It is worthy of remark that the art work of the Kayans is in the
main of a public character; for example, the decorative carving about
the house is done by voluntary and co-operative effort in the public
gallery and hardly at all in the private rooms; and ornamented hats
and shields are hung in the gallery rather than in the private rooms;
again, the war-boats, which are the common property of the household,
are decorated more elaborately than those which are private property.
All these forms of art work are the products of distinctly amateur
effort; that is to say that, although certain individuals attain
special skill and reputation in particular forms of art, they do
not make their living by the practice of them, but rather, like
every one else, rely in the main upon the cultivation of PADI for
the family support; they will exchange services of this kind, and
definite payments are sometimes agreed upon, but a large amount of
such work is done for one another without any material reward.
The Kenyahs, Klemantans, and Ibans
The Kenyahs make use of all, or most, of the patterns found among
the Kayans, and there is little or nothing that distinguishes the
decorative art of the one tribe from that of the other. They use
the patterns based on the monkey rather more than the Kayans; and a
decoration commonly found in their houses is a frieze running along
the top of the main partition wall of the house, bearing in low
relief an animal design, painted in red and black, which is called
BALI SUNGEI (I.E. water-spirit) or Naga. The latter name is known
to all the tribes, and is probably of foreign origin; and it seems
possible that the design and this name are derived from the dragon
forms so commonly used in Chinese decorative art.
The various Klemantan tribes make use of many decorative designs very
similar to those of the Kayans. Different animal forms predominant
among the different tribes, E.G. among the LONG POKUNS the form of the
gibbon and of the sacred ape (SEMINOPITHECUS HOSEI) are chiefly used
in house decoration. Among the Sebops and Barawans the human figure
predominates; the Malanaus make especially elaborate crocodile images
in solid wood. The tombs of some of the Klemantans are very massive
and elaborately decorated. The Tanjongs and Kanowits and Kalabits,
who excel in basket-work, introduce a variety of patterns in black,
red, and white. The majority of these are simple geometrical designs
which arise naturally out of the nature of the material; of more
elaborate designs specially common are the hook-pattern (Fig. 58),
the pigeon's eye (Fig. 59), and the caterpillar (Fig. 60).
In wealth of decorative designs the Ibans surpass all the other
tribes. These designs are displayed most abundantly in the decoration
of bamboo surfaces and in the dyeing of cloths. The designs on bamboo
surfaces are largely foliate scrolls, especially the yam-leaf, but
also occasionally animal derivatives.
The designs dyed upon the cloths (Fig. 61) are largely animal
derivatives; but the artists themselves seldom are aware of the
derivation, even when the pattern bears the name of its animal origin;
and as to the names of all, except the most obvious animal derivatives,
even experts will differ. The frog, the young bird, the human form,
and the lizard are the originals most frequently claimed. Parts of
the animal, such as the head or eye, are commonly repeated in serial
fashion detached from the rest of its form. And in many cases it is,
of course, impossible to identify the parts of the pattern, although
it may show a general affinity with unmistakable animal patterns. One
such pattern very commonly used in dyeing is named after AGI BULAN,
the large shrew (GYMNURA); but we have not been able to trace the
slightest resemblance to the animal in any of the various examples
we have seen (Pls. 131, 132).
We are inclined to suppose that the Ibans have copied many of their
cloth-patterns from the Malays together with the crafts of dyeing and
weaving. For their technique is similar to that of the Malays all over
the peninsula, and the same is true of some of their designs. Only
in this way, we think, can we account for their possession of these
crafts, which are practised by but very few of the other inland
peoples. The fact that plant derivatives predominate greatly over
animals in their designs, whereas the reverse is true of almost all
other tribes, bears out this supposition, for the Malays are forbidden
by their religion to represent animal forms, and make use largely of
plant forms.
Tatu
Tatuing is extensively practised among the tribes of Borneo. A great
variety of patterns are used, and they are applied to many different
parts of the body. A paper embodying most of the facts hitherto
ascertained has been published by one of us (C. H.) in conjunction
with Mr. R. Shelford, formerly curator of the Sarawak Museum, who has
paid special attention to the subject; we therefore reproduce here
the greater part of the substance of that paper,[68] with some slight
modifications, and we desire to express our thanks to Mr. Shelford[69]
for his kind permission to make use of the paper in this way.
The great diversity of tribes in Borneo involves, in a study of their
tatu and tatuing methods, a good deal of research and much travel,
if first-hand information on the subject is to be obtained. Between
us we have covered a considerable area in Borneo and have closely
crossquestioned members of nearly every tribe inhabiting Sarawak
on their tatu, but we cannot claim to have exhausted the subject by
any means; there are tribes in the interior of Dutch Borneo and in
British North Borneo whom we have not visited, and concerning whom
our knowledge is of the scantiest.
The practice of tatu is so widely spread throughout Borneo that it
seems simpler to give a list of the tribes that do not tatu, than of
those who do. We can divide such a list into two sections: the first
including those tribes that originally did not tatu, though nowadays
many individuals are met with whose bodies are decorated with designs
copied from neighbouring tribes; the second including the tribes
(mostly Klemantan) that have given up the practice of tatu owing to
contact with Mohammedan and other influences.
A.
1. Punan.
2. Maloh.
3. Land Dyak.
B.
4. Malanau.
5. Miri.
6. Dali.
7. Narom.
8. Sigalang (down-river tribes of Ukit stock).
9. Siduan
10. Tutong.
11. Balait.
12. Bekiau (traces of a former practice of tatu occasionally
found).
13. Bisaya.
14. Kadayans.
The patterns once employed by the tribes included in the second
section of this list, most of which have adopted Malay dress and to
some extent Malay customs, are lost beyond recall. The Land Dayaks
display absolute ignorance of tatu, and aver that they never indulged
in the practice. Maloh and Punan men ornamented with Kayan tatu designs
we have often encountered; but they have no designs of their own,
and attach no special significance to their borrowed designs.[70]
We may note here that the ornamentation of the body by means of raised
scars and keloids is not known in Borneo. Both men and women of several
tribes will test their bravery and indifference to pain by setting
fire to a row of small pieces of tinder placed along the forearm, and
the scars caused by these burns are often permanent, but should not be
mistaken for decorative designs. Carl Bock (2, Pl. 16)[71] figures some
Punan women with rows of keloids on the forearms, but states (p. 71)
that these are due to a form of vaccination practised by these people.
The Kayans are, with one or two exceptions, the most tatued race in
Borneo, and perhaps the best tatued from an artistic point of view;
the designs used in the tatu of the men have been widely imitated,
and much ceremonial is connected with the tatu of the women, an account
of which we give below. Generally speaking, the true Klemantan designs
are quite simple, and it is noteworthy that although the Kenyah tribes
most nearly akin to Kayans have borrowed the Kayan tatu patterns, the
majority of Kenyah and Klemantan tribes employ quite simple designs,
whilst the primitive Kenyahs of the Batang Kayan river hardly tatu at
all. A remarkable exception to the general simplicity of the Klemantan
patterns is furnished by the Ukits, Bakatan, and Biadjau, who tatu very
extensively in the most complex designs; the Long Utan, an extinct
tribe, probably of Klemantan stock, also used highly decorative and
complex designs. Since so many tribes owe much of their knowledge
of tatu and the majority of their designs to the Kayans, it will be
well to commence with an account of the art of tatu as practised by
these people.
Kayan Tatu.
Dr. Nieuwenhuis [9, p. 450] agrees with us in stating that amongst
these people the men tatu chiefly for ornament, and that no special
significance is attached to the majority of designs employed; nor is
there any particular ceremonial or tabu connected with the process
of tatuing the male sex. There is no fixed time of life at which
a man can be tatued, but in most cases the practice is begun early
in boyhood. Nieuwenhuis [9, p. 456] remarks that the chiefs of the
Mendalam Kayans scarcely tatu at all.
Amongst the Sarawak Kayans, if a man has taken the head of an enemy
he can have the backs of his hands and fingers covered with tatu
(Pl. 141, Fig. 1), but, if he has only had a share in the slaughter,
one finger only, and that generally the thumb, can be tatued. On the
Mendalam river, the Kayan braves are tatued on the left thumb only,
not on the carpals and backs of the fingers, and the thigh pattern
is also reserved for head-taking heroes [9, p. 456]. Of the origin
of tatu the Kayans relate the following story: -- Long ago when the
plumage of birds was dull and sober, the coucal (CENTROPUS SINENSIS)
and the argus pheasant (ARGUSIANUS GRAYI) agreed to tatu each other;
the coucal began on the pheasant first, and succeeded admirably,
as the plumage of the pheasant bears witness at the present day; the
pheasant then tried his hand on the coucal, but being a stupid bird
he was soon in difficulties; fearing that he would fail miserably to
complete the task, he told the coucal to sit in a bowl of SAMAK tan,
and then poured the black dye over him, and flew off, remarking that
the country was full of enemies and he could not stop; that is why
the coucal to this day has a black head and neck with a tan-coloured
body. Nieuwenhuis [9, p. 456] relates substantially the same story,
the crow (CORONE MACRORHYNDYUS), however, being substituted for the
coucal and the incident of the bowl of SAMAK tan omitted.
Among Kayans isolated designs are found on the following parts of the
bodies of the men: -- The outside of the wrist, the flexor surface of
the forearm, high up on the outside of the thigh, on the breasts and
on the points of the shoulders, and, as already stated, in the case
of warriors on the backs of the hands and fingers. But not all the
men are tatued on all these parts of the body. The design tatued on
the wrist (Pl. 139, Figs. 8 -- 10) is termed LUKUT, the name of an
antique bead much valued by Kayans; the significance of this design
is of some interest. When a man is ill, it is supposed that his
soul has escaped from his body; and when he recovers it is supposed
that his soul has returned to him; to prevent its departure on some
future occasion the man will "tie it in" by fastening round his wrist
a piece of string on which is threaded a LUKUT[72] or antique bead,
some magic apparently being considered to reside in the bead. However,
the string can get broken and the bead lost, wherefore it seems safer
to tatu a representation of the bead on the part of the wrist which
it would cover if actually worn. It is of interest also to note that
the LUKUT, from having been a charm to prevent the second escape of
the soul, has come to be regarded as a charm to ward off all disease;
and the same applies to its tatued representation.
A design just below the biceps of a Punan tatued in the Kayan manner
is shown on Pl. 142, Fig. 10, and we were informed by the Punan that
this also was a LUKUT, an excellent example of the indifference paid
to the significance of design by people with whom such design is
not indigenous.
On the forearm and thigh the UDOH ASU or dog pattern is tatued,
and four typical examples are shown on Pl. 136, Figs. 1, 2, 5,
6. Nieuwenhuis has figured a series of these designs [9, Pl. 82][73]
showing a transition from a very elongate animal form to a rosette
form; we have occasionally met with the former amongst Sarawak Kayans,
but it is a common thigh design amongst the Mendalam Kayans; the
forms numbered B and C are unusual in Sarawak. Of the four examples
given in Pl. 136 -- and it may be noted that these met with the high
approval of expert tatu artists -- Figs. 1, 2, and 5 may be considered
as intermediate between Nieuwenhuis' very elongate example F and
the truncated form E which is supposed to represent the head only
of a dog. Fig. 2 is characteristic of the Uma Balubo Kayans, and is
remarkable in that teeth are shown in both jaws; whilst, both in this
example and in Fig. 5, the eye is represented as a disc, in Figs. 1
and 6 the eye is assuming a rosette-like appearance, which rosette,
as Nieuwenhuis' series shows, is destined in some cases to increase
in size until it swallows up the rest of the design. Fig. 6 may be
compared with Nieuwenhuis, Fig. E, as it evidently represents little
more than the head of a dog. Although a single figure of the dog is
the most usual form of tatu, we have met with an example of a double
figure; it is shown in Fig. 7; it will be observed that one of the
dogs is reversed and the tails of the two figures interlock. Fig. 8
represents a dog with pups, TUANG NGANAK; A is supposed to be the
young one.
The dog design figures very prominently in Kayan art, and the fact
that the dog is regarded by these people and also by the Kenyahs
with a certain degree of veneration may account for its general
representation. The design has been copied by a whole host of tribes,
with degradation and change of name (Fig. 62).
On the deltoid region of the shoulders and on the breast, a rosette or
a star design is found (text, Figs. 63 and 64). As already stated, it
seems in the highest degree probable that the rosette is derived from
the eye in the dog pattern, and it is consequently of some interest
to find that the name now given to the rosette pattern is that of the
fruit of a plant which was introduced into Borneo certainly within the
last fifty or sixty years. The plant is PLUKENETIA CORNICULATA, one of
the Euphorbiaceae, and it is cultivated as a vegetable; its Kayan name
is JALAUT. We have here a good example of the gradual degradation of
a design leading to a loss of its original significance and even of
its name, another name, which originated probably from some fancied
resemblance between pattern and object, being applied at a subsequent
date. IPA OLIM, I.E., open fruit of a species of MANGIFERA, is another
name occasionally applied to the rosette pattern, but JALAUT is in
more general use (cf. Pl. 140, Fig. 4, Pl. 141, Fig. 7, and Pl. 142,
Fig. 9).
On Pl. 141, Fig. 1, is shown a hand tatued in the Kayan manner; the
figures on the phalanges are known as TEGULUN,[74] representations
of human figures or as SILONG, faces, and they are evidently
anthropomorphic derivatives. The triangles on the carpal knuckles
are termed SONG IRANG, shoots of bamboo, and the zigzag lines are
IKOR, lines.
Kayan women are tatued in complicated serial[75] designs over the whole
forearm, the backs of the hands, over the whole of the thighs and
to below the knees, and on the metatarsal surfaces of the feet. The
tatuing of a Kayan girl is a serious operation, not only because of
the considerable amount of pain caused, but also on account of the
elaborate ceremonial attached to this form of body ornamentation. The
process is a long one, lasting sometimes as much as four years,
since only a small piece can be done at a sitting, and several long
intervals elapse between the various stages of the work. A girl when
about ten years old will probably have had her fingers and the upper
part of her feet tatued, and about a year later her forearms should
have been completed; the thighs are partially tatued during the
next year, and in the third or fourth year from the commencement,
I.E. about puberty, the whole operation should have been accomplished.
A woman endeavours to have her tatu finished before she becomes
pregnant, as it is considered immodest to be tatued after she has
become a mother. If a woman has a severe illness after any portion of
her body has been tatued, the work is not continued for some little
time; moreover, according to Nieuwenhuis (9, p. 453), a woman cannot
be tatued during seed time nor if a dead person is lying unburied in
the house, since it is LALI to let blood at such times; bad dreams,
such as a dream of floods, foretelling much blood-letting, will
also interrupt the work. A tatued woman may not eat the flesh of
the monitor lizard (VARANUS) or of the scaly manis (MANIS JAVANICA),
and her husband also is included in the tabu until the pair have a
male and a female child. If they have a daughter only they may not
eat the flesh of the monitor until their child has been tatued; if
they have a son only they cannot eat the monitor until they become
grandparents. Should a girl have brothers, but no sisters, some of
her tatu lines must not be joined together, but if she has brothers
and sisters, or sisters only, all the lines can be joined.
Tatu amongst Kayan women is universal; they believe that the designs
act as torches in the next world, and that without these to light
them they would remain for ever in total darkness; one woman told
Dr. Nieuwenhuis that after death she would be recognised by the
impregnation of her bones with the tatu pigment. The operation of
tatuing amongst Kayans is performed by women, never by men, and
it is always the women who are the experts on the significance and
quality of tatu designs, though the men actually carve the designs
on the tatu blocks. Nieuwenhuis states (9, p. 452) that the office of
tatuer is to a certain extent hereditary, and that the artists, like
smiths and carvers, are under the protection of a tutelary spirit,
who must be propitiated with sacrifices before each operation. As
long as the children of the artist are of tender age she is debarred
from the practice of her profession. The greater the number of
sacrifices offered, or in other words, the greater the experience of
the artist, the higher is the fee demanded. She is also debarred from
eating certain food. It is supposed that if an artist disregards the
prohibitions imposed upon her profession, the designs that she tatus
will not appear clearly, and she herself may sicken and die.
The tools used by a tatu artist are simple,[76] consisting of two
or three prickers, ULANG or ULANG BRANG, and an iron striker, TUKUN
or PEPAK, which are kept in a wooden case, BUNGAN. The pricker is a
wooden rod with a short pointed head projecting at right angles at one
end; to the point of the head is attached a lump of resin in which
are embedded three or four short steel needles, their points alone
projecting from the resinous mass (Fig. 68). The striker is merely a
short iron rod, half of which is covered with a string lashing. The
pigment is a mixture of soot, water, and sugar-cane juice, and it is
kept in a double shallow cup of wood, UIT ULANG; it is supposed that
the best soot is obtained from the bottom of a metal cooking-pot,
but that derived from burning resin or dammar is also used. The tatu
designs are carved in high relief on blocks of wood, KELINGE[77]
(Fig. 62), which are smeared with the ink and then pressed on the
part to be tatued, leaving an impression of the designs. As will be
seen later, the designs tatued on women are in longitudinal rows or
transverse bands, and the divisions between the rows or bands are
marked by one or more zigzag lines termed IKOR.
The subject who is to be tatued lies on the floor, the artist and
an assistant squatting on either side of her; the artist first dips
a piece of fibre from the sugar-palm (ARENGA SACCHARIFERA) into the
pigment and, pressing this on to the limb to be tatued, plots out the
arrangement of the rows or bands of the design; along these straight
lines the artist tatus the IKOR, then taking a tatu block carved with
the required design, she smears it with pigment and presses it on to
the limb between two lines. The tatuer or her assistant stretches with
her feet the skin of the part to be tatued, and, dipping a pricker
into the pigment, taps its handle with the striker, driving the
needle points into the skin at each tap. The operation is painful,
and the subject can rarely restrain her cries of anguish; but the
artist is quite unmoved by such demonstrations of woe, and proceeds
methodically with her task. As no antiseptic precautions are taken, a
newly tatued part often ulcerates, much to the detriment of the tatu;
but taking all things into consideration, it is wonderful how seldom
one meets with a tatu pattern spoilt by scar tissues.
It is against custom to draw the blood of a friend (PESU DAHA), and
therefore, when first blood is drawn in tatuing, it is customary to
give a small present to the artist. The present takes the form of
four antique beads, or of some other object worth about one dollar;
it is termed LASAT MATA, for it is supposed that if it were omitted
the artist would go blind, and some misfortune would happen to the
parents and relations of the girl undergoing the operation of tatu.
When the half of one IKOR has been completed the tattier stops and
asks for SELIVIT; this is a present of a few beads, well-to-do people
paying eight yellow beads of the variety known as LAVANG, valued at
one dollar apiece, whilst poor people give two beads. It is supposed
that if SELIVIT was not paid the artist would be worried by the dogs
and fowls that always roam about a Kayan house, so that the work
would not be satisfactorily done; however, to make assurance doubly
sure, a curtain is hung round the operator and her subject to keep
off unwelcome intruders. After SELIVIT has been paid a cigarette is
smoked, and then work recommences in earnest, there being no further
interruptions for the rest of the day except for the purpose of taking
food. The food of the artist must be cooked and brought to her,
as she must not stop to do other work than tatuing, and her tools
are only laid aside for a few minutes while she consumes a hurried
meal. Fowls or a pig are killed for the artist by the parents of
the girl who is being tatued. The fees paid to the artist are more
or less fixed; for the forearms a gong, worth from eight to twenty
dollars, according to the workmanship required; for the thighs a large
TAWAK, worth as much as sixty dollars if the very best workmanship is
demanded, from six to twenty dollars if only inferior workmanship is
required.[78] For tatuing the fingers the operator receives a MALAT
or short sword. Nieuwenhuis (8, p. 236) states that it is supposed
that the artist will die within a year if her charges are excessive;
but we have not met with this belief amongst the Kayans of the Rejang
and Baram rivers.
The knee-cap is the last part to be tatued, and before this is touched
the artist must be paid; as this part of the design is the keystone,
as it were, of the whole, the required fee is always forthcoming. A
narrow strip down the back of the thigh is always left untatued;
it is supposed that mortification of the legs would ensue if this
strip was not left open.
The time at which to begin tatuing a girl is about the ninth day after
new moon, this lunar phase being known as BUTIT HALAP, the belly of the
HALAP fish (BARBUS BRAMOIDES); as the skin of the girl being tatued
quickly becomes very tender, it is often necessary to stop work for
a few days, but it is a matter of indifference at what lunar phase
work recommences, so long as it was originally begun at BUTIT HALAP.
A Kayan chief of the Mendalam river informed Dr. Nieuwenhuis [9,
p. 4551 that in his youth only the wives and daughters of chiefs were
permitted the thigh tatu, women of lower rank had to be content with
tatu of the lower part of the shin and of the ankles and feet. The
designs were in the form of quadrangular blotches divided by narrow
untatued lines, and were known as TEDAK DANAU, lake tatu. The
quadrangles were twelve in number, divided from each other by four
longitudinal and two transverse untatued lines, 6 millimetres broad,
two of the longitudinal lines running down each side of the front of
the leg, and two down each side of the calf, approximately equidistant;
the forearm was tatued in the same style. This manner of tatu is
obsolete now, but Dr. Nieuwenhuis was fortunate in finding one very
old woman so tatued.
Nowadays the class restrictions as regards tatu are not so closely
observed, but it is always possible to distinguish between the
designs of a chiefs daughter, an ordinary free-woman, and a slave,
by the number of lines composing the figures of the designs, -- the
fewer these lines, the lower being the rank of the woman. Moreover,
the designs of the lower-class women are not nearly so complex as
those of the higher class, and they are generally tatued free-hand.
A very typical design for the forearm of a woman of high rank is shown
on Pl. 140, Fig. 3; it is taken from a Kayan of the Uma Pliau sub-tribe
dwelling on the Baram river, and may be compared with the somewhat
similar designs of the Mendalam river Kayans figured by Nieuwenhuis
[9, Pl. 85], one of which is a design for a chiefs daughter, the
other for a slave. The zigzag lines bounding the pattern on both
surfaces of the forearm are the IKOR, and these, as already stated,
are marked out with a piece of fibre dipped in the tatu ink before the
rest of the pattern is impressed by a wood-block or KLINGE. Taking
the flexor surface of the forearm first, the units of the designs
are: three bands of concentric circles (AAA) termed BELILING BULAN
or full moons; a triangle (B) each, limb formed by several parallel
lines, DULANG HAROK, the bows of a boat; spirals (CC) ULU TINGGANG,
the head of the hornbill. On the supinator surface BELILING BULAN
and ULU TINGGANG occur again, but instead of DULANG HAROK, there are
two other elements, a bold transverse zigzag known as DAUN WI (D),
rattan leaves, and at the proximal end of the pattern an interlacing
design, TUSHUN TUVA (E), bundles of tuba root (DERRIS ELLIPTICA). The
fingers are very simply tatued with a zigzag on the carpal knuckles
and transverse lines across the joints; the thumb is decorated in
a slightly different way. In Dr. Nieuwenhuis' designs cited above,
we find much the same elements; in one of them the BELILING BULAN are
more numerous and more closely set together, so that the concentric
circles of one set have run into those of the next adjoining; the
TUSHUN TUVA pattern is termed POESOENG, evidently the same as TUSHUN;
the spirals are much degraded in one example and are called KROWIT,
or hooks, whilst in the more elaborate example they are known as MANOK
WAK, or eyes of the SCOPS owl; the PEDJAKO PATTERN is an addition,
but the meaning of the word is not known; the pattern on the fingers
is much more complex than in the Uma Pliau example, and is perhaps
a degraded hornbill design.
Nieuwenhuis [8, Pl. XXIV.] figures the hand of a low-class woman
tatued with triangular and quadrangular blotches, and with some rude
designs that appear to have been worked in free-hand.
On Pl. 140, Fig. 1, is shown the design on the forearm of a high-class
woman of the Uma Lekan Kayans of the Batang Kayan river, Dutch Borneo;
in our opinion these elegant designs are quite in the front rank of
the tatu designs of the world. In spite of the elaboration, it is quite
possible to distinguish in these the same elements as in the Uma Pliau
specimen, viz.: BELILING BULAN ULU TINGGANG DAUN WI and TUSHUN TUVA;
but the DULANG HAROK is absent, and the SILONG or face pattern appears.
Nieuwenhuis [9, Pl. 93, b] figures the arm-tatu (supinator surface
only) of a Kayan woman of the Blu-u river, a tributary of the Upper
Mahakkam; the main design is evidently a hornbill derivative, the
knuckles are tatued with quadrangular and rectangular blotches. The
hornbill plays an important part in the decorative art of the Long
Glat, a Klemantan tribe of the Mahakkam river, and we suspect that,
if these Blu-u Kayans are of true Kayan stock, they have borrowed
the hornbill design from their neighbours.
With regard to the thigh patterns, it is usual to find the back of
the thigh occupied with two strips of an intersecting line design,
or some modification thereof; the simplest form is shown on Pl. 138,
Fig. 1; it is known as IDA TELO, the three-line pattern, and is used
by slaves; a more elaborate example from the Rejang river is shown in
Fig. 3, and is used both by slaves and free-women. Pl. 138, Fig. 2,
and Pl. 139, Fig. 6, are termed IDA PAT, the four-line pattern, and
are for free-women, not for slaves. The latter figure is a combination
of IDA PAT and IDA TELO. The wives and daughters of chiefs would
employ similar designs with the addition of another line, when they
are termed IDA LIMA, the five-line pattern, or else a design, known
as IDA TUANG, the underside pattern, two examples of which are given
on Pl. 139, Figs. 1 and 2. If these two latter designs are compared
with the hornbill design of the Long Glat, a figure of which, taken
from Nieuwenhuis [9, Pl. 86] is given (Pl. 139, Fig. 3) a certain
similarity in the MOTIF of the designs can be recognised. It must
be remembered that the Long Glat design is tatued in rows down the
front and sides of the thigh, whilst these Kayan designs have been
modified to form more or less of a sinuous line design for the back
of the thigh; or, in other words, the hornbill elements in the Long
Glat design, though they are serially repeated, are quite separate
and distinct one from the other, whilst in the Kayan designs the
hornbill elements are fused and modified to produce the sinuous
line pattern that in one form or another is generally employed for
the decoration of the back of the thigh. In this connection Pl. 139,
Fig. 5, is instructive; it is taken from a tatu block which, together
with those from which Figs. 1 and 2 are taken, was collected many
years ago by Mr. Brooke Low, amongst the Kayans of the Upper Rejang;
it also appears to be a doc, derivative, and no doubt was used for the
tatu of the front of a woman's thigh,[79] being serially repeated in
three or four rows as with the Long Glat. Yet it was unknown as a tatu
design to some Kayans of the Baram river to whom it was shown recently;
they informed us that the name of the design was TUANG BUVONG ASU,
pattern of dog without tail, and they stated that a somewhat similar
design was engraved by them on sword blades. Pl. 139, Fig. 4, is
taken from a tatu-block of uncertain origin, and the same name was
also applied to this by the Baram Kayans, though with some hesitation
and uncertainty; the hornbill MOTIF is here quite obvious.
We have stated that an interlacing line design is generally employed
for the back of the thigh; we figure, however, a remarkable exception
from the Baloi river (Pl. 140, Fig. 5); this is known as KALONG KOWIT,
hook pattern; A is a representation of an antique bead, BALALAT
LUKUT, B is known as KOWIT, hooks. Between the two strips of line
design at the back of the thigh runs a narrow line of untatued skin,
the supposed object of which has been described above. The front and
sides of the thigh in highclass women will be covered with three or
more strips of pattern such as are shown on Pl. 138, Figs. 4 and 5;
in the latter TUSHUN TUVA, DULANG HAROK, ULU TINGGANG and BELILING
BULAN can again be recognised; the ULU TINGGANG in this example are
less conventionalised than in the spirals of the forearm pattern,
and a spiral form of TUSHUN TUVA IS shown in addition to the angular
form. The other example exhibits IDA LIMA, TUSHUN TUVA JALAUT, KOWIT
(the interlocking spirals) and ULU TINGGANG. All these strips of
pattern are separated by the IKOR. The knee-cap is the last part
of the leg to be tatued, and the design covering it is called the
KALONG NANG, the important pattern, good examples of which are shown
in Figs. 70, 71; Fig. 72 represents the design on the front and sides
of the thigh of an Uma Semuka Kayan of the slave class, which also
is termed TUSHUN TUVA.
The admirable Uma Lekan patterns (Pl. 140, Fig. 2) represent on the
back of the thigh (AA) BELILING BULAN, on the front and sides (BB)
SILONG, faces or SILONG LEJAU, tigers' faces; the latter is evidently
an anthropomorph; the knee-cap design is particularly worthy of
notice.[80] Nieuwenhuis [9, Pl. 83, and 8, Pl. XXVII.] figures the
thigh tatu of a Mendalam woman of the PANJIN or free-woman class; the
back of the thigh is occupied by two strips of the four line pattern,
here termed KETONG PAT, and a somewhat crude anthropomorphic design,
known as KOHONG KELUNAN, human head, covers the front and sides of
the thigh (text Fig. 69); the centre of the knee-cap is occupied
by a very similar anthropomorph, known however as NANG KLINGE, the
important design, and extending in a semicircle round the upper part
of it is a design made up of intersecting zigzags and known as KALANG
NGIPA, the snake design; below the knee-cap is a transverse band of
hour-glass shaped figures termed PEDJAKO. Nieuwenhuis also figures
[9, Pl. 841 the thigh pattern of a chiefs daughter from the same
river; this only differs from the preceding example in the greater
elaboration of the KOHONG KELUNAN; the back of the thigh is covered
by a form of the IDA PAT pattern not by the IDA LIMA pattern. Some
of the tatu-blocks employed by the Mendalam Kayan women are figured
in the same works [9, Pl. 82, and 8, Pl. XXVIII.].
A comparison of the figures here given lends strong support to
the supposition that the tuba-root pattern is merely a degraded
anthropomorph. Fig. 69 is a recognisable anthropomorph such as is
tatued in rows on the thigh, and some such name as TEGULUN, SILONG,
or KOHONG is applied to it. Fig. 70 is a knee-cap design, evidently
anthropomorphic in nature, but termed NANG KLINGE, the important
design, since it is the last part of all to be tatued. Fig.71 is
termed TUSHUN TUVA, but a distinct face is visible in the centre
of the pattern; the general similarity between this last design and
the examples of TUSHUN TUVA shown in the designs on Pl. 138, Figs. 4
and 5, is quite obvious; the lower of the two TUSHUN TUVA designs in
Fig. 5, Pl. 138, is Cornposed of angular lines, thus reverting to the
angularity of the lines in text, Fig. 69; at E, Fig. 3, Pl. 140, the
lines are partly angular, partly curved, and the bilateral symmetry
is entirely lost; finally, in Fig. 72, the relationship of the TUSHUN
TUVA design to an anthropomorph is entirely lost.
A typical form of tatu on the foot of a low-class woman is shown on
Pl. 138, Fig. 6; a chiefs daughter would have some modification of
the principal element of the thigh design tatued on this part.
Kenyah Tatu.
The culture of the Sarawak Kenyahs is closely allied to that of the
Kayans, and their tatu may be considered separately from that of the
Kenyah-Klemantan tribes whose tatu is much more original in design.
The men of such Kenyah tribes as the Lepu Jalan, Lepu Tau, Lepu Apong,
etc., if tatued at all, are tatued in the Kayan manner, that is, with
some form of dog design on the forearms and thighs, and with rosettes
or stars on the shoulders and breasts. The dog design is usually known
as USANG ORANG, the prawn pattern; the teeth of the dog are held to
represent the notched border of the prominent rostrum characteristic
of the prawns of the genus PALAEMAN, that occur so plentifully in
the fresh-water streams of Borneo. An extreme modification of the dog
design to form a prawn is shown in Pl. 137, Fig. 9; Pl. 136, Fig. 4,
is a dog design, and is so termed. Pl. 136, Fig. 10, is known as
TOYU, a crab; A is the mouth, BA; B the claw, KATIP; C the back,
LIKUT; D the tail, IKONG. Pl. 136, Fig. 9, is termed LIPAN KATIP,
jaws of the centipede. All these are tatued on the flexor surface
of the forearm or on the outside of the thigh.[81] An example of a
star design termed USONG DIAN, durian pattern, is shown in Pl. 141,
Fig. 7. The women of these tribes tatu in the same way, and employ
the same designs as the Kayans, except that they never tatu on the
thighs. Amongst the Baram Kenyahs there appears to be very little
ceremonial connected with the process of tatuing.
Kenyah-Klemantan[82] Tatu.
Amongst this rather heterogeneous assemblage of tribes considerable
diversity of tatu design is found. The men are seldom tatued, but
when they are it is in the Kayan manner. The Peng or Pnihing of the
Koti basin have an elaborate system of male tatu, but it seems to be
dying out; the only examples that we have met are shown on Pl. 141,
Figs. 2 and 3. These represent the arms of Peng men; unfortunately we
have no information as to the significance of the designs. The only
other Peng design that we are acquainted with is a large disc tatued
on the calf of the leg. Dr. Nieuwenhuis states that Peng women are
tatued with isolated dog designs on the arms and legs like the men
of Kayan tribes [9, p. 461].
The Kenyah women of the Baram district exhibit a very primitive
style of tatu on the arms and hands (Pl. 141, Fig. 4); a broad band
encircles the middle of the forearm, and a narrow band an inch or so
distant of this also surrounds the arm; from this narrow band there run
over the metacarpals to the base of the fingers eight narrow lines,
the outermost on the radial side bifurcating; the design is known as
BETIK ALLE or line tatu. No other part of the body is tatued.
Nieuwenhuis figures [9, Pl. 95] a somewhat similar design employed
by the Lepu Tau women of the Batang Kayan; but in this case, instead
of eight longitudinal lines stopping short at the knuckles, there
are five broad bands running to the finger nails, interrupted at the
knuckles by a 2 cm.-broad strip of untatued skin. Moreover, with these
people the front and sides of the thigh and the shin are tatued with
primitive-looking designs made up of series of short transverse lines,
curved lines, and broad bands; the names of the designs are not given;
these designs are said to be characteristic of the slave-class, the
higher-class women copying the more elaborate designs of the Uma Lekan.
Amongst the Batang Kayan Kenyahs tatuing cannot be executed in the
communal house, but only in a hut built for the purpose. The males of
the family, to which the girl undergoing the operation belongs, must
dress in bark-cloth, and are confined to the house until the tatu is
completed; should any of the male members be travelling in other parts
of the island tatu cannot be commenced until they return. Amongst the
Uma Tow (or Lepu Tau) the daughter of a chief must be tatued before
any of the other females of the house; should the chiefs daughter
(or daughters) die before she has been tatued, all the other women
of the house are debarred from this embellishment (Nieuwenhuis [9,
pp. 453, 454]).
Nieuwenhuis, in his great work on Borneo, which we have cited so
often, gives a good account of the tatu of the Long Glat. According
to this authority, girls when only eight years old have the backs of
the fingers tatued, at the commencement of menstruation the tatu of
the fingers is completed, and in the course of the following year
the tatu is carried over the backs of the hand to the wrist; the
feet are tatued synchronously with the hands. At the age of eighteen
to twenty the front of the thigh is tatued, and later on in life the
back of the thigh; unlike the Kayans it is not necessary that the tatu
of the thighs should be finished before child-bearing. A Long Glat
woman on each day that she is tatued must kill a black fowl as food
for the artist. They believe that after death the completely tatued
women will be allowed to bathe in the mythical river Telang Julan,
and that consequently they will be able to pick up the pearls that
are found in its bed; incompletely tatued women can only stand on
the river bank, whilst the untatued will not be allowed to approach
its shores at all. This belief appears to be universal amongst the
Kenyah-Klemantan of the Upper Mahakam and Batang Kayan. On Pl. 86 of
Nieuwenhuis' book [9] is figured the thigh tatu of a Long Glat woman;
the front of the thigh is occupied with two rows of the hornbill MOTIF
to which reference has already been made. The sides of the thigh are
tatued with a beautiful design of circles and scrolls termed KERIP
KWE, flight feathers of the Argus pheasant, and on the back of the
thigh is a scroll design borrowed from the decoration of a grave
and known as KALANG SONG SEPIT.[83] The knee is left untatued. Some
other examples of the KERIP KWE design are given on Pl. 90, and of
the SONG SEPIT on Pl. 91; some of the SONG SEPIT designs recall the
KALANG KOWIT designs of the Baloi Kayans. Instead of a hornbill MOTIF,
a dog's head MOTIF is sometimes tatued on the thigh, an example of
which is figured on Pl. 87, Fig. A; it appears to be a composition
of four heads, and in appearance is not unlike SILONG LEJAU of the
Uma Lekan, figured by us. In the Long Glat thigh-tatu the bands of
pattern are not separated by lines of IKOR, as with the Kayans. Round
the ankles the Long Glat tatu sixteen lines, 3 mm. broad, known as
TEDAK AKING; the foot is tatued much after the manner shown in our
Fig. 6, Pl. 143. The supinator surface of the forearm and the backs
of the hands are also tatued, but the design does not extend so far up
the arm as with the Kayans [9, Pl. 92]; the forearm design is made up
of a hornbill MOTIF, but that shown in Fig. A of the plate is termed
BETIK KULE, leopard pattern, and is supposed to be a representation
of the spots on the leopard's skin; it is stated to be taken from a
Long Tepai tatu-block; the knuckles are tatued with a double row of
wedges, the finger joints with quadrangles.
The Uma Luhat seem to have borrowed their tatu and designs very largely
if not entirely from the Long Glat; with them the back of the thigh
is tatued before the front, which is exceptional. Half of the knee
is tatued. Their designs are modifications of the hornbill and dog's
head designs of the Long Glat. Nieuwenhuis figures several examples
[9, Pl. 87, Fig. B, Plate 88, Pl. 89, Pl. 93, Fig. A, Pl. 94], which
should be consulted, as they are of the greatest interest.
The Long Wai seem to tatu in much the same way as the Uma Luhat [2,
Pl., p. 189 and 7, p. 91].
Tatu of Muruts and Klemantans.
A number of tribes have adopted more or less the tatu of the
Kayans. Thus the men of the following Sarawak tribes, Sibops, Lirongs,
Tanjongs, Long Kiputs, Barawans, and Kanowits, are often, though not
universally, tatued like Kayans. The shoulder pattern of the Barawans
is distinctive, in that the rosette nearly always bears a scroll
attached to it, a relic of the dog MOTIF, from which the design is
derived (Pl. 138, Fig. 6). E. B. Haddon [4, Fig. 17] figures another
form of the dog MOTIF, which is tatued on the thigh or forearm, and
Ling Roth [7, p. 86] figures three rosette designs for the breast;
we figure two modifications of the dog design on Pl. 137, Figs. 7 and
8. The women of these tribes very rarely tatu; we have seen a Tanjong
woman with a circle of star-shaped figures round her wrist and one
on the thumb. The Tring women of Dutch Borneo are tatued on the hands
and thighs like Kayans; Carl Bock [2, Pl., p. 187] gives some figures
of them. In our opinion all of these tribes owe their tatu entirely
to foreign influences; for we have failed to find a single example
of an original design; the practice is by no means universal, and
great catholicity of taste is shown by those who do tatu. The men,
moreover, do not tatu as a sign of bravery in battle or adventure,
but merely from a desire to copy the more warlike Kayan.
We shall now treat of those tribes that have a distinctive and original
tatu, but it is well to bear in mind, that amongst many of these people
also the Kayan designs are coming into vogue more and more, ousting the
old designs. No tatu-blocks are employed for the indigenous patterns,
all the work being done free-hand.
(A) UMA LONG. -- The Uma Long women of the Batang Kayan exhibit
the most primitive form of tatu known in Borneo. It differs from
every other form in that the tatued surface of the skin is not
covered uniformly with the ink, but the design, such as it is, is
merely stippled into the skin, producing an appearance of close-set
irregular dots. Two aspects of the forearm of an Uma Long woman are
shown on Pl. 142, Fig. 5. No other part of the body is tatued, and
the practice is confined to the female sex.
(B) DUSUN. -- The men only tatu. The design is simple, consisting
of a band, two inches broad, curving from each shoulder and meeting
its fellow on the abdomen, thence each band diverges to the hip and
there ends; from the shoulder each band runs down the upper arm on
its exterior aspect; the flexor surface of the forearm is decorated
with short transverse stripes, and, according to one authority, each
stripe marks an enemy slain [7, p. 90]. This form of tatu is found
chiefly amongst the Idaan group of Dusuns; according to Whitehead
[11, p. 106] the Dusuns living on the slopes of Mount Kina Balu tatu
no more than the parallel transverse stripes on the forearm, but in
this case no reference is made to the significance of the stripes as
a head-tally. The Dusun women apparently do not tatu.
(C) MURUT. -- The Muruts of the Trusan river, North Sarawak, tatu
very little; the men occasionally have a small scroll design just
above the knee-cap and a simple circle on the breast; the women have
fine lines tatued from the knuckles to the elbows [7, p. 93]. The
Muruts of British North Borneo appear to be more generally tatued;
the men are tatued like Dusuns, though, according to Hatton, they
have three parallel stripes running from the shoulders to the wrists
and no transverse lines on the forearm.[84] Whitehead [11, p. 76]
figures a Murut woman of the Lawas river tatued on the arms from the
biceps to the knuckles with numerous fine longitudinal lines; a band
of zigzag design encircles the arm just above the commencement of the
longitudinal lines. The design on a man of the same tribe is given
on page 73 [11], it resembles "a three-legged dog with a crocodile's
head, one leg being turned over the back as if the animal was going to
scratch its ear." The part of the body on which the design was tatued,
is not specified and the sketch is rather inadequate, so that it is
impossible to tell for certain whether the design was tatued in outline
only or whether the outline was filled in uniformly; our impression is
that the outline only was tatued on this individual, and that it was
employed either as an experiment or from idle amusement. Zoomorphs
are conspicuous by their absence from all forms of decorative art
amongst the Lawas Muruts, and the particular zoomorph noted here
gives every evidence of an unpractised hand.
St. John states [7, p. 92] that the Muruts of the Adang river,
a tributary of the Limbang, are tatued about the arms and legs,
but he gives no details.
(D) KALABIT. -- This tribe, dwelling in the watershed of the Limbang
and Baram rivers, is closely akin to Muruts, but its tatu is very
different. The men tatu but rarely, and then with stripes down the
arms. The women, however, are decorated with most striking geometrical
designs, shown on Pl. 142, Figs. 1 -- 4. On the forearm are tatued
eight bold zigzag bands, one-eighth of an inch broad, which do not
completely encircle the arm, but stop short of joining at points
on the ulnar side of the middle line on the flexor surface. The
series of lines is known as BETIK TISU, the hand pattern. In some
cases two short transverse lines, called TIPALANG, cross-lines,
spring from the most distal zigzag at the point where it touches the
back of the wrist on the radial side; in other cases these lines are
tatued across the middle of the back of the wrist and two lozenges
are tatued on the metacarpals; these are known as TEPARAT (Pl. 142,
Fig. 1). The legs are tatued on the back of the thigh, on the shin,
and sometimes on the knee-cap. The designs can best be explained by
a reference to Pl. 142, Figs. 2 -- 4; the part of the design marked
A is termed BETIK BUAH, fruit pattern; B, betik lawa, trunk pattern;
and C, BETIK LULUD, shin pattern. In Fig. 4, A and C are as before;
D is BETIK KARAWIN; E, UJAT BATU, hill-tops; F, BETIK KALANG (Fig. 3).
Kalabit women are tatued when they are sixteen years old, whether
they are married or unmarried, and the operation does not extend
over a number of years as with the Long Glat and Kayans, nor is any
elaborate ceremonial connected with the process.
(E) LONG UTAN. -- An extinct Klemantan tribe, once dwelling on the
Tinjar river, an affluent of the Baram. We owe our knowledge of their
tatu to an aged Klemantan, who was well acquainted with the tribe
before their disappearance; at our behest he carved on some wooden
models of arms and legs the tatu designs of these people, but he
was unable to supply any information of the names or significance
of the designs. The men of the tribe apparently were not tatued,
and the designs reproduced on Pl. 141, Figs. 5, 6, are those of the
women. The essential features of the designs are spirals and portions
of intersecting circles; the intersecting circles are frequently to
be met with in the decorative art of Kenyahs, E.G. on the back of
sword-handles, round the top of posts, on carved bamboos, etc., and
in these cases the design is supposed to be a representation of the
open fruit of a species of mango, MANGIFERA SP. It is not improbable
that the design had the same significance amongst the Long Utan,
for we have met with one or two representations of the same fruit
amongst other Klemantan tribes.
(F) BIAJAU. -- The Dutch author C. den Hamer [5, p. 451] includes under
this heading the tribes living in the districts watered by the rivers
Murung, Kahayan, Katingan, and Mentaja of South-west Borneo. Under this
very elastic heading he would include the Ot-Danum, Siang, and Ulu
Ajar of Nieuwenhuis, but we treat of these in the next section. The
ethnology of the Barito, Kahayan, and Katingan river-basins sadly
needs further investigation; nothing of importance has been published
on this region since the appearance of Schwaner's book on Borneo more
than fifty years ago. We know really very little of the distribution or
constitution of the tribes dwelling in these districts, and Schwaner's
account of their tatu is very meagre. Such as it is, it is given here,
extracted from Ling Roth's TRANSLATION OF SCHWANER'S ETHNOGRAPHICAL
NOTES [7, pp. cxci. cxciv.]: The men of Pulu Petak, the right-hand
lower branch of the Barito or Banjermasin river, tatu the upper part
of the body, the arms and calves of legs, with elegant interlacing
designs and scrolls. The people of the Murung river are said to be most
beautifully tatued, both men and women; this river is really the upper
part of the Barito, and according to Hamer is inhabited by the Biajau
(VIDE POSTEA), who appear to be distinct from the Ngaju of Schwaner,
inhabiting the lower courses of the Barito and Kapuas rivers. The men
of the lower left-hand branch of the Barito and of the midcourse of
that river are often not tatued at all, but such tatu as was extant
in 1850 was highly significant according to Schwaner's account; thus,
a figure composed of two spiral lines interlacing each other and with
stars at the extremities tatued on the shoulder signified that the
man had taken several heads; two lines meeting each other at an acute
angle behind the finger nails signified dexterity in wood-carving;
a star on the temple was a sign of happiness in love. We have no
reason to consider this information inaccurate, but we do consider it
lamentable that more details concerning the most interesting forms
of tatu in Borneo were not obtained, for it is only too probable
that such information cannot be acquired now. The women of this
tribe do not tatu. In the upper Teweh river, an upper tributary of
the Barito the men are tatued a good deal, especially on parts of
the face, such as the forehead, the cheeks, the upper lip. The only
figures that Schwaner gives are reproduced by Ling Roth [7, p. 931,
they represent two Ngajus; the tatu designs are drawn on too small a
scale to be of much interest, and in any case we have no information
concerning them. The two figures of 'Tatued Dyaks' (? Kayans) (after
Professor Veth), on p. 95 of the above-cited work cannot be referred
to any tribe known to us.
Hamer in his paper [5] gives a detailed account of Biajau tatu, but,
unfortunately, without any illustrations; as abstracts of the paper
have already been given by Ling Roth [7, pp. 93, 94] and by Hein [6,
pp. 143 -- 147], we will pass on to the next section.
(G) OT-DANUM, ULU AJAR, AND SIANG (Kapuas river, tributaries). --
Concerning these tribes Nieuwenhuis says but little [9, p. 452],
merely noting that the men are first tatued with discs on the
calf and in the hollow of the knee and later over the arms, torso,
and throat, whilst the women tatu the hands, knees, and shins. Two
colours, red and blue, are used, and the designs are tatued free-hand,
the instrument employed being a piece of copper or brass about four
inches long and half an inch broad, with one end bent down at a right
angle and sharpened to a point. Sometimes thread is wound round the
end of the instrument just above the point, to regulate the depth
of its penetration. Two specimens in the Leyden Museum are figured
by Ling Roth [7, p. 85]. Hamer [5] says that the Ot-Danum women are
tatued down the shin to the tarsus with two parallel lines, joined
by numerous cross-lines, a modification of the Uma Tow design for the
same part of the limb. On the thigh is tatued a design termed SOEWROE,
said to resemble a neck ornament. A disc tatued on the calf of the
leg is termed BOENTOER, and from it to the heel runs a barbed line
called IKOEH BAJAN, tail of the monitor lizard; curiously enough,
though this is the general name of the design, it is on the right leg
also termed BARAREK, on the left DANDOE TJATJAH. Warriors are tatued
on the elbowjoint with a DANDOE TJATJAH and a cross called SARAPANG
MATA ANDAU.
A Maloh who had lived for many years amongst these people gave us
the following information about their tatu: -- There is with these
people a great difference between the tatu of the high-class and
that of the low-class individuals: amongst the former the designs are
both extensive and complicated, too complicated for our informant to
describe with any degree of accuracy, but they seem to be much the
same as those described by Hamer. The low-class people have to be
content with simpler designs; the men are tatued on the breast and
stomach with two curved lines ending in curls, and on the outside
of each arm with two lines also ending in curls (Pl. 142, Fig. 6);
on the outside of the thigh a rather remarkable design, shown on
Pl. 142, Fig. 7, is tatued; it is termed LINSAT, the flying squirrel,
PTEROMYS NITIDUS, and on the back of the calf is tatued a disc termed
KALANG BABOI, the wild pig pattern. The women are tatued as described
by Hamer down the front of the shin with two parallel lines connected
by transverse cross-bars; according to our informant the design was
supposed to represent a flat fish, such as a sole. (Pl. 142, Fig. 8.)
Of these people, as of so many others, the melancholy tale of
disappearance of tatu amongst the present generation and replacement
of indigenous by Kayan designs was told, and it seems only too likely
that within the next decade or two none will be left to illustrate
a once flourishing and beautiful art.
Schwaner can add nothing to the facts that we have collected, except
the statement that "the BILIANS (priestesses) have brought the art
of tatuing to the present degree of perfection through learning the
description of the pretty tatued bodies of the [mythical] Sangsangs."
(H) KAHAYAN. -- Our figure (Pl. 141, Fig. 3), and Pl. 81 of
Dr. Nieuwenhuis' book [9], is the extent of our knowledge of the tatu
of the inhabitants of the Kahayan river. The latter illustration
shows a man tatued with a characteristic check pattern over the
torso, stomach, and arms, but there is no reference to the plate
in the text. Our figure is copied from a drawing by Dr. H. Hiller,
of Philadelphia.
(I) BAKATAN AND UKIT. -- As Nieuwenhuis has pointed out [9, p. 451],
the tatu of these tribes is distinctive, inasmuch as most of the
designs are left in the natural colour of the skin against a background
of tatu; that is to say in the phraseology of the photographer,
whilst the tatu designs of Kayans, Kenyahs, etc., are POSITIVES,
those of the Bakatans are NEGATIVES. The men were formerly most
extensively tatued, and we figure the principal designs (Pl. 143),
most of which were drawn from a Bakatan of the Rejang river. The chest
is covered with a bold scroll design known as GEROWIT, hooks (Kayan,
KOWIT) (Figs. 1, 2); across the back and shoulder blades stretches a
double row of circles, KANAK, with small hooks interposed (Fig. 9);
on the side of the shoulder a pattern known as AKIH, the lizard,
PLYCHOZOON HOMALOCEPHALUM (Fam. Geckonidae), is tatued (Figs. 3, 4);
this lizard is used as a haruspex by the Bakatan. Circles are tatued
on the biceps, on the back of the thigh, and on the calf of the leg;
a modification of the scroll design of the chest occurs on the flexor
surface of the forearm. Another form of pattern for the calf of the
leg is shown in Fig. 73, it is termed SELONG BOWANG, the horse-mango,
MANGIFERA SP., the same fruit as that termed by Kayans IPA OLIM, and
of which a representation forms the chief element in the Long Utan
tatu. A series of short lines is tatued on the jaw, and is termed JA,
lines, or KILANG, sword-pattern, and a GEROWIT design occurs under the
jaw; the pattern on the throat is known also as GEROWIT (Fig. 10). On
the forehead is sometimes tatued a star or rosette pattern called
LUKUT, antique bead, and it appears that this is of the nature of
a recognition mark. In jungle warfare, where a stealthy descent
on an unprepared enemy constitutes the main principle of tactics,
it not unfrequently happens that one body of the attacking force
unwittingly stalks another, and the results might be disastrous if
there was not some means of distinguishing friend from foe when at
close quarters.[85] Kenyahs when on the warpath frequently tie a band
of plaited palm fibre round the wrist for the same object. The tatu of
the backs of the hands is avowedly copied from the Kayans, but has a
different name applied to it -- KUKUM. The metatarsus is tatued with
broad bars, IWA, very like the foot tatu of Kayan women of the slave
or of the middle class; lines known as JANGO encircle the ankle.
Tatuing is forbidden in the house; it can only be performed on the
warpath, and consequently men only are the tatu artists. The covering
of the body with designs is a gradual process, and it is only the
most seasoned and experienced warriors who exhibit on their persons
all the different designs that we have just detailed. The tatu of
the legs and feet is the last to be completed, and the lines round
the ankles are denied to all but the bravest veterans.
All that has been written above applies equally well to the Ukits,
or at least once did apply, for now the Ukits have to a great extent
adopted the tatu of the Kayan, and it is only occasionally that
an old man tatued in the original, Ukit manner is met. We give a
figure of a design on the back of the thigh of such a relic of better
days. (Pl. 143, Fig. 5).
The Bakatan and Ukit women tatu very little, only the forearm, on the
metacarpals, and on the back of the wrist; characteristic designs
for these parts are shown in Fig. 74, and Pl. 143, Figs. 7, 8. The
central part of the forearm design is an anthropomorphic derivative,
judging by the name TEGULUN; the lines are termed KILANG, and KANAK
and GEROWIT are also conspicuous; GEROWIT IS also the name of the
design for the metacarpals; the two stars joined by a line on the
wrist are termed LUKUT, and it is possible that their significance is
the same as that of the Kayan LUKUT tatued in the same place by men,
but we have no evidence that this is the case.
Nieuwenhuis figures [9, Pl. 80] a Bakatan tatued on the chest in the
typical manner.
The only other designs, apparently of Kalamantan origin, are those
figured by Ling Roth [7, p. 87]. Three of these are after drawings
by Rev. W. Crossland, and are labelled "tatu marks on arm of Kapuas
Kayan captive woman." The designs are certainly not of Kayan origin;
the woman had in all probability been brought captive to Sarawak, where
Mr. Crossland saw her, and it is unfortunate that exact information
concerning the tribe to which she belonged was not obtained. The
designs, if accurately copied, are so extremely unlike all that are
known to us that we are not able to hazard even a guess at their
provenance or meaning. The other design figured on the same page
is copied from Carl Bock; it occurred on the shoulder of a Punan,
and is said by Mr. Crossland to be commonly used by the Sea Dayaks
of the Undup. We met with a similar example of it (Pl. 138, Fig. 7)
on an Ukit tatued in the Kayan manner, but could get no information
concerning it, and suppose that it is not an Ukit design. Hein
[6, Fig. 90] figures the same design, and Nieuwenhuis [8, p. 240]
alludes to a similar. We may note here that the designs figured on
page 89 of Ling Roth's book [7] as tatu designs are in our opinion
very probably not tatu designs. They were collected by Dr. Wienecke in
Dutch Borneo, and appear to be nothing but drawings by a native artist
of such objects in daily use as hats, seat-mats, baby-slings, and so
on. We communicated with Dr. J. D. E. Schmeltz of the Leyden Museum,
where these "tatu" marks are deposited, and learnt from him that they
are indeed actual drawings on paper; there are ninety-two of them,
apparently all are different isolated designs, and they are evidently
the work of one artist.[86] There is not a tribe in Borneo which can
show such a variety of tatu design, and indeed we doubt if ninety-two
distinct isolated tatu designs could be found throughout all the length
and breadth of the island. Moreover, as can be seen by reference to the
cited work, the designs are of a most complicated nature, not figures
with the outlines merely filled in, as in all tatu designs known to
us, but with the details drawn in fine lines and cross-hatching, which
in tatu would be utterly lost unless executed on a very large scale.
Sea Dayak Tatu.
The Sea Dayaks at the present day are, as far as the men are concerned,
the most extensively tatued tribe in Borneo, with the exception
of the Bakatans, Ukits, Kahayans, and Biajau; nevertheless, from
a long-continued and close study of their tatu, we are forced to
the conclusion that the practice and the designs have been entirely
borrowed from other tribes, but chiefly from the Kayans. For some time
we believed that there were two characteristically Sea Dayak designs,
namely, that which is tatued on the throat (Figs. 75 and 76) and that
on the wrist (Pl. 143, Fig. 7), but when later we studied Bakatan tatu
we met with the former in the GEROWIT pattern on the throat of men, and
the latter in the LUKUT design on the wrist of the women. A Sea Dayak
youth will simply plaster himself, so to speak, with numerous isolated
designs; we have counted as many as five of the ASU design on one thigh
alone. The same design appears two or three times on the arms, and even
on the breast, though this part of the body as well as the shoulders
is more usually decorated with several stars and rosettes. The backs
of the hands are tatued, quite irrespective of bravery or experience
in warfare; in fact we have frequently had occasion to note that a man
with tatued hands is a wastrel or a conceited braggart, of no account
with Europeans or with his own people. This wild and irresponsible
system of tatu has been accompanied by an inevitable degradation of
the designs. There is a considerable body of evidence to show that the
Sea Dayaks have borrowed much in their arts and crafts from tribes who
have been longer established in Borneo; but it must be confessed that
in their decorative art they have often improved upon their models;
their bamboo carvings and their woven cloth are indeed "things of
beauty." But their tatu involves, not an intelligent elaboration
of the models, but a simplification and degradation, or at best an
elaboration without significance. Figs. 1 -- 6, Pl. 137, are examples
of the Sea Dayaks TUANG ASU or dog design. The figures show the dog
design run mad, and it is idle to attempt to interpret them, since
in every case the artists have given their individual fancies free
play. When the profession of the tatu-artist is hereditary, and when
the practice has for its object the embellishment of definite parts
of the body for definite reasons, we naturally find a constancy of
design; or, if there are varieties, there is a purpose in them, in
the sense that the variations can be traced to pre-existing forms,
and do not depart from the original so widely that their significance
is altogether lost. With the borrowing of exogenous designs arises such
an alteration in their forms that the original names and significance
are lost. But when the very practice of tatu has no special meaning,
when the tatu-artist may be any member of the tribe, and where no
original tatu design is to be found in the tribe, then the borrowed
practice and the borrowed designs, unbound by any sort of tradition,
run complete riot, and any sort of fanciful name is applied to the
degraded designs. Amongst the Kenyah tribes the modification and
degradation of the dog design has not proceeded so far as amongst
the Sea Dayaks, and this may be explained by their more restrained
practice of tatu and by the constant intercourse between them and
the Kayans, for they always have good models before them. Pl. 137,
Fig. 3, illustrates the extreme limit of degradation of the dog design
amongst Sea Dayaks; it is sometimes termed KALA, scorpion,[87] and
it is noteworthy that the representation of the chelae and anterior
end of the scorpion (A) was originally the posterior end of the dog,
and the hooked ends of the posterior processes of this scorpion design
(B), instead of facing one another as they did when they represented
the open jaws of the dog, now look the same way; the rosette-like eye
of the dog still persists, but of course it has no significance in the
scorpion. A curious modification of this eye is seen in another Sea
Dayak scorpion design figured by E. B. Haddon [4, Fig. 19]. Furness
[3, p. 142] figures a couple of scorpion designs, but neither are
quite as debased as that which we figure here. Furness also figures a
scroll design, not unlike a Bakatan design, tatued on the forearm, and
termed TAIA GASIENG, the thread of the spinning wheel; a similar one
figured by Ling Roth [7, p. 88] is termed TRONG, the egg plant. On the
breast and shoulders some forms of rosette or star design are tatued
in considerable profusion; they are known variously as BUNGA TRONG,
the egg plant flower, TANDAN BUAH, bunches of fruit, LUKUT, an antique
bead, and RINGGIT SALILANG. A four-pointed star, such as that shown in
Fig. 64, is termed BUAH ANDU, fruit of PLUKENETIA CORNICULATA; since
this fruit is quadrate in shape with pointed angles, it is evident that
the name has been applied to the pattern because of its resemblance to
the fruit. Furness figures examples of these designs and also Ling Roth
[7, p. 88]. We figure (Figs. 75, 76, 77) three designs for the throat
known sometimes as KATAK, frogs, sometimes as TALI GASIENG, thread of
the spinning wheel, and no doubt other meaningless names are applied
to them. Two of the figures (Figs. 75, 77) are evidently modifications
of the Bakatan GEROWIT design, but here they are represented with the
tatu pigment, whilst with the Bakatans the design is in the natural
colour of the skin against a background of pigment, I.E. the Dayak
design is the positive of the Bakatan negative. Furness figures two
examples of the throat design, one with a transverse row of stars
cutting across it; the same authority also figures a design for the
ribs known as TALI SABIT, waist chains, consisting of two stars joined
by a double zigzag line. The same design is sometimes tatued on the
wrist, when it is known as LUKUT, antique bead; it is also tatued on
the throat [7, p. 88], and attention has already been drawn to the
probable derivation of this design also from a Bakatan model.
It is only very seldom that Sea Dayak women tatu, and then only in
small circles on the breasts [7, p. 83] and on the calves of the legs.
As a conclusion to the foregoing account of Bornean tatu we add a table
which summarises in the briefest possible manner all our information;
its chief use perhaps will lie in showing in a graphic manner the
blanks in our knowledge that still remain.
We do not consider that tatu can ever be of much value in clearing up
racial problems, seeing how much evidence there is of interchange of
designs and rejection of indigenous designs in favour of something
newer; consequently we refrain from drawing up another scheme of
classification of tatu in Borneo; at best it would be little more
than a re-enumeration of the forms that we have already described in
more or less detail.
Table showing the Forms of Tatu Practised by the Tribes of Borneo
Character of Designs.
Part of Body Tatued.
Cermonial.
Object of Tatu.
Kayan
[male]
Isolated designs, representing the dog, a bead, rosettes and
stars. Serial designs on hands.
Inside of forearm, outside of thigh, breasts, wrist and points of
shoulders. Back of hand sometimes.
None
Sign of bravery in some forms, to ward off illness in others.
[female]
Serial designs of complex nature, geometrical, anthropo- and
zoomorphic.
The whole forearm, back of hand, the whole thigh, the metatarsal
surface of the foot.
Very elaborate
Chiefly for ornament, for use after death, for cure of illness.
Kenyah
[male]
As amongst Kayans, with some degradation of design and alternation
of name.
Same as with Kayans.
None
Sign of bravery in some cases. Chiefly for ornament.
[female]
As amongst Kayans.
The whole forearm, back of hand, metatarsal surface of foot.
None
Ornament.
Kenyah-Kalamantan.
Peng
[male]
Geometrical serial designs, discs, ? isolated designs.
Arm from shoulders to wrist; calf of leg.
?
? Ornament.
[female]
Designs employed by Kayan [male] [male]
Forearms and legs.
?
? Ornament.
Lepu Lutong
[female]
Simple geometrical design.
Forearm and back of hand.
?
?
Uma Tow
[male]
? ? same as Kayan designs.
?
?
?
[female]
Simple geometrical designs (low-class [female]
[female]), anthropomorphic designs, copied
from other tribes (high-class [female] [female]).
Forearm and back of hand, front and sides of the thigh and the shin.
Some.
?
Long Glat and Uma Luhat.
[male]
? not at all.
?
[female]
Complicated serial designs, chiefly of zoomorphic MOTIF.
As with Kayan [female] [female], but also with lines
round the ankles. Tatu of forearms
not so extensive.
Chiefly ornament, for use in the next world.
Kalamantan.
Uma Long
[female]
Simple geometrical design ("stippled")
Forearm and back of hand.
?
?
Dusun
[male]
Lines
Stomach, breast, arm.
None
Partly as tally of enemies slain.
Murut
[male]
Scroll designs and circles
Above the knee-cap; on the breast (Practice obsolescent).
None.
?
[female]
Parallel lines.
Arm and back of hand.
? None.
? Ornament.
Kalabit
[male]
As with Dusuns
As with Dusuns
?
?
[female]
Zigzags and chevrons.
Forearms, the lower part of the leg.
Very little.
?
Long Utan
[female]
Complicated serial geometrical designs.
As with Long Glat.
?
?
Biajau
[male]
Complicated serial geometrical designs, scrolls, zoomorphs, etc.
Almost the whole body including the face amongst some of the
sub-tribes.
?
With some sub-tribes to signify success in war and love, manual
dexterity, etc.
[female]
? ?
? ? as with Long Glat.
?
?
Ot-Danum, Ulu Ajar, etc.
[male]
Curved lines, discs, and simple geometrical designs.
On breast, stomach, outside of arms and thighs, calf of leg.
? None.
In some cases a sign of bravery.
[female]
Simple designs like those of the Uma Tow Kenyahs (low-class
[female] [female]). High-class [female] [female] like Long Glat?
Shin, thigh, and calf of leg.
?
?
Kahayan
[male]
Chequer design.
On breast, stomach, throat, arms.
?
?
Bakatan and Ukit
[male]
Chiefly scroll and circle designs. Nearly all represented in
"negative."
Jaws, throat, breast, back, shoulders, forearms, thighs, calf of leg,
ankles, feet and backs of hands.
Obsolete.
Sign of bravery and experience in war, symbol of maturity.
[female]
Anthropomorphic, lines, representation of a bead.
Forearms, wrist, metacarpals.
None.
Ornament.
Sea-Dayak
[male]
Degraded Kayan and Bakatan designs.
ALmost every part of the body, except the face.
None.
Ornament.
[female]
Small circles.
Breasts and calves of legs.
None.
Ornament.
Bibliography.
1. Beccari, Dr. O., NELLE FORESTE DI BORNEO (1902).
2. Bock, Carl, THE HEAD-HUNTERS OF BORNEO (1882).
3. Furness, W. H., THE HOME LIFE OF BORNEO HEAD-HUNTERS (1902).
4. Haddon, E. B., "The Dog-motive in Bornean Art" (JOURN. ANTH. INST.,
1905).
5. Hamer, C. den, IETS OVER HET TATOUEEREN OF TOETANG BIJ DE
BIADJOE-STAMMEN.
6. Hein, A. R., DIE BILDENDEN KUNSTE BEI DEN DAYAKS AUF BORNEO (1890).
7. Ling Roth, H., THE NATIVES OF SARAWAK AND BRITISH NORTH BORNEO
(1896), vol. ii.
8. Nieuwenhuis, Dr. A. W., IN CENTRAL BORNEO (1900). vol. i.
9. Nieuwenhuis, Dr. A. W., QUER DURCH BORNEO (1904), vol. i.
10. Schwaner, Dr. C. A. L. M., BORNEO (1853 -- 54); cf. Ling Roth,
vol. ii. pp. cxci to cxcv.
11. Whitehead, J., EXPLORATION OF MOUNT KINA BALU, NORTH BORNEO (1893).
Brief references to tatu will also be found in the writings of Burns,
Brooke Low, MacDougall, De Crespigny, Hatton, St. John, Witti, and
others, but notices of all these will be found in Mr. Ling Roth's
volumes.
Explanation of Plates.
Plate 136.
Fig. 1. -- Kayan dog design (UDOH ASU) for thighs of men. From a
tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.104.)
Fig. 2. -- Uma Balubo Kayan dog design. From a tatu-block in the
Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.90.)
Fig. 3. -- Sea Dayak scorpion design (KELINGAI KALA) for thigh, arm, or
breast of men. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.99.)
Fig. 4. -- Kenyah dog design, copied from a Kayan model. From a
tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.108.)
Fig. 5. -- Kayan dog design. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1054.106.)
Fig. 6. -- Kayan dog design. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1054.88.)
Fig. 7. -- Kayan double dog design for outside of thigh of man. From
a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.31.)
Fig. 8. -- Kayan designs of dog with pups (TUANG NGANAK). A=pup. For
thigh of man. From a tatu-block in Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.57.)
Fig. 9. -- Kenyah jaws of centipede design (LIPAN KATIP), for
breast or shoulder of man. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1054.20.)
Fig. 10. -- Kenyah crab design (TOYU). A=mouth (BA), B=claw (KATIP),
C=back (LIKUT), D=tail (IKONG). From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1054.71.)
Plate 137.
Fig. 1. -- Sea Dayak modification of the dog design. From a tatu-block
in the Sarawak Museum.(No. 1054.102.)
Fig. 2. -- (No. 1054.101.)
Fig. 3. -- (No. 1054.67.)
Fig. 4. -- (No. 1054.109.)
Fig. 5. -- (No. 1054.70.)
Fig. 6. -- But known as "scorpion" (KALA) pattern.From a tatu-block
in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.69.)
Fig. 7. -- Barawan and Kenyah modification of the dog design,
known as "hook" (KOWIT) pattern. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1054.63.)
Fig. 8. -- (No. 1054.75.)
Fig. 9. -- Kenyah modification of the dog design, but known as the
"prawn" (ORANG) pattern. From
a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.89.)
Plate 138.
Fig. 1. -- Kayan three-line pattern (IDA TELO) for back of
thigh of woman of slave class. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 166A Brooke Low Coll.)
Fig. 2. -- Kayan four-line pattern (IDA PAT) for back of thigh of woman
of middle class. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1434.)
Fig. 3. -- Kayan (Rejang R.) three-line pattern (IDA TELO) for back
of thigh of women of upper and middle classes. From a tatu-block in
the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.2.)
Fig. 4. -- Kayan (Uma Pliau) design for front and sides of thigh
of high class women. A = TUSHUN TUVA, tuba root; B = JALAUT, fruit
of PLUKENETIA CORNICULATA; D = KOWIT, interlocking hooks. From a
tatu-block in coll. C. Hose.
Fig. 5. -- Kayan design for front of thigh of woman of high class. A
= TUSHUN TUVA; B = DULANG HAROK, bows of a boat; C = ULU TINGGANG,
hornbill's head; D = BELILING BULAN, full moons. From a tatu-block
in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1432.)
Fig. 6. -- Barawan design for the shoulder or breast of men. From
a drawing.
Fig. 7. -- Design of uncertain origin, on the calf of the leg of an
Ukit man.
Plate 139.
Fig. 1. -- Kayan (Rejang R.) design known as IDA TUANG or IDA LIMA for
back of thigh of women of high rank. Note the hornbill heads at the
top of the design. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 166D
Brooke Low Coll.)
Fig. 2. -- Kayan (Rejang R.) design; compare with Figs. 5 and 11. From
a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 166C Brooke Low Coll.)
Fig. 3. -- Long Glat hornbill design (after Nieuwenhuis). This is
tatued in rows down the front and sides of the thigh.
Fig. 4. -- Kayan (?) hornbill design, known, however, as the "dog
without a tail" (TUANG BUVONG ASU). From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1054.8.)
Fig. 5. -- Kayan (Rejang R.) tatu design known as "dog without a tail"
(TUANG BUVONG ASU) pattern, for front and sides of thigh of women
of high rank. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 166G,
Brooke Low Coll.)
Fig. 6. -- Kayan three-line and four-line design (IDA TELO and IDA
PAT) for back of thigh of women of low class. From a tatu-block in
the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1435.)
Fig. 7. -- Uma Lekan Kayan anthropomorphic design (SILONG), tatued
in rows down front and sides of thigh.
Fig. 8. -- Kayan bead (LUKUT) design, tatued on the wrist of men.
Fig. 9. -- ,, ,, ,,
Fig. 10. -- ,, ,, ,, From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No.
1054.62.)
Fig. 11. -- Portion of Uma Lekan Kayan design for back of thigh of
women of high rank (after Nieuwenhuis).
Plate 140.
Fig. 1. -- Tatu design on the forearm of an Uma Lekan Kayan woman
of high rank. From a rubbing of a carved wooden model in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1398.)
Fig. 2. -- Tatu design on the thigh of an Uma Lekan Kayan woman of
high rank. From a rubbing of a carved wooden model in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1398.)
Fig. 3. -- Tatu design on the forearm of an Uma Phan Kayan woman
of high rank. A = BELILING BULAN, full moons; B = DULANG HAROK,
bows of a boat; C = KAWIT, hooks; D = DAUN WI, leaves of rattan; E =
TUSHUN TUVA, bundles of tuba root. From a carved wooden model in the
Sarawak Museum. (No. 1431.)
Fig. 4. -- Kenyah design, representing the open fruit of a species
of mango (IPA OLIM), tatued on breasts or shoulders of men. From a
tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.14.)
Fig. 5. -- Kayan (Baloi R.) KALANG KOWIT or hook design for back
of thigh of woman of high rank. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak
Museum. (No. 1054.54.)
Plate 141.
Fig. 1. -- Design on the hand of a Skapan chief tatued in the Kayan
manner. From a drawing.
Fig. 2. -- Design on the arm of a Peng man. From a drawing by
Dr. H. Hiller of Philadelphia.
Fig. 3. -- Design on the arm of a Kabayan man. From a drawing by
Dr. H. Hiller of Philadelphia.
Fig. 4. -- Design on the forearm of a Lepu Lutong woman. From
a drawing.
Fig. 5. -- Design on the forearm of a Long Utan woman. From a rubbing
of a carved model in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1430.)
Fig. 6. -- Design on the thigh of a Long Utan woman. From a rubbing
of a carved model in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1426.)
Fig. 7. -- Kenyah design, representing the DURIAN fruit (USONG DIAN),
tatued on the breasts or shoulders of men. From a tatu-block in the
Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.17.)
Plate 142.
Fig. 1. -- Tatu design on the forearm of a Kalabit woman. From
a drawing.
Fig. 2. -- Tatu design on front of leg of a Kalabit woman. C = BETIK
LULUD, shin pattern. From a photograph.
Fig. 3. -- Tatu design on back of leg of a Kalabit woman. A = BETIK
BUAH, fruit pattern; B = BETIK LAWA, trunk pattern. From a drawing.
Fig. 4. -- Tatu design on front of leg of the same Kalabit woman. D =
BETIK KARAWIN; E = UJAT BATU, hill-tops. From a drawing.
Fig. 5. -- Tatu design on the forearm of an Uma Long woman. From
a drawing.
Fig. 6. -- Tatu design on arms and torso of a Biajau man of low
class. From a drawing by a Maloh.
Fig. 7. -- Tatu design on leg of Biajau man of low class. From a
drawing by a Maloh.
Fig. 8. -- Tatu design on shin of Biajau woman of low class. From a
drawing by a Maloh.
Fig. 9. -- Kajaman design representing the fruit of PLUKENETIA
CORNICULATA (JALAUT), tatued on the breasts or shoulders of men. From
a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. (No. 1054.21.)
Fig. 10. -- Tatu design on the biceps of an Ukit man, said to represent
a bead (LUKUT). From a drawing.
Plate 143.
Fig. 1. -- Design (GEROWIT, hooks) tatued on the breast of a Bakatan
man. From a tatu-block in the collection of H.H. the Rajah of Sarawak.
Fig. 2. -- ,,
Fig. 3. -- Design (AKIH, tree gecko) tatued on the shoulder of a
Bakatan man. From a drawing.
Fig. 4. -- ,,
Fig. 5. -- Design tatued on the calf of the leg of an Ukit. From
a photograph.
Fig. 6. -- Tatu design on the foot of a Kayan woman of low class. From
a drawing.
Fig. 7. -- Design representing an antique bead (LUKUT), tatued on
the wrist of a Bakatan girl. From a drawing.
Fig. 8. -- Design (GEROWIT) tatued on the metacarpals of a Bakatan
girl. From a drawing.
Fig. 9. -- Design (KANAK, circles) on the back of a Bakatan man. From
a tatu-block.
Fig. 10. -- Design (GEROWIT) tatued on the throat of a Bakatan
man. From a photograph.
CHAPTER 13
Ideas of Spiritual Existences and the Practices Arising From Them
The Kayans believe themselves to be surrounded by many intelligent
powers capable of influencing their welfare for good or ill. Some of
these are embodied in animals or plants, or are closely connected with
other natural objects, such as mountains, rocks, rivers, caves; or
manifest themselves in such processes as thunder, storm, and disease,
the growth of the crops and disasters of various kinds. There can be
no doubt that some of these powers are conceived anthropomorphically;
for some of them are addressed by human titles, are represented by
carvings in human form, and enjoy, in the opinion of the Kayans,
most of the characteristically human attributes.
Others are conceived more vaguely, the bodily and mental characters
of man are attributed to them less fully and definitely; and it is
probably true to say that these powers, all of which, it would seem,
must be admitted to be spiritual powers (if the word spiritual is
used in a wide sense as denoting whatever power is fashioned in the
likeness of human will and feeling and intelligence), range from the
anthropomorphic being to the power which resides in the seed grain and
manifests itself in its growth and multiplication, and which seems to
be conceived merely as a vital principle, virtue, or energy inherent
in the grain, rather than as an intelligent and separable soul.[88]
It has been said of some peoples of lowly culture that they have no
conception of merely mechanical causation, and that every material
object is regarded by them as animated in the same sense as among
ourselves common opinion regards the higher animals as animated. On
the difficult question whether such a statement is true of any people
we will not presume to offer an opinion; but we do not think that it
could be truthfully made about any of the peoples of Borneo. It would
be absurd to deny all recognition or knowledge of mechanical causation
to people who show so much ingenuity in the construction of houses,
boats, weapons, and a great variety of mechanical devices, such as
traps, and in other operations involving the intelligent application
of mechanical principles. These operations show that, though they
may be incapable of describing in abstract and general terms the
principles involved, they nevertheless have a nice appreciation of
them. If a trap fails to work owing to its faulty construction, the
trapper treats it purely as a mechanical contrivance and proceeds
to discover and rectify the faulty part. It is true that in this
and numberless similar situations a man's movements may be guided by
his observation of omens; but if, after obtaining good omens, he has
success in trapping, he does not attribute the successful operation of
the trap to any, activity other than its purely mechanical movements;
though it may be, and probably in some such cases is, true that the
Kayan believes the omen bird to have somehow intervened to direct
the animal towards the trap, or to prevent the animal being warned
against it. The Kayan hangs upon the tomb the garments and weapons
and other material possessions of the dead man;[89] and it would seem
that he believes that some shadowy duplicate of each such object is
thereby placed at the service of the ghost of the dead man. This, it
might be argued, shows that he attributes to each such inert material
object a soul, whose relation to the object is analogous to that of the
human soul to the body. But such an inference, we think, would not be
justified. As with the Homeric Greeks, the principle of intelligence
and life is not to be altogether identified with the ghost, or shade,
or shadowy duplicate of the human form that is conceived to travel to
the Kayan Hades. The soul seems to be rather an inextended invisible
principle; for, as the procedure of the soul-catcher[90] shows, it
is regarded as capable of being contained within, or attached to,
almost any small object, living or inert. It would seem, then, that
after death the visible ghost or shade of a man incorporates and is
animated by the soul; and that the visible shade of inert objects is,
like themselves, inert and inanimate.
There is, then, no good reason to suppose that the Kayans attribute
life, soul, or animation to inert material objects; and they do not
explain the majority of physical events animistically.
The spiritual powers or spirits may, we think be conveniently regarded
as of three principal classes: --
(1) There are the anthropomorphic spirits thought of as dwelling in
remote and vaguely conceived regions and as very powerful to intervene
in human life. Towards these the attitude of the Kayans is one of
supplication and awe, gratitude and hope, an attitude which is properly
called reverential and is the specifically religious attitude. These
spirits must be admitted to be gods in a very full sense of the word,
and the practices, doctrines, and emotions centred about these spirits
must be regarded as constituting a system of religion.
(2) A second class consists of the spirits of living and deceased
persons, and of other anthropomorphically conceived spirits which,
as regards the nature and extent of their powers, are more nearly on
a level with the human spirits than those of the first class. Such
are those embodied in the omen animals and in the domestic pig, fowl,
dog, in the crocodile, and possibly in the tiger-cat and a few other
animals.
(3) The third class is more heterogeneous, and comprises all the
spirits or impalpable intelligent powers that do not fall into one or
other of the two preceding classes; such are the spirits very vaguely
conceived as always at hand, some malevolent, some good; such also
are the spirits which somehow are attached to the heads hung up in
the houses. The dominant emotion in the presence of these is fear;
and the attitude is that of avoidance and propitiation.
The Gods
The Kayans recognise a number of gods that preside over great
departments of their lives and interests. The more important of
these are the god of war, TOH BULU; three gods of life, LAKI JU URIP,
LAKI MAKATAN URIP, and LAKI KALISAI URIP, of whom the first is the
most important; the god of thunder and storms, LAKI BALARI and his
wife OBENG DOH; the god of fire, LAKI PESONG; gods of the harvest,
ANYI LAWANG and LAKI IVONG; a god of the lakes and rivers, URAI UKA;
BALANAN, the god of madness; TOH KIHO, the god of fear; LAKI KATIRA
MUREI and LAKI JUP URIP, who conduct the souls of the dead to Hades.
Beside or above all these is LAKI TENANGAN, a god more powerful
than all the rest, to whom are assigned no special or departmental
functions. He seems to preside or rule over the company of lesser
gods, much as Zeus and Jupiter ruled over the lesser gods of the
ancient Greeks and Romans.
The Kayans seem to have no very clear and generally accepted dogmas
about these gods. Some assert that they dwell in the skies, but
others regard them as dwelling below the surface of the earth. The
former opinion is in harmony with the practice of erecting a tree
before the house with its branches buried in the ground and the root
upturned when prayers are made on behalf of the whole house; for the
tree seems to be regarded as in some sense forming a ladder or path of
communication with the superior powers. The same opinion seems to be
expressed in the importance attached to fire and smoke in prayer and
ritual. Fire, if only in the form of a lighted cigarette, is always
made when prayers are offered; it seems to be felt that the ascending
smoke facilitates in some way the communication with the gods.
While some gods, those of war and life, of harvest and of fire, are
distinctly friendly, others, namely, the gods of madness and fear,
are terrible and malevolent; while the god of thunder and those that
conduct the souls to Hades do not seem to be predominantly beneficent
or malevolent.
LAKI TENANGAN seems to be the supreme being of the Kayan universe. He
is conceived as beneficent and, as his title LAKI implies, as a
fatherly god who protects mankind. He is not a strictly tribal god, for
the Kayan admits his identity with PA SILONG, and with BALI PENYLONG,
the supreme gods of the Klemantans and Kenyahs respectively. In this,
we think, the Kayan religion shows a catholicity which gives it a
claim to rank very high among all religious systems.
LAKI TENANGAN has a wife, DOH TENANGAN, who, though of less importance
than himself, is specially addressed by the women. The god is addressed
by name in terms of praise and supplication; the prayers seem to be
transmitted to him by means of the souls of domestic pigs or fowls;[91]
for one of these is always killed and charged to carry the prayer
to the god. At the same time a fire is invariably at hand and plays
some part in the rite; the ascending smoke seems to play some part
in the establishment of communication with the god. As an example
of a prayer we give the following. The supplicant, having killed a
pig and called the messengers of the god, cries, "Make my child live
that I may bring him up with me in my occupations. You are above all
men. Protect us from whatever sickness is abroad. If I put you above
my head, all men look up to me as to a high cliff."
Similar rites are observed on addressing DOH TENANGAN. The following
was given us as an example, "Oh! DOH TENANGAN, have pity upon me;
I am ill -- make me strong to-morrow and able to find my food."
The Kayans are not clear whether Laki Tenangan is the creator of the
world. He does not figure in the Kayan creation myth.[92] There seems
to be no doubt about his supremacy over the other gods; these are
sometimes asked by Kayans to intercede with him on their behalf.[93]
As regards the minor departmental gods, it is difficult to draw the
line between them and the spirits of the third class distinguished
above. All of them are approached at times with prayers and with
rites similar to those used in addressing LAKI TENANGAN. Several
wooden posts, very roughly carved to indicate the head and, limbs
of a human form, stand before every Kayan house. When the gods are
addressed on behalf of the whole household, as before or after an
important expedition, the ceremony usually takes place before one
of these rudely carved posts.[94] But the post cannot be called an
idol. It is more of the nature of an altar. No importance attaches
to the mere posts, which are often allowed to fall away and decay and
are renewed as required. A similar post may be hastily fashioned and
set up on the bank of the river, if a party at a distance from home
has special occasion for supplication.
An altar of a rather different kind is also used in communicating
with the gods. It seems to be used especially in returning thanks for
recovery of health after severe illness. It consists of a bamboo some
four or five feet in length fixed upright in the ground. The upper
end is split by two cuts at right angles to one another, and a fresh
fowl's egg is inserted between the split ends (Pl. 145). Leaves of
the LONG, (a species of CALADIUM), a plant grown on the PADI field
for this purpose, are hung upon the post. These leaves serve merely
to signalise the fact that some rite is going forward; they are also
hung, together with a large sun hat, upon the door of any room in
which a person lies seriously ill, to make it known as LALI or tabu;
and in general they seem to be used to mark a spot as pervaded by
some spiritual influence, or, in short, as "unclean." The bodies
of fowls and pigs sacrificed in the course of the rites performed
before such an altar-post are generally hung upon sharpened stakes
driven into the ground before it, I.E. between it and the house,
towards which the post, in the case of posts of the former kind,
invariably faces; and the frayed sticks commonly used in such rites
are hung upon the altar-post. Such posts are sometimes fenced in,
but this is by no means always the case (Pl. 144).
The Kayans seek to read in the behaviour of the omen birds and in the
entrails of the slaughtered pigs and fowls indications of the way in
which the gods responds to their prayers. For they regard the true omen
birds as the trusty messengers of the gods. After slaughtering the pigs
or fowls to whose charge they have committed their petitions, they
examine their entrails in the hope of discovering the answer of the
gods; and at the same time they tell off two or three men to look for
omens from the birds of the jungle.[95] If the omens first obtained are
bad, more fowls and pigs are usually killed and omens again observed;
and in an important matter, E.G. the illness of a beloved child,
the process may be repeated many times until satisfactory omens are
forthcoming. Whatever may have been the origin and history of such
rites, it seems to be quite clear that the slaughtering of these
animals is regarded as an act of sacrifice in the ordinary sense
of the word, I.E. as an offering or gift of some valued possession
to the spiritual powers; for, although on some occasions a pig so
slaughtered is eaten, those stuck upon stakes before the altar-post
are left to rot; and the idea of sacrificing, or depriving oneself of,
a valued piece of property is clearly expressed on such occasions in
other ways; E.G. a woman will break a bead of great value when her
prayers for the restoration to health of a child remain unanswered,
or on such an occasion a woman may cut off her hair.[96]
The custom of approaching and communicating with the gods through the
medium of the omen birds, seems to be responsible in large measure
for the fact that the gods themselves are but dimly conceived,
and are not felt to be in intimate and sympathetic relations with
their worshippers. The omen birds seem to form not only a medium of
communication, but also, as it were, a screen which obscures for the
people the vision of their gods. As in many analogous instances,
the intercessors and messengers to whose care the messages are
committed assume in the eyes of the people an undue importance;
the god behind the omen bird is apt to be almost lost sight of,
and the bird itself tends to become an object of reverence, and to
be regarded as the recipient of the prayer and the dispenser of the
benefits which properly he only foretells or announces.[97]
We have little information bearing upon the origin and history of
these Kayan gods. But a few remarks may be ventured. The names of
many of the minor deities are proper personal names in common use
among the Kayans or allied tribes, such as JU, BALARI, ANYI, IVONG,
URAI, UKA; and the title LAKI, by which several of them are addressed,
is the title of respect given to old men who are grandfathers. These
facts suggest that these minor gods may be deified ancestors of great
chiefs, and this suggestion is supported by the following facts: --
First, a recently deceased chief of exceptional capacity and influence
becomes not infrequently the object of a certain cult among Klemantans
and Sea Dayaks. Men will go to sleep beside his grave or tomb, hoping
for good dreams and invoking the aid of the dead chief in acquiring
health, or wealth, or whatever a man most desires. Sea Dayaks sometimes
fix a tube of bamboo leading from just above the eyes of the corpse
to the surface of the ground; they will address the dead man with
their lips to the orifice of the tube, and will drop into it food
and drink and silver coins. A hero who is made the object of such a
cult is usually buried in an isolated spot on the crest of a hill;
and such a grave is known as RARONG.
Secondly, all Kayans, men and women alike, invoke in their prayers the
aid of ODING, LAHANGand his intercession with LAKI TENANGAN. That they
regard the former as having lived as a great chief is clearly proved
by the following facts: firstly, many Kayans of the upper class claim
to, be his lineal descendants; secondly, a well-known myth,[98] of
which several variants are current, describes his miraculous advent
to the world; thirdly, he is regarded by Kayans, Kenyahs, and many
Klemantans as the founder of their race.
The Kenyahs also invoke in their prayers several spirits who seem,
like ODIN LAHANG, to be regarded as deceased members of their tribe;
such are TOKONG and UTONG, and PA BALAN and PLIBAN. From all these
descent is claimed by various Kenyah and Klemantan sub-tribes; and
that they are regarded as standing higher in the spiritual hierarchy
than recently deceased chiefs, is shown by the prefix BALI,[99]
commonly given to their names, whereas this title or designation is
not given to recently deceased chiefs; to their names the word URIP
is prefixed by both Kayans and Kenyahs. The word URIP, means life or
living; the exact meaning of this prefix in this usage is obscure,
possibly it expresses the recognition that the men spoken of are,
though dead, still in some sense alive.
A further link in this chain of evidence is afforded by the Kenyah
god of thunder, BALINGO. This spirit, it would seem, must be classed
among the departmental deities, being strictly the Kenyah equivalent
of LAKI BALARI of the Kayans; and all the Kenyahs and many Klemantans
seem to claim some special relation to BALINGO,[100] while one Madang
(Kenyah) chief at least claims direct descent from him.[101]
The last mentioned instance completes the series of cases forming a
transition from the well remembered dead chief to the departmental
deity, the existence of which series lends colour to the view that
these minor gods have been evolved from deceased chiefs. The weakness
of this evidence consists in the fact that the series of cases
is drawn from a number of tribes, and is not, so far as we know,
completely illustrated by the customs or beliefs of any one tribe.
There is, then, some small amount of evidence indicating that the minor
gods are deified ancestors, whose kinship with their worshippers has
been forgotten completely in some cases, less completely in others. If
this supposition could be shown to be true, it would afford a strong
presumption in favour of the view that LAKI TENANGAN also has had
a similar history, and that he is but PRIMUS INTER PARES. For among
the Kayans, as we have seen, a large village acknowledges a supreme
chief as well as the chiefs of the several houses of the village;
and in the operations of war on a large scale, a supreme war chief
presides over a council of lesser chiefs. And it is to be expected
that the social system of the superior powers should be modelled upon
that of the people who acknowledge them.
On the other hand, none of the facts, noted in connection with
the minor gods as indicating their ancestral origin, are found to
be true of LAKI TENANGAN, except only his bearing the title LAKI,
which, as we have seen, is the title by which a man is addressed as
soon as he becomes a grandfather. The name TENANGAN is not a proper
name borne by any Kayans, nor, so far as we know, does it occur
amongst the other peoples. LAKI in Malay means a male. The name is
possibly connected with the Kayan word TENANG which means correct,
or genuine. The termination AN is used in several instances in Malay
(though not in Kayan) to make a substantive of an adjective. The name
then possibly means -- he who is correct or all-knowing; but this is
a very speculative suggestion.
It is possible that the Kayans owe their conception of a supreme
god to their contact. with the Mohammedans. But this is rendered
very improbable by the facts: firstly, that the Kayans have had
such intercourse during but a short period in Borneo, probably not
more than 300 years, (though they may have had such intercourse at
an earlier period before entering Borneo); secondly, that among the
Sea Dayaks, who have had for at least 150 years much more abundant
intercourse with the Mohammedans of Borneo than the Kayans have had,
the conception has not taken root and has not been assimilated.
The Kenyah gods and the beliefs and practices centering about them
are very similar to those of the Kayans. This people also recognises
a principal god or Supreme Being, whose name is BALI PENYLONG, and a
number of minor deities presiding over special departments of nature
and human life. The Kenyahs recognise the following minor deities:
BALI ATAP protects the house against sickness and attack, and is
called upon in cases of madness to expel the evil spirit possessing
the patient. A rude wooden image of him stands beside the gangway
leading to the house from the river's brink; it holds a spear in
the right hand, a shield in the left; it carries about its neck a
fringed collar made up of knotted strips of rattan; the head of each
room ties on one such strip, making on it a knot for each member of
his roomhold. Generally a wooden image of a hawk, BALI FLAKI, stands
beside it on the top of a tall pole.
The Kenyahs carve such images more elaborately than the Kayans, who
are often content merely to indicate the eyes, mouth, and four limbs,
by slashing away with the sword chips of wood from the surface of the
log, leaving gashes at the points roughly corresponding in position
to these organs. The Kenyahs treat these rude images with rather more
care than do the Kayans; and they associate them more strictly with
particular deities. The children of the house are not allowed to
touch such an image, after it has been once used as an altar post;
it is only when it is so used, and blood of fowls or pigs sprinkled
upon it, that it seems to acquire its uncleanness."[102]
BALI UTONG brings prosperity to the house. BALI URIP is the god of
life; he too has a carved altarpost, generally crowned with a brass
gong. BALINGO is the god of thunder.
BALI SUNGEI is the name given to a being which perhaps cannot
properly be called a god. He is thought of as embodied in a huge
serpent or dragon living at the bottom of the river; he is supposed
to cause the violent swirls and uprushes of water that appear on the
surface in times of flood. He is regarded with fear; and is held to be
responsible for the upsetting of boats and drownings in the river. It
is not clear that he is the spirit of the river itself; for floods and
the various changes of the river do not seem to be attributed to him.
BALI PENYALONG, like Laki Tenangen, has a wife BUNGAN. She is not
so distinctly the special deity of the women folk as is DOH TENANGAN
among the Kayans.
A special position in the Kenyah system is occupied by BALI FLAKI,
the carrion hawk, which is the principal omen bird observed during
the preparation for and conduct of war. Something will be said of
the cult of BALI FLAKI in a later chapter; but we would note here
that this bird is peculiar among the many omen-birds of the Kenyahs,
in that an altar-post before the house is assigned to him, or at
least one of the posts rudely carved to suggest the human figure is
specially associated with BALI FLAKI, and in some cases is surmounted
by a wooden image of the hawk. It seems to us probable that in this
case the Kenyahs have carried further the tendency we noted in the
Kayans to allow the omen birds to figure so prominently in their
rites and prayers as to obscure the gods whose messengers they are;
and that BALI FLAKI has in this way driven into the background, and
more or less completely taken the place of, a god of war whose name
even has been forgotten by many of the Kenyahs, if not by all of them.
Peculiar adjuncts of the altar-posts of the Kenyahs are the DRACAENA
plant (whose deep red leaves are generally to be seen growing in a
clump not far from them) and a number of large spherical stones,
BATU TULOI. These are perpetual possessions of the house. Their
history is unknown; they are supposed to grow gradually larger and to
move spontaneously when danger threatens the house. When a household
removes and builds for itself a new home, these stones are carried
with some ceremony to the new site (Pl. 144).
We reproduce here a passage from a paper published by us some ten
years ago[103] in which we ventured to speculate on the development
of the Kenyah belief in a Supreme Being.
We cannot conclude without saying something as to, the possible
origin of their conception of a beneficent Being more powerful
than all others, who sends guidance and warnings by the omen birds,
and receives and answers the prayers carried to him by the souls of
the fowls and pigs. It might be thought that this conception of a
beneficent Supreme Being has been borrowed directly or indirectly
from the Malays. But we do not think that this view is tenable
in face of the fact that, while the conception is a living belief
among the Madangs, a Kenyah tribe that inhabits a district in the
remotest interior and has had no intercourse with Malays, the Ibans,
who have had far more intercourse with the Malays than have the Kayans
and Kenyahs, yet show least trace of this conception. As Archdeacon
Perham has written of the Ibans, there are traces of the belief in
one supreme God which suggest that the idea is one that has been
prevalent, but has now almost died out. We are inclined to suppose
that the tribes of the interior, such as the Kenyahs and Kayans, have
evolved the conception for themselves, and that in fact Bali Penyalong
of the Kenyahs is their god of war exalted above all others by the
importance of the department of human activity over which he presides;
for we have seen that they had been led to conceive other gods --
Balingo, the god of thunder, Bali Sungei, the god of the rivers,
whose anger is shown by the boiling flood, and Bali Atap, who keeps
harm from the house, while the Kayans have gods of life, a god of
harvesting, and other departmental deities. It seems to us that the
only difficult step in such a simple and direct evolution of the idea
of a beneficent Supreme Being is the conception of gods or spirits that
perform definite functions, such as Bali Atap, who guards the house,
and the gods that preside over harvesting and war, as distinct from
such gods or nature-spirits as Balingo and Bali Sungei. But there
seems to be no doubt that this step has been taken by these peoples,
and that these various gods of abstract function have been evolved by
them. And it seems to us that, were a god of war once conceived, it
would be inevitable that, among communities whose chief interest is war
and whose prosperity and very existence depend upon success in battle,
such a god of battles should come to predominate over all others,
and to claim the almost exclusive regard of his worshippers. Such a
predominance would be given the more easily to one god by these people,
because the necessity for strict subordination to their chiefs has
familiarised them with the principles of obedience of subjects to
a single ruler and of subordination of minor chiefs to a principal
chief; while the beneficence of the Supreme Being thus evolved would
inevitably result; for the god of battles must seem beneficent to
the victors, and among these people only the victors survive. Again,
this conception is one that undoubtedly makes for righteousness,
because it reflects the character of the people who, within the
community and the tribe, are decent, humane, and honest folk.
We are conscious of presumption in venturing to adopt the view that
the conception of a beneficent Supreme Being may possibly be neither
the end nor the beginning of religion, neither the final result of
an evolution, euhemeristic, totemistic, or other, prolonged through
countless ages and generations, nor part of the stock-in-trade of
primitive man mysteriously acquired. Yet we are disposed to regard
this conception as one that, amid the perpetual flux of opinion and
belief which obtains among peoples destitute of written records,
may be comparatively rapidly and easily arrived at under favourable
conditions (such as seem to be afforded by tribes like the Kenyahs
and Kayans, warlike prosperous tribes subordinated to strong chiefs),
and may as rapidly fall into neglect with change of social conditions;
and we suggest that it may then remain as a vestige in the minds of a
few individuals only to be discerned by curious research, as among the
Ibans or the Australian blacks, until another turn of Fortune's wheel,
perhaps the birth of some overmastering personality or a revival of
national or tribal vigour, gives it a new period of life and power.
We still regard as highly plausible the view suggested in this
passage. We would add to what we have written only a few words in
explanation of what may seem to be a difficulty in the way of this
view. It was mentioned above that the Kayans recognise a god of war,
TOH BULU. This fact may seem incompatible with the view that the idea
of LAKI TENANGAN has been reached by exalting the god of war above
his fellow-departmental deities; but it is not, we think, a fatal
objection. For TOH BULU seems to be a god of but small account with
the Kayans; his name figures but little in their rites; and the name
itself indicates his subordinate position; for TOH is, as we have
seen, the generic name for spirits of minor importance, and BULU is
the Kayan word for feather; TOH BULU, literally translated, is then
the feather-spirit or spirit of the feathers. It seems possible,
therefore, that TOH BULU was nothing more than the spirit concerned
with the hornbill's feathers, which are the emblems or badges of
acknowledged prowess in battle; and that with the exaltation of the
original god of war above his fellows, this minor spirit concerned
in warfare has acquired a larger sphere and importance.
With the Kenyahs similar processes, we suggest, have led to
the exaltation of BALI PENYALONG, the original god of war, into
the position of the Supreme Being, and of BALI FLAKI, his special
messenger, into the position, or almost into the position, of the god
of war. This view derives, we think, considerable support from the
fact that the Kenyahs recognise no special god of war; and in view of
their tendency to create deities to preside over each of the great
departments of nature and of human activity, the absence from their
system of a special god of war requires some special explanation such
as we have offered above.
The Klemantan gods are more numerous and more vaguely conceived,
and the whole system seems more confused than that of the Kayans or
Kenyahs. It is probable that the Klemantan tribes have borrowed freely
from these more powerful neighbours. Many of them are very skilful in
wood-carving, and it is probably largely owing to this circumstance
that they make a larger number of images in human form. Some of these
are kept in the house, while others stand before the house like those
before the Kayan houses. The former are generally more highly regarded,
and it is before them that their rites are generally performed. It
seems not improbable that these stand for the gods proper to these
people, and those outside the house for the borrowed gods.
The supernatural beliefs and cults of the Sea Dayaks differ so widely
from those described above that we think it best to bring together
in one place (vol. ii., p. 85) what we have to say about them.
The Lesser Spirits of Ill-defined Nature
In the second of the three classes of spiritual beings distinguished
above (vol. ii., p. 4) we put the souls of men and of some of the
animals. Some account of beliefs connected with these will be given
in the following two chapters. We conclude this chapter by describing
the spirits of the third class, spirits or intelligent powers vaguely
conceived, of minor importance, but imperfectly individualised and not
regularly envisaged in any visible forms or embodied in any material
objects. The generic Kayan name for spirits of this class is TOH. All
the spirits of this class seem to be objects of fear, to be malevolent,
or, at least, easily offended and capable of bringing misfortunes of
all kinds upon human beings.
The most important of these TOH are perhaps those associated with the
dried human heads that hang in every house. It seems that these spirits
are not supposed to be those of the persons from whose shoulders
the heads have been taken. Yet they seem to be resident in or about
the heads, though not inseparable from them. They are said to cause
the teeth of the heads to be ground together if they are offended or
dissatisfied, as by neglect of the attentions customarily paid to the
heads or by other infringement of custom. The heads are thus supposed
to be animated by the TOH; if a head falls, through the breaking of
the rattan by which it is suspended, it is said to have thrown itself
down, being dissatisfied owing to insufficient attention having been
paid to it. This animation of the heads by the TOH is illustrated by
the treatment accorded by the people to the heads from the time they
are brought into the house. Having been dried and smoked in a small
hut made for the purpose, they are brought up to the house with loud
rejoicings and singing of the war chorus. For this ceremony all members
of the village are summoned from the fields and the jungle, and,
when all are assembled in the houses, every one puts off the mourning
garments which have been worn by all since the death of the chief for
whose funeral rites the heads have been sought. Everyone having donned
the ordinary attire, the men carry the heads in procession adorned
with DAUN SILAT, the dried and frayed leaves of a palm, before one
of the altar posts that stand between the house and the river. There
fowls and pigs are sacrificed in the usual way, and their blood is
scattered upon the assembled men with a wisp of shredded palmleaves.
Then the procession carries the heads into the house and up and down
the gallery. The men dressed in their war coats, carrying shields and
swords, drawn up in a long line, sing the war chorus, and go through
a peculiar evolution, known as SEGA LUPAR. Each man keeps turning to
face his neighbours, first on one side, then on the other, with regular
steps in time with all the rest. This seems to symbolise the alertness
of the warriors on the war-path, looking in every direction. The
heads, which have been carried by old men, are then hung up over
the principal hearth on the beam on which the old heads are hanging;
they are suspended by means of a rattan, of which one end is knotted
and the other passed upward through the FORAMEN MAGNUM and a hole cut
in the top of the skull. After this the men sit down to drink, and
the chief describes the taking of the heads, eulogising the warrior
who drew first blood in each case, and who is credited with the glory
of the taking of the head. Then follows a big feast, in every room a
pig or fowl being killed and eaten; after which more BORAK is drunk,
the war chorus breaking out spontaneously at brief intervals. BORAK is
offered to the heads by pouring it into small bamboo cups suspended
beside them; and a bit of fat pork will be pushed into the mouth of
each. The heads, or rather the TOH associated with them, are supposed
to drink and eat these offerings. The fact that the bits of pork remain
unconsumed does not seem to raise any difficulty in the minds of the
Kayans; they seem to believe that the essence of the food is consumed.
At all times the heads hanging in the house are treated respectfully
and somewhat fearfully. When it is necessary to handle them, some old
man undertakes the task, and children especially are prevented from
touching them; for it is felt that to touch them involves the risk
of madness, brought on by the offended TOH or spirits of the heads.
The fire beneath the heads is always kept alight in order that they
shall be warm, and dry, and comfortable. On certain special occasions
they are offered BORAK and pork in the way mentioned above.
On moving to a new house the heads are temporarily lodged in a small
shelter built for the purpose, and are brought up into the house with
a ceremony like that which celebrates their first installation. The
Kayans do not care to have in the house more than twenty or thirty
heads, and are at some pains occasionally to get rid of some
superfluous heads -- a fact which shows clearly that the heads are
not mere trophies of valour and success in war. The moving to a new
house is the occasion chosen for reducing the number of heads. Those
destined to be left are hung in a hut built at some distance from
the house which is about to be deserted. A good fire is made in it
and kept up during the demolition of the great house, and when the
people depart they make up in the little head-house a fire designed
to last several days. It is supposed that, when the fire goes out,
the TOH of the heads notice the fact, and begin to suspect that they
are deserted by the people; when the rain begins to come in through
the roof their suspicions are confirmed, and the TOH set out to pursue
their deserters, but owing to the lapse of time and weather are unable
to track them. The people believe that in this way they escape the
madness which the anger of the deserted TOH would bring upon them.
The precautions described in the foregoing paragraph illustrate very
well the power for harm attributed to the TOH of the heads and the
fear with which they are regarded. Nevertheless these beings are not
wholly malevolent. it is held that in some way their presence in the
house brings prosperity to it, especially in the form of good crops;
and so essential to the welfare of the house are the heads held to be
that, if through fire a house has lost its heads and has no occasion
for war, the people will beg a head, or even a fragment of one,
from some friendly house, and will instal it in their own with the
usual ceremonies.
The TOH of the heads are but a few among many that are conceived
as surrounding the houses and infesting the tombs, the rivers, the
forests, the mountains, the caves, and, by those who live near the
coast, the sea; in fact every locality has its TOH, and, since they
are easily offended and roused to bring harm, the people are careful
to avoid offence and to practise every rite by which it is thought
possible to propitiate them. Death and sickness, especially madness,
accidental bodily injuries, failure of crops, in fact almost any
trouble may be ascribed to the malevolent action of Toh. Examples of
the way conduct is influenced by this belief are the following: --
In clearing a patch of jungle in preparation for sowing PADI, it is
usual to leave a few trees standing on some high point of the ground
in order not to offend the TOH of the locality by depriving them
of all the trees, which they are vaguely supposed to make use of as
resting-places. Such trees are sometimes stripped of all their branches
save a few at the top; and sometimes a pole is lashed across the stem
at a height from the ground and bunches of palm leaves hung upon it;
a "bull-roarer," which is used by boys as a toy, is sometimes hung
upon such a cross-piece to dangle and flicker in the breeze.[104]
Again, young children are held to be peculiarly subject to the
malevolent influence of the TOH. We have already mentioned that no
name is given to a child until it is two or three years of age, in
order to avoid attracting to it the attention of the TOH. For the same
reason the parents dislike any prominent person to touch an infant;
and if for any reason such contact has taken place, it is usual to
give the mother a few beads, which she ties about the wrist or ankle
of the child, "to preserve its homely smell" as they say, and so, it
would seem, avoid the risk of the TOH being attracted by the unusual
odour of the child. Parents who have lost several young children will
give to a child, when the time comes for naming it, some such name as
TAI (dung), or TAI MANOK (birds' dung), or JAAT (bad), in order that
it may have a better chance of escaping the unwelcome attention of
the TOH. If for any reason it is suspected that the attention of some
evil-disposed TOH has been drawn to a child (and the same practice is
sometimes observed by adults under similar circumstances), a sooty mark
is made upon the forehead, consisting of a vertical median line and
a horizontal band just above the eyebrows. This is thought to render
it difficult for the TOH to recognise his victim. Such a black mark is
worn more especially on going away from the house. Sea Dayaks sometimes
go farther under such circumstances. They place the new-born child in
a small boat and allow it to float down river, and standing upon the
bank call upon all the evil spirits to take the child at once, if they
mean to take it, in order that the parents may be spared the greater
bereavement of losing it some years later. If, after floating some
distance down stream, the child is found unhurt, it is carried home,
the parents feeling some confidence that it will be "spared" to grow up
Again, on going to the territory of people who have recently come to
friendly terms with their village, men will make a black mark across
the forehead with soot in order to disguise themselves from the TOH
of this region. In the main, although all regions are infested with
TOH those of the locality in which a man dwells are regarded by him as
less dangerous than those of other parts; for experience has shown him
that in the neighbourhood of his own village he may behave in certain
ways with impunity, whereas in distant regions all is uncertain. It
is for this reason that, when boys enter any river or branch of the
river for the first time, a special rite is performed. An old man
will take them apart from the company to some spot on the bank of
the river, and, calling all the spirits of the place, will ask them
to favour the boys and to give them vigorous life. An egg (which
on this occasion is spoken of only by the name OVE = sweet potato)
is offered to the spirits on behalf of each boy (or sometimes merely
a fowl's feather) by placing it in the split end of a bamboo stick
thrust into the ground. Not until this rite has been performed are
the boys considered to be safe in the strange region.
The more remote and inaccessible the region, the more are the TOH
of it feared; rugged hill tops and especially mountain tops are the
abodes of especially dangerous TOH, and it was only with difficulty
that parties of men could be induced to accompany us to the summits
of any of the mountains.
The influence of the TOH is not always pernicious; certain spots
become credited with the presence of TOH of benign influence. Thus,
tradition relates of a streamlet (Telang Ading) falling over the
rocky bank of the Baram river some little distance below the mouth
of the AKAR, that a wild pig recently killed with spears fell into
it and was allowed to lie there, and that after a little while it
jumped up and made off Through this event the streamlet has acquired a
great reputation, and passing boats generally stop in order that the
crews may splash some of the water on their heads and faces, and so
be cured of any ailments they may happen to have at the time. These
therapeutic effects are attributed to the TOH of the stream.
The TOH play a considerable part in regulating conduct; for they are
the powers that bring misfortunes upon a whole house or village when
any member of it ignores tabus or otherwise breaks customs, without
performing the propitiatory rites demanded by the occasion. Thus on
them, rather than on the gods, are founded the effective sanctions
of prohibitive rules of conduct. For the propitiation of offended
TOH fowls' eggs and the blood of fowls and of young pigs are used,
the explanations and apologies being offered generally by the chief
or some other influential person, while the blood is sprinkled on
the culprit or other source of offence.
The beliefs and practices of the Kenyahs and Klemantans in regard to
spirits of this class are very similar to those of the Kayans. They
designate them by the same general name, TOH.
We are doubtful whether the Sea Dayaks can properly be said to have any
religion. They believe in a number of mythical and legendary heroes in
whose honour they indulge in heavy feasting; but none of these seem
to be credited with the attributes of a god, or to evoke on the part
of the people the specifically religious emotions and attitudes --
awe, reverence, supplication, trust, gratitude, and hope. Their cult
of the PETARA seems to show traces of Javanese and Hindu influence or
origin. They believe in a multitude of ill-defined spirits which they
speak of as ANTU, and towards which their attitude is very similar
to that of the Kayans towards the TOH. Some further account of Iban
superstitions will be found in Chapter XV.
CHAPTER 14
Ideas of the Soul Illustrated by Burial Customs, Soul-Catching,
and Exorcism
As among ourselves, several very different systems for the cure of
sickness are practised among the Kayans, and these seem to imply
very different theories of the cause of disease. But the Kayans,
less consistent or more open-minded than ourselves, are not divided
into sects, each following one system of therapeutics, but rather the
various systems are held in honour by all the people, and one or the
other is applied according to the indications of each case. Thus,
bodily injuries received accidentally or in battle are treated
surgically by cupping, splints, bandaging, and so forth. Familiar
disorders, such as malarial fever, are treated medically, I.E. by
rest and drugs. Cases of severe pain of unknown origin are generally
attributed to the malign influence of some TOH,[105] and the method
of treatment is usually that of extraction.[106] Madness also is
generally attributed to possession by some TOH. But in cases of severe
illness of mysterious origin that seems to threaten to end mortally,
the theory generally adopted is that the patient's soul has left
his body, and the treatment indicated is therefore an attempt to
persuade the soul to return. The first two modes of treatment are not
considered to demand the skill of a specialist for their application,
but the third and fourth are undertaken only by those who have special
powers and knowledge.
Among the Kayans the professional soul-catcher, the DAYONG,
is generally a woman who has served a considerable period of
apprenticeship with some older member of the profession, after having
been admonished to take up this calling by some being met with in
dreams -- often a dream experienced during sickness. The DAYONG does
not necessarily confine his or her activities to this one calling;
for in a large village there are usually several DAYONGS, and the
occasions demanding their services recur at considerable intervals of
time. The relatives of the sick man usually prefer to call in a DAYONG
from some other village. The DAYONG is expected to make the diagnosis
and to determine upon the line of treatment to be practised. If
he decides that the soul or BLUA of the patient has left his body,
and has made some part of the journey towards the abode of departed
souls, his task is to fall into a trance and to send his own soul
to overtake that of his patient and to persuade it to return. The
ceremony is usually performed by torch-light in the presence of a
circle of interested relatives and friends, the patient being laid
in the midst in the long public gallery of the house.
The DAYONG struts to and fro chanting a traditional form of words
well known to the people, who join in the chorus at the close of each
phrase, responding with "BALI-DAYONG," [107] I.E. "Oh powerful DAYONG;"
the meaning and intention of this chorus seem to be that of the "Amen"
with which a Christian congregation associates itself with the prayer
offered by its pastor. For the chant with which the DAYONG begins his
operations is essentially a prayer for help addressed to LAKI TENANGAN,
or, in case of a woman, to DOH TEMANGAN also.
The DAYONG may or may not fall and lie inert upon the ground in the
course of his trance; but throughout the greater part of the ceremony
he continues to chant with closed eyes, describing with words and
mimic gestures the doings of his own soul as it follows after and
eventually overtakes that of the patient. When this point is reached
his gestures generally express the difficulty and the severity of
the efforts required to induce the soul to return; and the anxious
relatives then usually encourage him by bringing out gongs or other
articles of value, and depositing them as additions to the DAYONG'S
fee. Thus stimulated, he usually succeeds in leading back the soul
towards the patient's body. One feature of the ceremony, not quite
logically consistent with its general scheme, is that the DAYONG takes
in his hand a sword and, glancing at the polished blade with a startled
air, seems to catch in it a glimpse of the wandering soul.[108] The
next step is to restore the soul to the body. The DAYONG comes out
of his trance with the air of one who is suddenly transported from
distant scenes, and usually exhibits in his palm some small living
creature, or it may be merely a grain of rice, a pebble, or bit of
wood, in which the captured soul is in some sense contained. This he
places on the top of the patient's head, and by rubbing causes it to
pass into the head. The soul having been thus restored. to the body,
it is necessary to prevent it escaping again; and this is done by
tying a strip of palm-leaf about the patient's wrist.
A fowl is then killed, or, in very severe cases of sickness, a pig,
and its blood is sprinkled or wiped by means of the sword or knife
upon this confining bracelet. In mild cases the fowl may be merely
waved over the head of the patient without being killed. The DAYONG
then gives directions as to the MALAN (the tabus) to be observed by
the patient, especially in regard to articles of diet, and retires,
leaving his fee to be sent after him.
This ceremony clearly involves a curious confusion of symbolical and
descriptive acts, which are not ordered in strict consistency with any
clearly defined theory of the nature of the soul and of its relations
to the body, or of the exact nature of the task of the soul-catcher.
The catching of souls is practised in very similar fashion among all
the peoples of Borneo, even by the Punans, though the details of the
procedure differ from tribe to tribe.
Mental derangement is commonly attributed to possession by evil TOH,
and exorcism is practised among some of the tribes, but very little
by the Kayans, who generally content themselves with confining any
troublesome madman in a cage.
No doubt the catching of the soul does make strongly for the recovery
of the patient, through inspiring him with hope and confidence. But
it cannot always stave off death. If, in spite of the operations
of one soul-catcher, the patient's strength still sinks, some other
practitioner is usually called in for consultation. In the case of a
chief the help of three or even four may be invoked successively or
together; and the ceremony of catching the soul may be repeated again
and again with greater elaboration of detail, and may be prolonged
through many hours and even days with brief interruptions.
When all these efforts prove unavailing, despairing relatives sometimes
put the end of a blow-pipe to the dying or dead man's ear (or merely
their lips) and shout through it, "Come back, this is your home, here
we have food ready for you." Sometimes the departed soul is believed
to reply, "I am far from home, I am following a TOH and don't know
the way back."
If, in spite of all these efforts, the patient dies, a drum is loudly
beaten (or in case of a female a TAWAK) in order to announce the
decease to relatives and friends gone before, the number of strokes
depending upon the rank and sex of the departing spirit. The corpse
is kept in the house during a period which varies from one night for
people of the lower class, to three nights for middle class folk,
and ten days for a chief. During this time the dead man lies in
state. The corpse has a bead of some value under each eyelid;[109]
it is dressed in his finest clothes and ornaments, and is enclosed
within a coffin hollowed from a single log, the lid of which is sealed
with resin and lashed round with rattans.
The coffin is covered with a particular design in red and black and
white, and is placed in the gallery on a low platform, surrounded by
the most valuable personal property of the dead man, whose family will
take pains to make the display of property as imposing as possible. A
fire is kept burning near the coffin, and small packets of cooked
rice and of tobacco are placed upon it for the use of the dead man's
soul. Hundreds of cigarettes are hung in bundles about the platform
by people of the house, sent by them as tokens of kindly remembrance
to their departed friends, who are believed to be able to recognise
by smell the hands that made each bundle. During the whole period the
dead man is attended continuously by at least two or three mourners,
either relatives or, more rarely, hired mourners, who from time to
time throughout both day and night wail loudly, renewing their wailing
at the arrival of each party of friends or relatives.
These parties come in from neighbouring villages in response to news
of the death sent them by special messengers, and in the case of an
influential chief several thousand men and women sometimes congregate
in this way to do him honour.
Upon the arrival of any person of importance, gongs and drums are
beaten, and the dead man is informed of the fact by the DAYONG or by
a relative. The visitor is led to a scat near the coffin, where he
will sit silently or join in the wailing, until after a few minutes
he enters into conversation with his hosts. When all the expected
guests have arrived, pigs are slaughtered and a feast is made.
While the coffin lies in the house all noises other than the wailing
are avoided in its immediate neighbourhood, and the children, dogs,
and fowls are kept away from it. The DAYONG will sit beside the
coffin occasionally brandishing a sword above it in order to keep
in check the TOH who, attracted to the neighbourhood of the corpse,
might grow too bold.
On the day appointed for the removal of the corpse it is the duty
of the DAYONG to instruct the dead man's soul how to find his way to
the other world; this he does, sitting beside the coffin and chanting
aloud in doleful tones. For (curiously enough in view of the theory
implied by the soul-catching ceremony) the man's soul is regarded as
remaining in, or in the proximity of, the body so long as it remains in
the house. This is one of several indications that the Kayans vaguely
distinguish two souls -- on the one hand the ghost-soul or shade,
which in dreams wanders afar, on the other hand the vital principle. It
would seem that so long as this vital spark remains in the body the
ghost-soul may return to it; but that, when death is complete, this
vital spark also departs, and then the ghost-soul will return no more.
The use of the word URIP further bears out this interpretation. In
common speech URIP means alive, but it is applied also as a prefix to
the names of those recently deceased, and seems to mark the speaker's
sense of the continuance of the personality as that which has life
in spite of the death of the body.
Thus BLUA and URIP seem to mark a distinction which in Europe
in different ages has been marked by the words soul and spirit,
ANIMA and ANIMUS, psyche and pneuma, and which was familiar also
to the Hebrews. In this, of course, Kayan thought on this subject
does but follow on the lines of many other peoples of more advanced
civilisation.
When the DAYONG has completed his instructions, the rattan lashings
about the head of the coffin are loosed. Since this is the moment at
which the soul is believed to take its final departure from the body,
it is probable that this custom of unlashing the coffin is connected
with the idea of facilitating its escape, although we have obtained
no definite statement to this effect. At the same time the fire
that has been kept burning by the coffin is allowed to die out. To
the coffin, which is shaped roughly like a boat, two small wooden
figures are attached -- a figure of a woman at the head, a male
figure at its foot. These figures are not improbably a vestige of a
bygone custom of killing slaves, whose souls would row the boat of
the dead man on his journey to the other world. This interpretation
is borne out by the fact that a live fowl is usually tied to one of
these wooden figures. The coffin is then conveyed out of the house
by lowering it to the ground with rattans, either through the floor,
planks being taken up for the purpose, or under the caves at the
side of the gallery. In this way they avoid carrying it down the
house-ladder; and it seems to be felt that this precaution renders it
more difficult for the ghost to find its way back to the house.[110]
All this is done with great deliberation, the coffin being brought
by easy stages to the river bank. There it is laid in a large boat
gaily decorated with bright-coloured cloths, which is paddled down
river to the graveyard, followed by the boats of the mourning friends,
who refrain from speaking to any persons encountered on the way. The
tombs of the village are on the river bank some quarter of a mile
below the house, generally on the opposite bank. Here the final
resting-place of the coffin has been prepared by erecting a great log
of timber, which is large in proportion to the social standing of the
dead man. In the case of a chief the log is of ironwood, some three
feet or more in diameter and some thirty feet in length. One end of
this is sunk some four or five feet into the ground. The erecting
of such a massive support is a task of some difficulty, achieved
by first digging the pit at the foot of the log and then hauling up
the other end with a rough windlass. The upper end, which is always
the root-end of the log, is cut in the form of a deep cleft, just
wide enough to receive the coffin. Above the cleft a large slab of
hardwood forms a cover for the coffin, and this is often elaborately
carved (see Pls. 152, 153). In some cases two, and in others even
four, smaller poles are used for the support of the coffin, but this
usually only to avoid the labour of erecting one very large one. The
coffin is lifted into this cleft by the aid of a scaffolding which
is built around the large pole, and which afterwards falls away when
the lashings are cut. On landing at the graveyard the mourners carry
the coffin between the two parts of a cleft pole which are fixed in
the ground so as to make a large V (this is called NYRING, the wall),
and all the mourners are expected to pass through this cleft, each,
in doing so, placing his foot upon a fowl which is laid bound upon
the ground. The coffin is then lifted to its cleft, and the weapons,
implements, and war clothes, the large hat, the cooking-pot, and
in fact any articles of personal property that may be of use to the
departing soul, are hung upon the tomb.[111] If a gong is hung up,
it may be cracked or pierced beforehand, but it is not usual among
Kayans to spoil other articles before hanging them on the tomb.[112]
The scaffolding about the tomb is then caused to fall away, and it
only remains for the mourners to purify themselves. This they do
with the help of the lower jaws of the pigs that were consumed at the
funeral feast. The jaws are placed together with water in a gong or
other basin, and the DAYONG, taking a fowl's feather, sprinkles drops
of water from the basin upon all the assembled mourners, pouring out
the while a stream of words, the purport of which is -- may all evil
things, all sickness and such things be kept away from you. Then the
mourners return in a single file through the V formed by the cleft
pole, each one again placing his foot on the fowl (which dies before
the end of the ceremony), spitting as he goes through, and exclaiming,
"Keep off evil" (BALI JAAT, I.E. literally, spiritual or supernatural
evil). When all have passed through, the upper ends of the two parts of
the cleft pole are brought together and lashed round with rattans; and
a small tree, pulled up by the roots, and having its branches cut away,
is laid beside the pole with its roots turned towards the grave (this
is called SELIKANG); and on the other side of the pole is put another
vertical pole with a cross-piece tied at its upper end. Fire is left
burning beside these structures. In this way the Kayans symbolically
prevent any of the uncanny influences of the graveyard following the
party back to the house; though they do not seem to be clear as to
whether it is the ghosts of the dead, or the TOH of the neighbourhood,
or those which may have contributed to his death, against whom these
precautions are taken. This done, the whole party returns as quickly
as possible to the village, halting only to bathe on the way.
The whole household of which the dead man was a member continues
in mourning for a period which is long in proportion to his social
standing; the mourning rules are observed most strictly by the nearest
relatives. The signs of mourning are the wearing of bark-cloth or of
clothes made yellow with clay, allowing the hair to grow on the parts
of the head and face usually kept shaved,[113] and the putting aside of
ornaments such as ear-rings, necklaces, or the substitution of wooden
ear-rings for the metal ones commonly worn by the women. All music,
feasts, and jollifications are avoided. The period of mourning can
only be properly terminated by a ceremony in which a human head plays
an essential part. Where the influence of the European governments
has not made itself felt, the death of a chief necessitates the
procuring of a fresh head, and a party may be sent out to cut off
in the jungle, on the farms, or on the river, some small party of a
hostile village. The common people must postpone the termination of
their mourning until some such occasion presents itself. Nowadays in
the districts in which head hunting has been suppressed, an old head,
generally one surviving from an earlier period, is borrowed or begged
for the purpose from another village, and is brought home with all
the display properly belonging to a return from successful war (see
Chap. X). As soon as the head is brought into the house the period of
mourning terminates amid general rejoicing. The head, or a fragment
of it, or the bundle of palm leaves (DAUN ISANG) with which it has
been decorated, is hung upon the tomb.[114]
In case of any dispute regarding the division of the property of a
dead man, his ghost may be called upon by a DAYONG and questioned
as to the dead man's intentions; but this would not be done until
after the harvest following upon the death. The ceremony is known
as DAYONG JANOI. A small model of a house, perhaps a yard in width
and length, is made and placed in the gallery beside the door of the
dead man's chamber. Food and drink of various kinds as prepared for a
feast are placed in this house, together with cigarettes. The DAYONG
chants beside the house, calling upon the soul of the dead man to
enter the soul-house, and mentioning the names of the members of his
family. From time to time he looks in, and after some time announces
that all the food and drink has been consumed. The people accept this
statement as evidence that the ghost has entered the soul-house.[115]
The DAYONG acts as though listening to the whispering of the soul
within the house, starting and clucking from time to time. Then he
announces the will of the ghost in regard to the distribution of the
property, speaking in the first person and reproducing the phraseology
and peculiarities of the dead man.[116] The directions so obtained
are usually followed, and the dispute is thus terminated. But in some
cases the people apply a certain test to verify the alleged presence of
the ghost. A shallow dish (often a gong) of water is placed near the
soul-house, and a ring-shaped armlet of shell is placed vertically in
this basin, the water covering its lower half. A few fine fibres of the
cotton-seed are thrown on to the surface of the water, and by tapping
on the planks the people keep these in movement. If the threads float
through the ring, that is conclusive evidence of the presence of the
ghost; but so long as the threads cannot be got to pass through the
ring, the people are not satisfied that the ghost is present.
Ideas of Life After Death
The soul of the dead man is supposed to wander on foot through the
jungle until he reaches the crest of a mountain ridge. From this
point he looks down upon the basin of a great river, the LONG MALAN,
in which five districts are assigned as the dwelling-places of souls,
the destination of each being determined by the mode of death. The
ghosts of those who die through old age or disease go to APO LEGGAN,
the largest of these districts, where they live very much as we do
in this life. Those who die a violent death, whether in battle or
or by accident, go to the basin of a tributary river, LONG JULAN,
where is BAWANG DAHA (lake of blood); there they live in comfort, and
become rich though they do no work: they have for wives the ghosts of
women that have died in child-bed. Those that have been drowned find a
home beneath the rivers, and are supposed to become possessed of all
property lost in the water by their surviving friends; this place
(or places) bears the name of LING YANG. The souls of still-born
children dwell in TENYU LALU; they are believed to be very brave,
owing to their having experienced no pain in this world. Finally,
suicides[117] have assigned to them a special district, TAN TEKKAN,
where they live miserably, eating only roots, berries, and other
jungle produce.
Other districts of this great country are vaguely assigned to the souls
of Malays and other peoples. It is generally said that the left bank
of the river is the place of the tribes of Borneo, while the right bank
is assigned to all other peoples; and the soul is especially warned by
the DAYONG to avoid the right bank lest it should find itself among
foreigners. These beliefs seem to involve some faint rudiment of the
doctrine of POST-MORTEM retribution or, at least, compensation, --
a rudiment which does not appear in the beliefs of the other peoples.
The departed soul standing on the mountain ridge surveys these regions;
and it is not until he stops here to rest that he becomes aware that
he is finally separated from his body. This fact is brought home to
him by the arrival of the ghost-souls of the various articles hung
upon his tomb, which hurry after him, but only overtake him at this
his first resting-place; and he bewails his unhappy fate.
There are current among Kayans several versions of the further
journey of the soul. The ghost descends the mountain to the banks
of LONG MALAN, which river he must cross to reach his appointed
place. The river must be crossed by means of a bridge consisting
of a single large log suspended from bank to bank. This log, BITANG
SEKOPA, is constantly agitated by a guardian, MALIGANG by name. If
the ghost has during the earthly life taken a head, or even merely
taken part in a successful head-hunting raid, a fact indicated by
the tatuing of the hands, he crosses this bridge without difficulty;
but if not, he falls below and is consumed by maggots or, according
to another version, is devoured by a large fish, PATAN, and so is
destroyed. When the ghost reaches the other bank, he is greeted by
those of his friends who have gone before, and they lead him to their
village. Some part of the journey is generally regarded as made by
boat, though it is not possible to make this fit consistently into
the general scheme. Another point on which opinion is very vague is
the part played by LAKI JUP URIP, a deity or spirit whose function
it is to guide the souls to their proper destinations.
In many Kayan villages stories are told of persons who are believed
to have died and to have come to life again. This belief seems to
have arisen in every case from the person having lain in a trance for
some days, during which he was regarded as dead. The Kayans accept
the cessation of respiration as evidence of death, and they assert
that these persons cease to breathe.[118]
It seems that such persons usually give some account of their
experiences during the period in which they have deserted their
bodies. They usually allege that they have traversed a part of the
road to the land of shades, and describe it in terms agreeing more
or less closely with the traditional account of it current among
the Kayans. Since in these cases the person is thought to be dead,
no efforts are made by the DAYONG to lead back his departing soul,
and its return has to be explained in some other way. In some cases
the returned soul describes how he was turned back by MALIGANG,
the awful being who guards the bridge across the river of death.[119]
Mr. R. S. Douglas, Resident of Baram, has recently reported a similar
belief held by the Muriks, a Klemantan tribe, where it is supported
by the following legend. The soul or spirit of a certain man, UKU
PANDAH by name, left his body two years before the time appointed as
the term of its incorporate life, and gained admittance to the land of
shades in the shape of a pig. It was, however, recognised by the ruler
of that land, and ordered by him to return to its mortal body. The
command was obeyed, and UKU PANDAH, having been dead for two days,
came to life again and lived for two years, during which he described
to his friends the country of the dead of which he had thus obtained
a glimpse; and this knowledge has been preserved by the tribe.
The beliefs and traditions of the various tribes in regard to the other
world seem to have been confused through the intercourse between them,
so that it is not possible to mark off clearly what features properly
belong to each of the tribes. The general features are. similar
with all the peoples. The Kenyah story is very similar to that of
the Kayans, though the names of the various places are different,
and they usually conceive the first part of the soul's journey as
being made by boat on the river.
TAMA KAJAN ODOH, the MADANG chief whose line of descent from BALINGO
is given on p. 12, vol. ii., made us a rough map of the land of the
shades (Fig. 78) and of the country traversed by the ghost on its
journey thither. This was done in the way maps of their own country
are always made by the Borneans, namely, he laid upon the floor bits of
stick and other small objects to represent the principal topographical
features and relations. We tested the trustworthiness of his account
by asking him to repeat it on a subsequent occasion; when he did so
without any noteworthy departure from the former description. A point
of special interest is the appearance in the land of shades of the
house of BALI PENYALONG and of OKO PERBUNGAN (which seems to be the
MADANG name for the wife of the Supreme Being). This map brings out
clearly what seems to be the essential feature of all these schemes,
namely, that the land of shades is the basin of a river divided by
a mountain ridge from that from which the ghost departs.
The Punans add some picturesque incidents. According to their version,
a huge helmeted hornbill[120] (RHINOFLAX VIGIL) sits by the far end
of the bridge across the river of death, and with its screams tries
to terrify the ghost, so that it shall fall from the bridge into the
jaws of the great fish which is in league with the bird. On the other
side of the river IS UNGAP, a woman with a cauldron and spear. UNGAP,
if appeased with a gift, aids the ghost to escape from the monstrous
bird and fish. Pebbles or beads are put in the nostrils of the Punan
corpse in order that they may be presented to UNGAP.
The Punans recite or sing a story in blank verse descriptive of this
passage of the soul. It is sometimes sung in very dramatic fashion,
the performer acting the principal incidents and pitching his voice
in a doleful, though musical, minor key. Such a recitation of the
passage of the soul, delivered by a wild and tragic figure before an
intently listening group of squatting men and women illuminated by
flickering torchlight, is by no means unimpressive to the European
observer. The following lines are a rough literal translation of
a fragment of the story which describes the meeting with UNGAP of
BATANG MIJONG, a departed soul: --
UNGAP SPEAKS --
BATANG MIJONG stands waving his shield.
The helmsman SARAMIN with body of brass will carry over BATANG MIJONG.
BATANG MIJONG seeks the place of the Punans.
Good journey to you, BATANG MIJONG.
BATANG MIJONG, O, why are you called?
BATANG MIJONG SPEAKS: --
Why do you question me, why do you stare at me?
UNGAP ANSWERS --
Your limbs are shapely, smooth is your skin and slender your body.
My eyes are dazzled by your bodily perfections.
Some of the Malanaus, one of the many branches of the Klemantan
people, hold peculiar views about the soul. Each man is credited
with two souls. After his death one of these goes to some region in
the heavens where it becomes a good spirit that assists at the BAYOH
ceremonies.[121] The other makes a journey to a world of the dead much
like APO LEGGAN of the Kayans; and the journey involves the crossing
of the river on a single log, the passage of which is disputed by a
malign being, who tries to shake the nerve of the ghost by flinging
ashes at him as he traverses the bridge. Other Malanaus (of Muka)
describe this opposing power as a twoheaded dog, MAIWIANG by name, whom
it is necessary to propitiate with the gift of a valuable bead. For
this reason a bead of some value is fastened to the right arm of
the corpse before the coffin is closed. It is said of the Malanaus
that they were formerly in the habit of killing several slaves at
the tomb of a chief; and, since it was believed that, if the victims
died a violent death, their souls would not go to the same place as
the dead chief, and would thus be of no service, they were allowed
to die from exposure to the sun while bound to the tomb. Now that
homicide is prohibited, these people arrange a great cock-fight; and
there can be little doubt that the death of many of the birds is felt
to compensate in some degree for the enforced abstention from homicide.
The last case on record of the killing of a slave at the entombment
of a chief occurred about fifteen years ago among the Orang Bukits
(Klemantans) in Bruni territory. The son of the dead chief (Datu
Gunong) went to Bruni city, and there bought an aged slave from one
of the principal officers of state. The slave was kept in a bamboo
cage until the day of entombment, when he was killed, each of the
funeral guests inflicting a small wound with a spear. His head was
hung on the tomb. From circumstantial accounts of this incident which
reached one of us, we infer that those who took part in this brutal
act were moved only by a sense of duty and that the co-operation was
repugnant to all of them.[122]
Exorcism
The Kayans, as well as most of the peoples, regard madness as due
to possession by an evil spirit,[123] but the Malanaus extend this
theory to many other forms of disease, and practise an elaborate rite
of exorcism. This will be described in the chapter (XVI.) dealing
with charms and magical practices.
It will be gathered from what has been said in the foregoing
pages that the life after death is regarded as not in any way very
different from this life, as neither a very superior nor an inferior
condition; although, as we have said, those who die a violent death
are believed to have a rather better lot, and suicides a worse fate,
than others. Social distinction and consideration, especially such
as is achieved by the taking of heads in war, is carried over into
the life after death; and men are anxious that outward marks of
such distinction should go with them. This is undoubtedly one of
the grounds for tatuing the body. Among the Kayans a man's hands are
only fully tatued when he has taken a head; while the social status
of a woman is marked by the degree of fineness of the tatuing.[124]
It follows that death is neither greatly feared nor desired; but an
old man will sometimes affirm that he is quite ready or even desirous
to die, although he may seem cheerful and fairly vigorous.
The Kayans believe in the reincarnation of the soul, although this
belief is not clearly harmonised with the belief in the life in another
world. It is generally believed that the soul of a grandfather may
pass into one of his grandchildren, and an old man will try to secure
the passage of his soul to a favourite grandchild by holding it above
his head from time to time. The grandfather usually gives up his
name to his eldest grandson, and reassumes the original name of his
childhood with the prefix or title LAKI, and the custom seems to be
connected with this belief or hope. There is no means of discovering
whether the hope is realised. The human soul may also, in the belief
of all the peoples, be reincarnated in the body of almost any animal;
but opinions in regard to this matter are very vague. Thus the Kayans
believe that the objection of the Mohammedan Malays to the eating of
pig is due to reincarnation of their souls in animals of that species,
which belief naturally causes some vexation to the Malay traders.
Among the Kayans and other peoples sceptics are to be found, and, as
no inquisitorial methods are in vogue among them, such persons will
on occasion give expression to their doubts about the accepted dogmas,
although speech about such topics is generally repressed by some touch
of awe. One man, for example, argued in our hearing that he could
hardly believe that man continues to exist after death, for, said he,
if men and women still lived after death, some of those who have been
very fond of their children would surely return to see them, and would
be in some way perceived by the living. But all such discussions are
usually terminated with the remark, "NUSI JAM?" ("Who knows?")
The Kenyahs' disposal of their dead is very similar in all respects to
the Kayan practice. But the burial customs of most of the Klemantan
tribes are different. Their usual practice is to keep the coffin
containing the corpse in the gallery of the house until the period
of mourning is terminated. A bamboo tube carried down through the
floor to the ground permits the escape of fluids resulting from
decomposition. The coffin itself is sealed closely with wax, and
elaborately decorated with carved and painted wood-work. After
several months or even years have elapsed a feast is made (the
feast of the bones); the coffin is opened and the bones taken out
and cleaned. They are then packed into a smaller coffin or a large
ovoid jar, which is carried to the village cemetery. There it is
placed either in the hollowed upper end of a massive post, or into
a large wooden chamber containing, or to contain, the remains of
several persons, generally near relatives. These tombs are in many
cases very elaborately decorated with painted woodwork.
Since the Klemantans who use the jar to contain the bones are not
capable of making such large jars, but procure jars of Indo-Chinese and
Chinese manufacture, it seems probable that the jars are comparatively
modern substitutes for the smaller wooden coffin or bone-box. Only
the richer folk can afford the luxury of a jar.
A rather different procedure is sometimes adopted by the same
Klemantans who use the wooden coffins, namely, the corpse is placed in
a jar a few days after death. Since the mouth of the jar is generally
too small to admit the corpse the jar is broken horizontally into two
parts by the following ingenious procedure. The jar is sunk in the
water of the river until it is full of water and wholly submerged;
it is held horizontally by two men, one at either end, just beneath
the surface of the water. A third man strikes a sharp downward blow
with an axe upon the widest circumference of the jar; it is then
turned over and he strikes a second blow upon the same circumference
at a spot opposite to the first. At the second stroke the jar falls
in two, sometimes as cleanly and nicely broken as though cut with a
saw.[125] The corpse is then packed in with its knees tied closely
under the chin; the upper part of the jar is replaced and sealed on
with wax. When the time of the feast of the bones arrives, the jar
is reopened, the bones cleaned, and replaced in the jar.
This mode of jar burial is commonly practised by the Muruts, and is
commoner in the northern parts of the island than elsewhere. It may
be added that the jars used are generally valuable old jars, and that
the cheap modern copies of them find little favour.
The Klemantans put selected pieces of the property of the deceased
within the tomb, but do not generally hang them on it externally as
the Kayans and Kenyahs do.
The Sea Dayaks bury their dead in the earth, generally in a village
graveyard on the river banks not far from the house. The body,
together with personal property, is merely wrapped in mats and laid
in a grave some three feet in depth. It is not usual to keep it in
the house for some days as the Kayans do, and the burial is effected
with comparatively little ceremony. The grave of the common man is
not marked with any monument, but that of a chief may be marked by a
SUNGKUP; this consists of two pairs of stout posts, at head and feet
respectively; each pair is erected in the form of an oblique cross;
the upper end of each post is carved in decorative fashion. Two broad
planks laid between the lower parts of these crossed posts form a
roof to the grave. In the case of a man noted for great success in
farming or fighting, a bamboo tube may be sunk through the earth to
the spot just above the root of the nose, and through this they speak
to him and pour rice spirit in order to strengthen their appeal.
The Land Dayaks of upper Sarawak, as well as some other Klemantan
tribes in South Borneo, are peculiar in that they burn the dead, or
the bones alone after the flesh has dropped away. The burning of the
whole body is in some tribes carried out by the richer families only;
the bodies that are not burned are buried in the earth.
CHAPTER 15
Animistic Beliefs Connected with Animals and Plants[126]
Many of the animals, both wild and domesticated, are held by the
Kenyahs in peculiar regard; those that most influence their conduct
are the omen-birds, and among the omen-birds the common white-headed
carrion-hawk (HALIASTER INTERMEDIUS) is by far the most important. The
Kenyahs always observe the movements of this hawk with keen interest,
for by a well-established code of rules they interpret his movements
in the heavens as signs by which they must be guided in many matters
of moment, especially in the conduct of warlike or any other dangerous
expeditions.[127] The hawk is always spoken of and addressed as BALI
FLAKI, and is formally consulted before any party of Kenyahs sets
out from home for distant parts.
To illustrate the formalities with which they read the omens we
will transcribe here a passage from a journal kept by one of us. The
occasion of the incidents described was the setting out of a large
body of Kenyahs from the house of Tama Bulan (Pl. 27), a chief who
by his personal merits had attained to a position of great influence
among the other Kenyah chiefs, and who had been confirmed in his
authority by His Highness the Rajah of Sarawak. The object of the
expedition was to visit and make peace with another great fighting
tribe, the Madangs, who live in the remotest interior of Borneo.[128]
Tama Bulan, whose belief in the value of the omens had been slightly
shaken, was willing to start without ceremonies, and to make those
powers which he believed to protect us responsible for himself and
his people also. But the people had begged him not to neglect the
traditional rites, and he had yielded to their wishes.
At break of day, before I was up, Tama Bulan was washed by the women
at the river's brink with water and the blood of pigs to purify him
for his journey, and later in the morning the people set to work
to seek omens and a guarantee of their safety on the journey from
the hawks that are so numerous here. A small shelter of sticks and
leaves was made on the river-bank before the house, and the women
having been sent to their rooms, three men of the upper class[129]
sat under this leaf-shelter beside a small fire, and searched the sky
for hawks. After sitting there silently for about an hour the three
men suddenly became animated; one of them took in his right hand a
small chick and a stick frayed by many deep cuts with a knife, and
waved them repeatedly from left to right, at the same time pouring
out a rapid flood of words. They had caught sight of a hawk high
up and far away from them, and they were trying to persuade it to
fly towards the right. Presently the hawk, a tiny speck in the sky,
sailed slowly out of sight behind a hill on the right, and the men
settled themselves to watch for a second hawk which must fly towards
the left, and a third which must circle round and round. In the course
of about half-an-hour two hawks had obligingly put in an appearance,
and behaved just as it was hoped and desired that they should behave;
and so this part of the business was finished, and about a score
of men bustled about preparing for the next act. They brought many
fowls and several young pigs, and a bundle of long poles pointed
at either end. Before the house stand upright two great boles of
timber; the upper end of each of them is carved into a rude face and
crowned with a brass gong (Pl. 157). These are two images of the one
Supreme Being, Bali Penyalong, and they seem to be at the same time
the altars of the god. A tall young tree, stripped of all but its
topmost twigs, stands beside one of them, and is supposed to reach to
heaven or, at least, by its greater proximity to the regions above,
to facilitate intercourse. As to the meaning of this and many other
features of these rites it is impossible to form any exact idea, for
the opinions of these people in such matters are hardly less vague
and diversified than those of more civilized worshippers. Tama Bulan,
in his character of high priest,[130] took his stand before one of
these images, while a nephew, one of the three men who had watched
the hawks, officiated before the other and went through exactly the
same ceremonies as his uncle, at the same time with him. Tama Bulan
held a small bamboo water-vessel in his left hand, and with a frayed
stick in his right hand sprinkled some of the water on the image,
all the time looking up into its face and rapidly repeating a set
form of words. Presently he took a fowl, snipped off its head and
sprinkled its blood upon the image, and so again with another and
another fowl. Then he held a young pig while a follower gashed its
throat, and as the blood leapt out he scattered it on the image, while
the score of men standing round about put their hands, some on him,
some on one another; maintaining in this way physical contact with one
another and with their leader, they joined in the prayer or incantation
which he kept pouring forth in the same rapid mechanical fashion in
which many a curate at home reads the Church service. In the house,
meanwhile, four boys were pounding at two big drums to keep away from
the worshippers all sounds but the words of their own prayers.[131]
Then another fowl and another pig were sacrificed in similar fashion
at each altar, and the second part of the rite was finished by the men
sticking the carcases of the slaughtered beasts each one on the point
of a pole, and fixing the poles upright in the earth before the images.
Tama Bulan now came up into the house to perform the third and last
act. A pig was brought and laid bound upon the floor, and Tama Bulan,
stooping, with a sword in his right hand, kept punching the pig gently
behind the shoulder as though to keep its attention, and addressed it
with a rapid flow of words, each phrase beginning "O Bali Bouin." The
pig's throat was then cut by an attendant, and Tama Bulan, standing up,
diluted its blood with water and scattered it abroad over all of us
as we stood round about him, while he still kept up the rapid patter
of words. Then he pulled off the head of a fowl and concluded the
rites by once more sprinkling us all with blood and water. Everyone
seemed relieved and well satisfied to have got through this important
business, and to have secured protectors for all the party during
the forthcoming journey. For the three hawks will watch over them,
and are held to have given them explicit guarantees of safety. The
frayed stick that had figured so largely in the rites was stuck
under the rafters of the roof among a row of others previously used,
and there it will remain, a sign and a pledge of the piety of the
people, as long as the house shall stand. And then as Tama Bulan,
pretty well covered with blood, went away to wash himself, I felt as
though I had just lived through a book of the AENEID, and was about
to follow Father Aeneas to the shores of Latium.
This elaborate rite, so well fitted to set agoing the speculative
fancy of any one acquainted with the writings of Robertson Smith and
Messrs. Jevons and Frazer, was one of the first that we witnessed
together. After giving all our facts we shall return to discuss some
of the interesting questions raised by it, but it will be seen that
we are far from having discovered satisfactory explanations of all its
features. Obscure features to which we would direct attention are the
use of the fire and the frayed stick, for these figure in almost all
rites in which the omen-birds are consulted or prayers and sacrifices
made. The Kenyahs seem to feel that the purpose of fire is to carry
up the prayers to heaven by means of the ascending flame and smoke,
in somewhat the same way as the tall pole planted by the side of
the image of Bali Penyalong facilitates communion with the spirit;
for they conceive him as dwelling somewhere above the earth.
Before going out to attack an enemy, omens are always sought in
the way we have described, and if the expedition is successful
the warriors bring home not only the heads of the slain enemy, but
also pieces of their flesh, which they fix upon poles before the
house, one for each family, as a thank-offering to Bali Flaki for
his guidance and protection. It seldom occurs that a hawk actually
takes or eats these pieces of flesh, and that does not seem to be
expected. Without favourable omens from the hawks Kenyahs will not
set out on any expedition, and even when they have secured them,
they still anxiously look out for further guidance, and may be
stopped or turned back at any time by unfavourable omens. Thus,
should a hawk fly over their boat going in the same direction as
themselves, this is a good omen; but if one should fly towards them
as they travel, and especially if it should scream as it does so,
this is a terribly bad omen, and only in case they can obtain other
very favourable omens to counteract the impression made by it will
they continue their journey. If one of a party dies on the journey,
they will stop for one whole day for fear of offending Bali Flaki. If
a hawk should scream just as they are about to deliver an attack,
that means that some of the elder men will be killed in the battle.
Bali Flaki is also consulted before sowing and harvesting the rice
crop, but besides being appealed to publicly on behalf of the whole
community, his aid may be sought privately by any man who wishes to
injure another. For this purpose a man makes a rough wooden image in
human form, and retires to some quiet spot on the river bank where
he sets up a TEGULUN, a horizontal pole supported about a yard above
the ground by a pair of vertical poles. He lights a small fire beside
the TEGULUN, and, taking a fowl in one hand, he sits on the ground
behind it so as to see through it a square patch of sky,[132] and so
waits until a hawk becomes visible upon this patch. As soon as a hawk
appears he kills the fowl, and with a frayed stick smears its blood on
the wooden image, saying, "Put fat in his mouth" (which means "Let his
head be taken and fed with fat in the usual way"), and he puts a bit
of fat in the mouth of the image. Then he strikes at the breast of the
image with a small wooden spear, and throws it into a pool of water
reddened with red earth, and then takes it out and buries it in the
ground. While the hawk is visible, he waves it towards the left; for
he knows that if it flies to the left he will prevail over his enemy,
but that if it goes to the right his enemy is too strong for him.
When a new house is built, a wooden image of Bali Flaki with wings
extended is put up before it, and an offering of mixed food is put on a
little shelf before the image, and at times, especially after getting
good omens from the hawks, it is offered bits of flesh and is smeared
with pig's blood. If the people have good luck in their new house,
they renew the image; but if not, they usually allow it to fall into
decay. If, when a man is sitting down to a meal, he espies a hawk in
the heavens, he will throw a morsel of food towards it, exclaiming,
"Bali Flaki!"
We have seen that during the formal consultation of the hawks the
women are sent to their rooms. Nevertheless many women keep in the
cupboards in which they sleep a wooden image of the hawk with a few
feathers stuck upon it. If the woman falls sick she will take one
of these feathers and, waving it to and fro, will say, "Tell the
bad spirit that is making me sick that I have a feather of Bali
Flaki." When she recovers her health Bali Flaki has the credit of it.
Although Kenyahs will not kill a hawk, they would-not prevent us from
shooting one if it stole their chickens; for they say that a hawk
who will do that is a low-class fellow, a cad, in fact, for there
are social grades among the hawks just as there are among themselves.
Although the Kenyahs thus look to Bali Flaki to guide them and help
them in many ways, and express gratitude towards him, we do not think
that they conceive of him as a single great spirit, as some of the
other tribes tend to do; they rather look upon the hawks as messengers
and intermediators between themselves and Bali Penyalong,[133] to
which a certain undefined amount of power is delegated. No doubt it is
a vulgar error with them, as in the case of professors of other forms
of belief, to forget in some degree the Supreme Being, and to direct
their prayers and thanks almost exclusively to the subordinate power,
which, having
concrete forms, they can more easily keep before their minds. They
regard favourable omens as given for their encouragement, and bad
omens as friendly warnings.[134] We were told by one very intelligent
Kenyah that he supposed that the hawks, having been so frequently
sent by Bali Penyalong to give them warnings, had learnt how to do
this of their own will, and that sometimes they probably do give them
warning or encouragement independently without being sent by him.
All Kenyahs hold Bali Flaki in the same peculiar regard, and no
individuals or sections of them claim to be especially favoured by
him or claim to be related to him by blood or descent.
Other Omen-birds
Kenyahs obtain omens of less importance from several other birds. When
favourable omens have been given by the hawks, some prominent man is
always sent out to sit on the river-bank beside a small fire and watch
and listen for these other birds. Their movements and cries are the
signs which he interprets as omens, confirming or weakening the import
of those given by the hawks. Of these other omens the most regarded are
those given by the three species of the spider-hunter (ARACHNOTHERA
CHRYSOGENYS, A. MODESTA, and A. LONGIROSTRIS). All three species are
known as "Sit" or "Isit." When travelling on the river, the Kenyahs
hope to see "Isit" fly across from left to right as they sit facing the
bow of the canoe. When this happens they call out loudly, saying, "O,
Isit on the left hand! Give us long life, help us in our undertaking,
help us to find what we are seeking, make our enemies feeble." They
usually stop their canoes, land on the bank, and, after making a
small fire, say to it, "Tell Isit to help us." Each man of the party
will light a cigarette in order that he may have his own small fire,
and will murmur some part at least of the usual formulas. After seeing
"Isit" on their left, they like to see him again on their right side.
Next in importance to the spider-hunters are the three varieties of
the trogan (HARPACTES DIARDI, H. DUVAUCELII, and H. KASUMBA). They
like to hear the trogan calling quietly while he sits on a tree to
their left; but if he is on their right, the omen is only a little
less favourable.[135] On hearing the trogan's cry, they own it, as
they say, by shouting to it and by stopping to light a fire just as
in the case of "Isit."
KIENG, the woodpecker (LEPOCESTES PORPHYROMELAS), has two notes,
one of which is of good, the other of had omen. If they have secured
good omens from the birds already mentioned, they will then try to
avoid hearing KIENG, lest he should utter the note of evil omen; so
they sing and talk and rattle their paddles on the sides of the boat.
Other omen-birds of less importance are ASI (CARCINEUTES MELANOPS),
whose note warns them of difficulties in their path, and UKANG (SASIA
ABNORMIS), whose note means good luck for them. TELAJAN, the crested
rain-bird (PLATYLOPHUS CORONATUS), announces good luck by its call
and warns of serious difficulties also.
KONG, the hornbill (ANORRHINUS COMATUS), gives omens of minor
importance by his strange deep cry. The handsome feathers of another
species of hornbill (BUCEROS RHINOCEROS), with bold bars of black and
white, are worn on war-coats and stuck in the war-caps by men who are
tried warriors, but may not be worn by mere youths. The substance of
the beak of the helmeted hornbill (RHINOFLAX VIGIL) is sometimes carved
into the form of the canine tooth of the tiger-cat, and a pair of these
is the most valued kind of ear-ornament for men. Only elderly men,
or men who have taken heads with their own hands, may wear them. One
of the popular dances consists in a comical imitation of the movements
of the hornbill, but no special significance attaches to the dance;
it seems to be done purely in a spirit of fun. Young hornbills are
occasionally kept in the house as pets.
We know of no other bird that plays any part in the religious life
of the Kenyahs or affects them in any peculiar manner.
The Pig
All Kenyahs keep numerous domestic pigs, which roam beneath and
about the house, picking up what garbage they can find to eke out
the scanty meals of rice-dust and chaff given them by the women. It
seems that they seldom or never take to the jungle and become feral,
although they are not confined in any way.
The domestic pig is not treated with any show of reverence, but rather
with the greatest contumely, and yet it plays a part in almost all
religious ceremonies, and before it is slaughtered explanations are
always offered to it, and it is assured that it is not to be eaten. We
have seen that, in the rites preparatory to an important and dangerous
expedition, the chief was washed with pig's blood and water, and
that young pigs were slain before the altar-post of Bali Penyalong,
and their blood sprinkled on the post and afterwards upon all or most
of the men of the household. It is probably true that Bali Penyalong
is never addressed without the slaughter of one or more pigs, and
also that no domestic pig is ever slaughtered without being charged
beforehand with some message or prayer to Bali Penyalong, which its
spirit may carry up to him. But the most important function of the
pig is the giving of information as to the future course of events
by means of the markings on its liver.[136]
Whenever it becomes specially interesting or important to ascertain the
future course of events, when, for example, a household proposes to
make war, or when two parties are about to go through a peace-making
ceremony, a pig is caught by the young men from among those beneath
the house, and is brought and laid, with its feet lashed together,
before the chief in the great gallery of the house. And it would seem
that the more important the ceremony the larger and the more numerous
should be the pigs selected as victims. An attendant hands a burning
brand to the chief, and he, stooping over the pig, singes a few of
its hairs, and then, addressing the pig as "Bali Bouin," and gently
punching it behind the shoulder, as we have already depicted him,
he pours out a rapid flood of words. The substance of his address
is a prayer to Bali Penyalong for guidance and knowledge as to the
future course of the business in hand, and an injunction to the soul
of the pig to carry the prayer to Bali Penyalong.
Sometimes more than one chief will address one pig in this way; and
then, as soon as these prayers are concluded, some follower plunges
a spear into the heart or throat of the pig, and rapidly opens its
belly in the middle line, drags out the liver and lays it on a leaf
or platter with the underside uppermost, and so carries it to the
chief or chiefs. Then all the elderly men crowd round and consult as
to the significance of the appearances presented by the underside of
the liver. The various lobes and lobules are taken to represent the
various districts concerned in the question on which light is desired,
and according to the strength and intimacy of the connections between
these lobes, the people of the districts represented are held to be
bound in more or less lasting friendship. While spots and nodules in
any part betoken future evils for the people of that part, a clean
healthy liver means good fortune and happiness for all concerned.
The underside of the liver, which alone is significant, varies
considerably from one specimen to another, and this must prevent
any very definite and consistent identification of the parts with
the different districts of the country. The rule generally observed
is to identify the under surface of the right lobe (ARTI TOH) with
the territory of the party that kills the pig and makes the enquiry;
the adjacent part of the left lobe (SUNAN) with the territory of any
party involved in the question which adjoins that of the first party;
and the under surface of the caudal extremity (ARTI ARKAT) with that
of any remoter third party (see Fig. 79). If the ridge that runs up
between the right and left lobes is sharp, it indicates that there
will still be some bad feeling (or, as they say, the swords are still
sharp). A gall-bladder which is long and overlapping indicates more
trouble between the parties to the right and left; but one which
is sunk almost out of sight in the substance of the liver is a sign
that no further trouble is to be expected. The grooves on the under
surface of the right lobe stand for the waterways and, if they are
strongly marked, imply freedom of intercourse. Notches at the free
edges stand for past injuries suffered (the scars of wounds received,
as it were); and if these are equally marked in the several parts they
indicate peace, because it is implied that no balance of old scores
remains to any one of the parties concerned. A sore or abscess in any
part foretells the speedy death of one of the chiefs of the people
of that part.
FIGURE 79
It is obvious that this system of interpretation, which is common
to nearly all the peoples, gives much scope for the operation of
prejudice, suggestion, and ingenuity. But the group of interpreting
chiefs and elder men generally achieves unanimity in giving its
verdict.
The omens thus obtained are held to be the answer vouchsafed by Bali
Penyalong to the prayers which have been carried to him by the spirit
of the pig.
If the answer obtained in this way from one pig is unsatisfactory,
they will often kill a second, and on important occasions even a
third or fourth, in order to obtain a favourable answer. Unless they
can thus obtain a satisfactory forecast, they will not set out upon
any undertaking of importance.
After any ceremony of this kind the body of the pig is usually
divided among the people, and by them cooked and eaten without further
ceremony. But we have seen that, after the ceremony in preparation
for an expedition, the bodies of the young pigs whose blood was
scattered on the altarpost of Bali Penyalong were fixed upon tall
poles beside this altar-post and there left; and this seems to be the
rule in ceremonies of this sort, though it is not clear whether the
carcases are left there as offerings to the hawks or to Bali Penyalong,
or because they are in some sense too holy to be used as food after
being used in such rites.
Probably Kenyahs never give to the spirits in this way the whole body
of a large pig, but only of quite small pigs, and in this they are
probably influenced by considerations of economy.
It may be said generally that Kenyahs do not kill domestic pigs simply
and solely for the sake of food. The killing of a pig is always the
occasion for, or occasioned by, some religious rite. It is true that
on the arrival of honoured guests a pig is usually killed and given to
them for food; but its spirit is then always charged with some message
to Bali Penyalong. It is said that, when the pig's spirit comes to
Bali Penyalong, he is offended if it brings no message from those
who killed the pig, and he sends it back to carry off their souls.
On many other occasions also pigs are killed; thus, on returning
from a successful attack on enemies, a pig is usually killed for
each family of the household, and a piece of its flesh is put up on
a pole before the house; and during the severe illness of any person
of high social standing, pigs are usually killed, and friendly chiefs
may come from distant parts, bringing with them pigs and fowls that
they may sacrifice them, and so aid in restoring the sick man to
health. On the death of a chief, too, a great feast is made, and
many pigs are slaughtered, and their jaw-bones are hung up on the
tomb. A pig is sometimes used in the ceremony by which a newly-made
peace is sealed between tribes hitherto at blood-feuds, but a fowl
is more commonly used.
The wild pig which abounds in the forest is hunted by the Kenyahs,
and when brought to bay by the dogs is killed with spears, and it
is eaten without ceremony or compunction by all classes. The wild
pig is never used as messenger to the gods, and its liver is not
consulted. The lower jaws of all wild pigs that are killed are cleaned
and hung up together in the house, and it is believed that if these
should be lost or in any way destroyed the dogs would cease to hunt.
The domestic fowls are seldom killed for food, and their eggs too can
hardly be reckoned as a regular article of diet, though the people
have no prejudice against eating them. And it would seem that the
fowls are kept in the main for ceremonial Purposes, and that their
table use is of very secondary importance.
Fowls are killed on many of the occasions on which pigs are sacrificed,
and, as we have seen in the description of the ceremony at Tama
Bulan's house, their blood may be poured upon the altarposts of
Bali Penyalong. It would seem that fowls and pigs are to some extent
interchangeable equivalents for sacrificial purposes. Perhaps the most
important occasion on which the fowl plays a part is the performance
of the rite by which a blood-feud is finally wiped away. The following
extract from the journal previously quoted describes an incident of
this kind: --
In the evening there was serious business on hand. Two chiefs, who
some years ago were burned out of their homes in the Rejang district
by the government, have settled themselves with their people in the
Baram district. They had made a provisional peace with the Kayans
some years ago, but the final ceremony was to be performed this
evening. The two chiefs of the immigrants, who had remained hitherto
in a remote part of the house, seated themselves at one side, and
the Kayan chiefs at the other, and Tama Bulan and ourselves between
the two parties. First, presents of iron were exchanged. In the old
days costly presents of metal-work used to be given; but, as this led
sometimes to renewed disputes, the government has forbidden the giving,
in such ceremony, of presents of a greater value than two dollars. So
now old sword-blades are given, and the other essential part of the
present has been proportionately reduced from a full-grown fowl to a
tiny chick. After much preliminary talking, two chicks were brought
and a bundle of old sword-blades, which Tama Bulan, in his character
of peace-maker, carries with him whenever he travels abroad. A chief
of either party took a chick and a sword and presented them to the
other. Then one led his men a little apart and began to rattle off
an invocation beginning, "O sacred (Bali) chick," snipped off its
head with the sword, and with the bloody blade smeared the right
arm of his followers as they crowded round him. The old fellow kept
up the stream of words until every man was smeared; and then they
all stamped together on the floor raising a great shout. Then the
other party went through a similar performance; and the peace being
thus formally ratified, we sat down to cement it still further by a
friendly drinking bout.
Another ceremony in which the fowl plays a prominent part is that by
which the wandering soul of a sick person is found and led back to
his body by the medicine-man. This is described in Chapter XIV.
It seems clear that the fowl, like the pig, is used on these occasions
as a messenger sent by man to the Supreme Spirit. In most cases when
a fowl is slaughtered in the course of a ceremony, it is first waved
over the heads of the people taking part in it, and its blood is
afterwards sprinkled upon them.
In the blood-brotherhood ceremony, when each of the two men drinks
or smokes in a cigarette a drop of the other's blood drawn with a
bambooknife, a fowl is in many cases waved over them and then killed,
and occasionally a pig also is killed. In such a case the man who
has killed the fowl will carry its carcase to the door of the house,
and there he will wave towards the heavens a frayed stick moistened
with its blood, while he announces the facts of the ceremony to Bali
Penyalong. So that here again the fowl seems to play the part of a
messenger. The carcase and the bloody stick are afterwards put up
together on a tall pole before the house. After going through this
ceremony a man is safe from all the members of the household to
which his blood-brother belongs; and in the case of two chiefs all
the members of either household are bound to those of the other by
a sacred tie.
Fowls' eggs are sometimes put on the cleft poles as sacrifices. In
one instance, when we were engaged in fishing a lake with a large
party in boats, we came upon a row of eight poles stuck upright at
the edge of the lake, each holding a fowl's egg in its cleft upper
end. These had just been put there by the crew of one of the canoes
as an offering to the crocodiles, which were regarded as the most
influential of the powers of the lake and able to ensure us good sport.
In such cases the eggs are probably economical substitutes for fowls,
as seems to be indicated by the following facts: When Kenyah boys enter
a strange branch of the river for the first time, they go, each one
taking a fowl's egg in his hand, into the jungle with some old man, who
takes the eggs, puts them into the cleft ends of poles fixed upright
in the earth, and thus addresses all the omen-birds collectively,
"Don't let any harm happen to these children who are coming for
the first time to this river; they give you these eggs." Sometimes
instead of eggs the feathers of a fowl are used; and both the eggs
and feathers would seem to be substituted for fowls, as being good
enough in the case of mere children performing a minor rite.
When the belly of a fowl is opened there are prominent two curved
portions of the gut. The state of these is examined in some cases
before the planting of PADI, and sometimes before attempting to catch
the soul of a sick man. If the parts are much curved, it is a good
omen; if straight or but slightly curved, it is a bad omen.
The Crocodile
Like all other races of Sarawak, the Kenyahs regard the crocodiles
that infest their rivers as more or less friendly creatures. They fear
the crocodile and do not like to mention it by name, especially if
one be in sight, and refer to it as "old grandfather." But the fear
is rather a superstitious fear than the fear of being seized by the
beast. They regard those of their own neighbourhood as more especially
friendly, in spite of the fact that members of their households are
occasionally taken by crocodiles, either while standing incautiously
on the bank of the river or while floating quietly at evening time
in a small canoe. When this happens, it is believed either that the
person taken has in some way offended or injured one or all of the
crocodiles, or that he has been taken by a stranger crocodile that has
come from a distant part of the river, and therefore did not share
in the friendly understanding usually subsisting between the people
and the local crocodiles. But in any case it is considered that the
crocodiles have committed an unjustifiable aggression and have set
up a blood-feud which can only be abolished by the slaying of one
or more of the aggressors. Now it is the habit of the crocodile to
hold the body of his victim for several days before devouring it,
and to drag it for this purpose into some muddy creek opening into
the main river. A party is therefore organised to search all the
neighbouring creeks, and the first measure taken is to prevent the
guilty crocodile escaping to some other part of the river. To achieve
this they take long poles, frayed with many cuts, and set them up on
the river-bank at some distance above and below the scene of the crime
and at the mouths of all the neighbouring creeks and streamlets; and
they kill fowls and pray that the guilty crocodile may be prevented
from passing the spots thus marked. They then search the creeks,
and if they find the criminal with the body of his victim they kill
him, and the feud is at an end. But, if they fail to find him thus,
they go out on the part of the river included between their charmed
poles, and, with their spears tied to long poles, prod all the bed of
this part of the river, and thus generally succeed in killing one or
more crocodiles. They then usually search its entrails for the bones
and hair of the victim so as to make sure that they have caught the
offending beast. But, even if they do not obtain conclusive evidence
of this kind, they seem to feel that justice is satisfied, and that
the beast killed is probably the guilty one.
Except in the meting out of a just vengeance in this way, no Kenyah
will kill a crocodile, and they will not eat its flesh under any
circumstances. But there is no evidence to show that they regard
themselves as related by blood or descent to the crocodiles or that
their ancestors ever did so.
When Kenyahs go on a journey into strange rivers or to the lower part
of the main river, they fear the crocodiles of these strange waters,
because they are unknown to them, and any one of them might easily
be mistaken by the crocodiles for some one who has done them an
injury. Some Kenyahs tie the red leaves of the DRACAENA below the
prow of their boat whenever they go far from home, believing that
this protects them from all danger of attack by crocodiles.
The Dog
In all Kenyah houses are large numbers of dogs, which vary a good
deal in size and colour, but roughly resemble large, mongrel-bred,
smooth-haired terriers. Each family owns several, and they are fed with
rice usually in the evening; but they seem to be always hungry. The
best of them are used for hunting; but besides these there is always
a number of quite useless, ill-fed, ill-tempered curs; for no Kenyah
dare kill a dog, however much he may wish to be rid of it. Still less,
of course, will he eat the flesh of a dog. The dogs prowl about, in
and around the house, much as they please, but are not treated with
any particular respect. When a dog intrudes where he is not wanted it
is usual to click with the tongue at him, and this is usually enough
to make him pass on; but blows with a stick follow quickly if the
animal does not obey. They display little affection for their dogs,
and they do not like children to touch or play with the dogs, but of
course cannot altogether prevent them.
One young Kenyah chief, on being questioned, said that the reason
they will not kill dogs is that they are like children, and eat and
sleep together with men in the same house; and he added that, if a
man should kill a dog, he would go mad.
If a dog dies in the house, the men push the carcase out of the
house and into the river with long poles, and will on no account
touch it with their hands. The spot on the floor on which the dog
died is fenced round with mats for some few days in order to prevent
the children walking over it.
It is usual for the Kenyah men to have one or more designs tatued on
their forearms and shoulders. Among the commonest of these designs
are those known as the prawn and the dog (see Chap. XII). They seem
to be conventionalised derivatives from these animal forms. It is
said that the dog's head design was formerly much more in fashion
than it is at the present time.
Deer and Cattle
Very few Kenyahs of the upper class will kill or eat deer and wild
cattle. They believe that if they should eat their flesh they would
vomit violently and spit out blood. They have no domestic cattle, and
the buffalo does not occur in their districts. Lower-class Kenyahs
and slaves, taken as war-captives from other tribes, may eat deer
and horned cattle, but they must take the flesh some little distance
from the house when they cook it. A woman who is pregnant, or for
any other reason is in the hands of a physician, has to observe the
restrictions with regard to deer and cattle more strictly than other
people, and she will not touch or allow to be brought near her any
article of leather or horn.
The war-coats of the men are often made of the skin of goats or deer,
and any man may wear such a war-coat. But when a man has a young son,
he is particularly careful to avoid contact with any part of a deer,
lest through such contact he should transmit to his son in any degree
the timidity of the deer. On one occasion when we had killed a deer,
a Kenyah chief resolutely refused to allow its skin to be carried in
his boat, alleging the above reason.
The cry or bark of the deer (CERVULUS MUNTJAC) is a warning of danger,
and the seeing or hearing of the mouse-deer or PLANDOK (TRAGULAS NAPU)
has a like significance.
The Tiger-cat
The only large species of the FELIDAAE that occurs in Borneo is the
tiger-cat (FELIS NEBULOSA). Kenyahs will not eat it, as men of some
tribes do, but will kill it; and they fashion its handsome spotted
skin into war-coats. Such coats are worn only by men who have been
on the war-path. The canine teeth of the tiger-cat are much prized
as ornaments; they are worn thrust through holes in the upper part
of the shell of the ear, but only by full-grown men. KULEH, the name
of this beast, is sometimes given to a boy.
The true tiger does not now occur in Borneo, and it is doubtful
whether it ever was a native of the island. Nevertheless the Kenyahs
know it by name (LINJAU) and by reputation, and a few skins are in
the possession of chiefs. No ordinary man, but only a distinguished
and elderly chief, will venture to wear such a skin as a war-coat,
or even to touch it. These skins have been brought from other lands
by Malay traders, and it is probable that whatever knowledge of the
tiger the Kenyahs possess has come from the same source.
A chief will sometimes name his son LINJAU, that is, the Tiger.
Other Animals
A carnivore (ARCTOGALE LEUCOTIS) allied to the civet-cat warns of
danger when seen or heard.
There is a certain large lizard (VARANUS) that is eaten freely by
other tribes, but Kenyahs may not eat it, though they will kill it.
They regard the seeing of any snake as an unfavourable omen, and will
not kill any snake gratuitously.
Kenyahs, like all, or almost all the other natives of Borneo, are more
or less afraid of the Maias (the orang-utan) and of the long-nosed
monkey, and they will not look one in the face or laugh at one.
In one Kenyah house a fantastic figure of the gibbon is carved on
the ends of all the main crossbeams of the house, and the chief said
that this has been their custom for many generations. He told us
that it is the custom, when these beams are being put up, to kill a
pig and divide its flesh among the men who are working, and no woman
is allowed to come into the house until this has been done. None of
his people will kill a gibbon, though other Kenyahs will kill and
probably eat it. They claim that he helps them as a friend, and the
carvings on the beams seem to symbolize his supporting of the house.
In other parts of the same house are carvings of the bangat,
SEMNOPITHECUS HOSEI, but the old chief regards these as much less
important and as recent innovations.
We do not know of any other animals to which especial respect or
attention is paid by the Kenyahs.
Animal Cults of the Kayans
The white-headed hawk (Bali Flaki) of the Kenyahs has its equivalent
among the Kayans in the large dark-brown hawk, which they call Laki
Neho. But as it is not possible to distinguish these two kinds of
hawks when seen flying at some distance, they address and accept all
large hawks seen in the distance as Laki Neho.
The function and powers of Laki Neho seem to be almost identical
with those of Bali Flaki. He is a giver of omens and a bringer of
messages from Laki Tenangan. The following notes of a conversation
with an intelligent Kayan chief will give some idea of his attitude
towards Laki Neho. It must be remembered that these people have no
priesthood and no dogmatic theologians to define and formulate beliefs,
so that their ideas as to the nature of their gods and their abodes and
powers are, though perhaps more concrete, at least as various in the
minds of different individuals as are the corresponding ideas among
the average adherents of more highly developed forms of religion;
and perhaps no two men will agree exactly on these matters, and any
one man will freely contradict his own statements.
Laki Tenangan is an old man with long white hair who speaks Kayan
and has a wife, Doh Tenangan. They sometimes see him in dreams, and
if fortunate they may then see his face,[137] but if unlucky they see
his back only. In olden times powerful men sometimes spoke with him,
but now this never occurs. He dwells in a house far away. Laki Neho
also has a house that is covered with palm leaves and frayed sticks. It
is in a tree-top, yet it is beside a river, and has a landing-place
before it like every Kayan house. This house is sometimes seen in
dreams. It is not so far away as the house of Laki Tenangan. At first
our informant said that help is asked directly of Laki Neho; but,
when pressed, he said that Laki Neho may carry the message to Laki
Tenangan. Some things Laki Neho does of his own will and power; for
example, if a branch were likely to fall on a Kayan boat he would
prevent it, for Laki Tenangan long ago taught him how to do such
things. When a man is sick, Kayans appeal to Laki Neho; but if he does
not make the patient well they then appeal to Laki Tenangan directly,
killing a pig, whose spirit goes first to the house of Laki Neho,
and then on to the more distant house of Laki Tenangan. For they
believe that in such a case the patient has somehow offended Laki
Neho by disregarding or misreading his omens. A man suffering from
chronic disease may himself pray to Laki Tenangan. He lights a fire
and kills a fowl, and perhaps a pig also, and calls upon Laki Neho to
be his witness and messenger. He holds an egg in one hand and says,
"This is for you to eat, carry my message direct to Laki Tenangan
that I may get well and live and bring up my children, who shall be
taught my occupations and the true customs." The fire is lighted to
make Laki Neho warm and energetic.
It will be seen from the above account that the Kayans have formed
a concept of the power of the hawks in general, and have given it a
semi-anthropomorphic character, and we shall see below that the Sea
Dayaks have carried this process still further.
Crocodiles
The Kayan's attitude towards the crocodile is practically the same as
the Kenyah's. We append the following notes of a conversation with a
young Kayan chief, Usong, and his cousin Wan:There are but very few
Kayans who will kill a crocodile except in revenge. But if one of their
people has been taken by a crocodile they go out together to kill the
criminal, and they begin by saying, "Don't run away, you've got to
be killed, why don't you come to the surface? You won't come out on
the land because you have done wrong and are afraid." After this he
will perhaps come on land; and if he does not, he will at least float
to the surface of the water, and is then killed with spears. In olden
days Kayans used to make a crocodile of clay and ask it to drive away
evil spirits; but now this is not done. A crocodile may become a man
just like themselves. Sometimes a man dreams that a crocodile calls
him to become his blood-brother, and after they have gone through
the regular ceremony and exchanged names (in the dream), the man
is quite safe from crocodiles. Usong's uncle has in this way become
blood-brother to a crocodile, and is now called "Baya" (the generic
name for the crocodile), while some crocodile unknown is called Jok,
and Usong considers himself the nephew of the crocodile Jok. Usong's
father has also become blood-brother to a crocodile, and Usong calls
himself a son of this particular unknown crocodile. Sometimes he
asks these two, his uncle- and his father-crocodiles, to give him
a pig when he is out hunting, and once they did give him one. After
relating this, Usong added, "But who knows if this be true?"
Wan's great-great-grandfather became blood-brother to a crocodile,
and was called "Klieng Baya." Wan has several times met this crocodile
in dreams. In one dream he fell into the river when there were many
crocodiles about. He climbed on to the head of one, which said to him,
"Don't be afraid," and carried him to the bank. Wan's father had
charms given him by a crocodile and would not on any account kill
one, and Wan clearly regards himself as being intimately related to
crocodiles in general.
The Kayans regard the pig and the fowl in much the same way as the
Kenyahs do, and put them to the same uses. The beliefs and customs
with regard to deer, horned cattle, dogs, and the tiger-cat, are
similar to those of the Kenyahs save that they will not kill the
last of these. They are perhaps more strict in the avoidance of
deer and cattle. One old chief, who had been ailing for a long time,
hesitated to enter the Resident's house because he saw a pair of horns
hanging up there. When he entered he asked for a piece of iron, and
on returning home he killed a fowl and a pig, and submitted to the
process of having his soul caught by a DAYONG, lest it should have
incurred some undefined injury in the neighbourhood of the horns.
The Kayans avoid the skin of the tiger even more strictly than the
Kenyahs or any other tribe; even a great chief will not touch a
tiger-skin, and we have known one refuse to enter a house because he
knew that it contained a tiger-skin war-coat.
Like the Kenyahs, the Kayans entertain a superstitious dread of the
Maias and the long-nosed monkey, but the DOK (MACACUS NEMESTRINUS),
the coco-nut monkey of the Malay States, has special relations to
them. It is very common in their district, but they will kill it only
when it is stealing their rice-crop; and they will never eat it as
other peoples do. There is a somewhat uncertain belief that it is a
blood-relative, and the following myth is told to account for this. A
Kayan woman of high class was reaping PADI with her daughter. Now it
is against custom to eat any of the rice during reaping; and when the
mother went away for a short time leaving the girl at work, she told
her on no account to eat any of the rice. But no sooner was the mother
gone than the girl began to husk some PADI and nibble at it. Then
at once her body began to itch, and hair began to grow on her arms
like the hair of a DOK. Soon the mother returned and the girl said,
"Why am I itching so?" The mother answered, "You have done some wicked
thing, you have eaten some rice." Then hair grew all over the girl's
body except her head and face, and the mother said, "Ah, this is what
I feared, now you must go into the jungle and eat only what has been
planted by human hands." So the girl went into the jungle and her
head became like a DOK'S, and she ceased to be able to speak.
The DOK does not help them in any way, but only spoils their crops. A
very popular dance is the DOK dance, in which a man imitates very
cleverly the behaviour of the DOK. It is a very ludicrous performance,
and excites boisterous mirth. They say it is done merely in fun.
In one Kayan house the ends of all the main crossbeams that support the
roof are ornamented with fretwork designs, which are clearly animal
derivatives and apparently all of the same animal. The form suggests
a crocodile, and some of the men agreed that that was its meaning,
while others asserted that it was a dog. No doubt it was originally
one or other of these, but has now become a conventional design merely,
and its true origin has been forgotten.
A pattern which seems to be derived from the outline of a dog,
and which goes by the name KALANG ASU ( = dog-pattern), occurs in a
great variety of forms in the decorative art of the Kayans, and also,
though to a less extent, in that of the Kenyahs. It is tatued on arm
and thigh, is reproduced in beadwork, and carved in low relief on
decorative panels.[138]
Neither Kayans nor Kenyahs make much use of snakes of any kind,
but there is one snake with red head and tail (BATANG LIMA) which,
when they see it in the course of a journey, they must kill, else
harm will befall them. Again, if they see a certain snake just as
they are about to enter a strange river or a strange village, they
will stop and light a fire on the bank in order to communicate with
Laki Neho. Kayans will not eat any species of turtle or tortoise.
Klemantans
The following notes of a conversation with the Orang Kaya Tumonggong,
the influential chief of the Long Pata people (one of the many groups
of Klemantans), show that these people regard the hawk in much the
same way as the Kenyahs do: The hawk, BALI FLAKI, is the messenger
of "Bali Utong," the Supreme Being. When a party is about to set
out on any expedition they explain their intentions to BALI FLAKI,
and then observe the movements of the hawks. If a hawk circles round
over their heads, some of the party will fall sick on the journey and
probably will die. If the hawk flies to the right when near at hand,
it is a good omen; but if it flies to the right when at a distance, or
to the left, whether near or far, that is a bad omen. The people then
light a fire and entreat the hawk to give a more favourable sign, and
if it persists in going to the left they give up the expedition. If,
while the omens are being read, the hawk flaps his wings, or screams,
or swoops down and settles on a tree, the omen is bad. But if it
swoops down and up again, that is good. If two or three hawks are
visible at the same time, and especially if they all fly to the right,
that is very good; but if many are visible, and especially if they fly
off in different directions, that is very bad, for it means that the
enemy will scatter the attacking force. If the hawk should capture a
small bird while it is under observation, that means that they will
be made captives if they persist in their undertaking. The hawk is
not claimed as a relative by Klemantans. They take omens from various
other birds in matters of minor importance.
Klemantans use the domestic pig and fowl as sacrificial animals just
as the Kenyahs and Kayans do, and they have the same superstitious
dread of killing a dog. One group of them, Malanaus, use a dog in
taking a very solemn oath, and sometimes the dog is killed in the
course of this ceremony. Or instead of the dog being killed, its tail
may be cut off, and the man taking the oath licks the blood from the
stump; this is considered a most binding and solemn form of oath. The
ceremony is spoken of as KOMAN ASU, I.E. "the eating of the dog."
Most Klemantans will kill and eat both deer and cattle freely. But
there are exceptions to this rule. Thus Damong, the chief of a
Malanau household, together with all his people, will not kill or
eat the deer CERVULUS MUNTJAC, alleging that an ancestor had become
a deer of this kind, and that, since they cannot distinguish this
incarnation of his ancestor from other deer, they must abstain from
killing all deer of this species. We know of one instance in which
one of these people refused to use again his cooking-pot, because
a Malay who had borrowed it had used it for cooking the flesh of
deer of this species. This superstition is still rigidly adhered to,
although these people have been converted to Islam of recent years.
On one occasion another chief resolutely refused to proceed on a
journey through the jungle when a mouse-deer, PLANDOK, crossed his
path; he will not eat this deer at any time.[139]
The people of Miri, who also are Mohammedan Malanaus, claim to be
related to the large deer, CERVUS EQUINUS, and some of them to the
muntjac deer also. Now, these people live in a country in which deer
of all kinds abound, and they always make a clearing in the jungle
around a tomb. On such a clearing grass grows up rapidly, and so the
spot becomes attractive to deer as a grazing ground; and it seems not
improbable that it is through frequently seeing deer about the tombs
that the people have come to entertain the belief that their dead
relatives become deer, or that they are in some other way closely
related to the deer.
The Bakongs, another group of Malanaus, hold a similar belief
with regard to the bear-cat (ARTICTIS) and the various species of
PARADOXURUS; in this case the origin of the belief is admitted by
them to be the fact that, on going to their graveyards, they often
see one of these beasts coming out of a tomb. These tombs are roughly
constructed wooden coffins raised a few feet only from the ground,
and it is probable that these carnivores make their way into them,
in the first place, to devour the corpse, and that they make use of
them as lairs.
The relations of the Klemantans to the crocodiles seem to be more
intimate than those of other tribes. One group, the Long Patas, claim
the crocodile as a relative. The story goes that a certain man named
Silau became a crocodile. First he became covered with itch, and he
scratched himself till he bled and became rough all over. Then his
feet began to look like a crocodile's tail; as the change crept up
from his feet to his body, he called out to his relatives that he was
becoming a crocodile, and made them swear that they would never kill
any crocodile. Many of the people in olden days knew that Silau became
a crocodile; they saw him at times and spoke to him, and his teeth
and tongue were always like those of a man. Many stories are told of
his meeting with people by the river-side. On one occasion a man sat
roasting a pig on the river-bank, and, when he left it for a moment,
Silau took it and divided it among the other crocodiles, who greatly
enjoyed it. Silau then arranged with them that he would give a sign
to his human relatives by which the crocodiles might always be able
to recognise them when travelling on the river. He told his human
friends that they must tie leaves of the DRACAENA below the bows of
their boats; this they always do when they go far from home, so that
the crocodiles may recognise them and so abstain from attacking them.
If a man of the Long Patas is taken by a crocodile, they attribute
this to the fact that they have intermarried to some extent with
Kayans. When they come upon a crocodile lying on the river-bank, they
say, "Be easy, grandfather, don't mind us, your are one of us." Some
of the Klemantans will not even eat anything that has been cooked in a
vessel previously used for cooking crocodile's flesh, and it is said
that if a man should do so unwittingly his body would become covered
with sores.
If a crocodile is seen on their left hand by Long Patas on a war
expedition, that is a bad omen; but if on their right hand, that is
the best possible omen.
The Orang Kaya Tumonggong tells us that in the olden times the
crocodiles used to speak to his people, warning them of danger, but
that now they never speak, and he supposes that their silence is due
to the fact that his people have intermarried with other tribes. The
Long Patas frequently carve a crocodile's head as the figurehead for
a war-canoe.
The Batu Blah people (Klemantans) on returning from the war-path make
a huge effigy of a crocodile with cooked rice, and they put fowl's
eggs in its head for eyes and bananas for teeth, and cover it with
scales made from the stem of the banana plant. When all is ready it
is transfixed with a wooden spear, and the chief cuts off its head
with a wooden sword. Then pigs and fowls are slaughtered and cooked,
and eaten with the rice from the rice-crocodile, the chiefs eating
the head and the common people the body. The chief of these people
could give us no explanation of the meaning of this ceremony; he
merely says they do it because it is custom.
One community of Klemantans, the Lelak people, lived recently on the
banks of a lake much infested with crocodiles. Their chief had the
reputation of being able to induce them to leave the lake. To achieve
this he would stand in his boat waving a bundle of charms, which
included among other things teeth of the real tiger and boars' tusks,
and then address the crocodiles politely in their own language. He
would then allow his boat to float out of the lake into the river,
and the crocodiles would follow him and pass on down the river.
Many, probably all, Klemantans put up wooden images of the crocodile
before their houses, and many of them carve the prow of their
war-canoes into the form of a crocodile's head with gaping jaw.
Some of the Muruts make an effigy of the crocodile from clay for use
on the celebration of a successful expedition.
The Punans
The Punans make use of all the omen-birds that are used by the Kenyahs,
and they regard them as in some degree sacred, and not to be killed or
eaten. They seem to read the omens in much the same way as the Kenyahs
do; but they are not so constant in their cult of the omen-birds, and
Punans of different districts differ a good deal from one another in
this respect. In fact, it is doubtful whether those that have mixed
least with the other peoples pay any attention to the omen-birds;
and it seems not unlikely that the cult of the omen-birds is in
process of being adopted by them.
With the exception of these birds there is probably no wild animal of
the jungle that the Punans do not kill and eat. They refuse to eat
the domestic pig, but this, they say, is because they know nothing
of it, it is strange to them. Having no domestic pigs and fowls,
they of course do not sacrifice them to their gods, nor do they seem
to practise the rite of sacrifice in any form.
They give the names of various animals to their children, and they
use these names in the ordinary way.
The crocodile seems to be regarded as a god by the Punans -- they speak
of it as Bali Penyalong. (This, as we have already said, is the name
of the Supreme Spirit of the Kenyahs.) They sometimes make a wooden
image of it, and hang it before the leaf shelter or hut in which they
may be living at any time; and if one of their party should fall ill,
they hang the blossom of the betel-nut tree on the figure, and the
medicine-man addresses it when he seeks to call back the wandering
soul of his patient.
Punans certainly ascribe significance to the behaviour of a few animals
other than those observed by the other peoples. Thus, if they see
a lizard of any kind upon a branch before the shelter in which they
are encamped, and especially if it utters its note, they regard this
as a sign that enemies are near.
The Sea Dayaks or Ibans
The Ibans do not seem to have any conception that corresponds closely
to the Supreme Spirit of the races with which we have already
dealt. Archdeacon Perham[140] has given an account of the Petara
of these people, showing how it is a conception of one god having
very many manifestations and functions, each special function being
conceived vaguely as an anthropomorphic deity. He has described also
the mythical warrior-hero and demi-god Klieng, and the god of war,
Singalang Burong. As Archdeacon Perham has said, this last deity has
a material animal form, namely, the white-headed hawk, which is the
Bali Flaki of the Kenyahs, and plays a somewhat similar part in their
lives. But Singalong Burong is decidedly more anthropomorphic than Bali
Flaki; he is probably generally conceived as a single being of human
form living in a house such as the Ibans themselves inhabit; whereas
Bali Flaki, even if sometimes conceived in the singular as the great
Bali Flaki, is very bird-like. We have seen that the Kayans describe
their hawk-god, Laki Neho, as dwelling in a house, which, though in
the top of a tree, has a landing-stage before it on the river-bank.
In the case of the Kayans, the conception is only half-way on the road
to a full anthropomorph; whereas with the Ibans the change has been
completed and the hawk-god is completely anthropomorphic. Corresponding
with this increased importance and definition of the anthropomorphic
hawk-god, we find that for the Mans the virtue has departed out of the
individual hawks, and that they are no longer consulted for omens;
for the Ibans say that Singalang Burong never leaves his house,
and that for this reason they do not take omens from the hawks when
going on the war-path. Nevertheless, he is the chief or ruler over all
the other omen birds, who are merely his messengers. He thus seems
to have come to occupy almost the supreme position accorded to Bali
Penyalong by the Kenyahs. The following notes are the statements made
upon this subject by a very intelligent Iban of the Undup district:
Once a year they make a big feast for Singalang Burong and sing for
about twelve hours, calling him and Klieng and all the Petara to the
feast. (This is the ceremony known as BURONG GAWAI. It is a most
tedious and monotonous performance after the first few hours.) In
olden days Singalang Burong used to come to these feasts in person
as a man just like an Iban in appearance and behaviour. At the end of
the feast he would go out, take off his coat, and fly away in the form
of a white-headed hawk. Now they are not sure that he comes to their
feast, because they never see him, Singalang Burong is greater than
Klieng, although, it is Klieng that gives them heads in war. Singalang
Burong married an Iban woman, Kachindai Lanai Pantak Girak, and he
gave all his daughters in marriage to the omen-birds. Dara Inchin
Tembaga Monghok Chelabok married Katupong (SASIA ABNORMIS); Dara
Selaka Utih Nujut married Mambuas (CARCURENTIS); Pingai Tuai Nadai
Mertas Indu Moa Puchang Penabas married Bragai (HARPACTES); Indu
Langgu Katungsong Ngumbai Dayang Katupang Bunga Nketai married Papau
(HARPACTES DIARDI); and, lastly, Indu Bantok Tinchin Mas Ndu Pungai
Lelatan Pulas married Kotok (LEPOCESTES). He had also one son, Agi
Melieng etc., who married the daughter of Pulang Gana, the god of
agriculture, her name being Indu Kachanggut Rumput Melieng Kapian.
It was amusing and instructive to hear this Iban rattle off these
enormous names without any hesitation, while another Iban sitting
beside him guaranteed their accuracy.
In the olden days, it is said, there were only thirty-three individuals
of each kind of omen-bird (including Singalang Burong). But although
these thirty-three of each kind still exist, there are many others
which cannot be certainly distinguished from them, and these do not
give true omens. It would be quite impossible to kill any one of
these thirty-three true representatives of each kind, however much
a man might try.
Nevertheless, if an Iban kills an omen-bird by mistake, he wraps it
in a piece of cloth and buries it carefully in the earth, and with
it he buries rice and flesh and money, entreating it not to be vexed
and to forgive him, because it was all an accident. He then goes home
and will speak to no one on the way, and stays in the house for the
rest of that day at least.
The Ibans read omens not only from the birds mentioned above as the
son-in-law of Singalang Burong, but also from some other animals. And
it is interesting to note that they have made a verb from the
substantive BURONG (a bird), namely, BEBURONG (to bird), I.E. to take
omens of any kind, whether from bird or beast. An excellent account
of the part played by omens in the life of the Ibans has been given
by Archdeacon Perham in the paper referred to above, and we have
nothing further to add to that account.
The hornbill must be included among the sacred birds of the Iban,
although it does not give omens. On the occasion of making peace
between hostile tribes, the Ibans sometimes make a large wooden
image of the hornbill and hang great numbers of cigarettes upon it;
and these are taken from it during the ceremony and smoked by all the
men taking part in it. On the occasion of the great peace-making at
Baram in March 1899, at which thousands of Kenyahs, Kayans, Klemantans,
and Ibans were present,[141] the Ibans made an elaborate image of the
hornbill some nine feet in height, and hung upon it many thousands of
cigarettes, and these were smoked by the men of the different tribes,
all apparently with full understanding of the value of the act.
A special deity or spirit, Pulang Gana, presides over the rice-culture
of the Ibans, but the crocodile also is intimately concerned with
it. The following account was given us by an intelligent Iban from
the Batang Lupar: --
Klieng first advised the Ibans to make friends with Pulang Gana, who is
a PETARA and the grandfather ("AKI") of PADI. Pulang Gana first taught
them to plant PADI and instructed them in the following rites: --
On going to a new district Ibans always make a life-size image of a
crocodile in clay on the land chosen for the PADI-farm. The image is
made chiefly by some elderly man of good repute and noted for skilful
farming. Then for seven days .the house is MALI, I.E. under special
restrictions -- no one may enter the house or do anything in it except
eat and sleep. At the end of the seven days they go to see the clay
crocodile and give it cloth and food and rice-spirit, and kill a fowl
and a pig before it. The ground round about the image is kept carefully
cleared and is held sacred for the next three years, and if this is not
done there will be poor crops on the other farms. When the rites have
been duly performed this clay crocodile destroys all the pests which
eat the rice. If, in a district where Ibans have been long settled,
the farm-pests become very noxious, the people pass three days MALI and
then make a tiny boat of bark, which they call UTAP. They then catch
one specimen of each kind of pest -- one sparrow, one grasshopper,
etc. -- and put them into the small boat, together with all they need
for food, and set the boat free to float away down the river. If this
does not drive away the pests, they resort to the more thorough and
certainly effectual process of making the clay crocodile.
Many Ibans claim the live crocodile as a relative, and, like almost
all the other peoples, will not eat the flesh of crocodiles, and will
not kill them, save in revenge when a crocodile has taken one of their
household. They say that the spirit of the crocodile sometimes becomes
a man just like an Iban, but better and more powerful in every way,
and sometimes he is met and spoken with in this form.
Another reason given for their fear of killing crocodiles is that
Ribai, the river-god, sometimes becomes a crocodile; and he may become
also a tiger or a bear. Klieng, too, may become any one of five beasts,
namely, the python, the maias, the crocodile, the bear, or the tiger,
and it is for this reason that Ibans seldom kill these animals. For
if a man should kill one which was really either Ribai or Klieng,
he would go mad.
The Ibans are by nature a less serious-minded and less religious
people than the Kenyahs and Kayans, and they have a greater variety of
myths and extravagant superstitions; nevertheless, they use the fowl
and the pig as sacrificial animals in much the same way as the other
tribes. They eat the fowl and both the wild and domestic pig freely,
except in so far as they are restrained by somewhat rigid notions of
economy in such matters. The fowl plays a larger part than the pig in
their religious practices, and its entrails are sometimes consulted
for omens.
Ibans will kill and eat all kinds of deer, but there are exceptions
to this rule. The deer are of some slight value to them as
omen-givers. Horned cattle they will kill and eat, but they are not
accustomed to their flesh, and few of them relish it.
Ibans have numerous animal fables that remind one strongly of AEsop's
fables and the Brer Rabbit stories of the Africans. In these KORA,
the land-tortoise, and PLANDOK, the tiny mouse-deer, figure largely
as cunning and unprincipled thieves and vagabonds that turn the laugh
always against the bigger animals and man.[142]
The NGARONG or Secret Helper
An important institution among some of the Ibans, which occurs but
in rare instances among the other peoples, is the NGARONG[143]
or secret helper. The NGARONG IS one of the very few topics in
regard to which the Ibans display any reluctance to speak freely. So
great is their reserve in this connection that one of us lived for
fourteen years on friendly terms with Ibans of various districts
without ascertaining the meaning of the word NGARONG, or suspecting
the great importance of the part played by the notion in the lives
of some of these people. The NGARONG seems to be usually the spirit
of some ancestor or dead relative, but not always so, and it is not
clear that it is always conceived as the spirit of a deceased human
being. This spirit becomes the special protector of some individual
Iban, to whom in a dream he manifests himself, in the first place
in human form, and announces that he will be his secret helper; and
he may or may not inform the dreamer in what form he will appear in
future. On the day after such a dream the Iban wanders through the
jungle looking for signs by which he may recognise his secret helper;
and if an animal behaves in a manner at all unusual, if a startled
deer stops a moment to gaze at him before bounding away, if a gibbon
gambols about persistently in the trees near him, if he comes upon a
bright quartzcrystal or a strangely. contorted root or creeper,[144]
that animal or object is for him full of a mysterious significance
and is the abode of his NGARONG. Sometimes the NGARONG, then assumes
the form of an Iban and speaks with him, promising all kinds of help
and good fortune. If this occurs the seer usually faints away, and
when he comes to himself again the NGARONG will have disappeared. Or,
again, a man may be told in his dream that if he will go into the
jungle he will meet his NGARONG in the form of a wild boar. He will
then, of course, go to seek it, and if by chance other men of his
house should kill a wild boar that day, he will go to them and beg
for its head or buy it at a good price if need be, carry it home
to his bed-place, offer it cooked rice and kill a fowl before it,
smearing the blood on the head and on himself, and humbly begging
for pardon. Or he may leave the corpse in the jungle and sacrifice a
fowl before it there. On the following night he hopes to dream of the
NGARONG again, and perhaps he is told in his dream to take the tusks
from the dead boar and that they will bring him good luck. Unless he
dreams something of this sort, he feels that he has been mistaken,
and that the boar was not really his secret helper.
Perhaps only one in a hundred men is fortunate enough to have a secret
helper, though it is ardently desired by many of them. Many a young man
goes to sleep on the grave of some distinguished person, or in some
wild and lonely spot, and lives for some days on a very restricted
diet, hoping that a secret helper will come to him in his dreams.
When, as is most commonly the case, the secret helper takes on the
form of some animal, all individuals of that species become objects
of especial regard to the fortunate Iban; he will not kill or eat
any such animal, and he will as far as possible restrain others from
doing so. A NGARONG may after a time manifest itself in some new form,
but even then the Iban will continue to respect the animal-form in
which it first appeared.
In some cases the cult of a secret helper will spread through
a whole family or household. The children and grandchildren will
usually respect the species of animal to which a man's secret helper
belongs, and will perhaps sacrifice fowls or pigs to it occasionally,
although they expect no help from it; but it is asserted that if
the great-grandchildren of a man behave well to his secret helper,
it will often befriend them just as much as its original protege.
The above general account of the secret helper is founded on the
descriptions of many different Ibans, and we will now supplement it
by describing several particular instances.
Anggus (an Ulu Ai Iban of the Batang Lupar) says that every Iban who
has no NGARONG hopes to get some bird or beast as his helper at the
BEGAWAI, the feast given to the PETARA. He himself has none, but he
will not kill the gibbon because the NGARONG of his grandfather,
who died twenty years ago, was a gibbon. Once a man came to his
grandfather in a dream and said to him, "Don't you kill the gibbon,"
and then turned into a grey gibbon. This gibbon helped him to become
rich and to take heads, and in all possible ways. On one occasion,
when he was about to go on the war-path, his NGARONG came to him in
a dream and said, "Go on, I will help you," and the next day he saw
in the jungle a grey gibbon which was undoubtedly his NGARONG. When
he died he said to his sons, "Don't you kill the gibbon," and his
sons and grandsons have obeyed him in this ever since. Anggus adds
that when a man dreams of a NGARONG. for the first time he does not
accept it, and will still kill animals of that kind; nor is a second
dream enough; but when he dreams the same dream a third time, then
his scepticism is overcome and he can no longer doubt his good fortune.
Anggus himself once shot a gibbon when told to do so by one of us. He
first said to it, "I don't want to kill you, but the TUAN who is
giving me wages expects me to, and the blame is his. But if you are
really the NGARONG of my grandfather, make the shot miss you." He
then shot and missed three times, and on shooting a fourth time he
killed a gibbon, but not the one he had spoken to. Anggus does not
think the gibbon helps either his father or himself.
Payang, an old Katibas Iban, tells us that he has been helped by
a python ever since he was a youth, when a man came to him in a
dream and said, "Sometimes I become a python and sometimes a cobra,
and I will always help you." It has certainly helped him very much,
but he does not know whether it has helped his children; nevertheless
he has forbidden them to kill it. He does not like to speak of it,
but he does so at our request. Payang concluded by saying that he
had no doubt that we white men have secret helpers, very much more
powerful than the Iban's, and that to them we owe our ability to do
so many wonderful things.
Imban, an Iban who had recently moved to the Baram river from the
Rejang, had once when sick seen in a dream the LABI-LABI, the large
river-turtle (TRIONYX SUBPLANUS), and had made a promise that if he
should recover he would never kill it. So when he settled on the Baram
river as head of a household, he attempted to impose a fine on his
people for killing the LABI-LABI, insisting that it was MALI to kill it
or bring its carcase into his river. They appealed to one of us as the
resident magistrate, and it was decided that if Imban wished to insist
on this observance he must remove to a small tributary stream. This
he has done, and a few of his people have followed him; and on them
he enforces a strict observance of his cult of the river-turtle.
A still more interesting case is the following one: -- A community of
Ibans were building a new house on the Dabai river some years ago,
and one day, while they were at work, a porcupine ran out of a hole
in the ground near by. During the following night one of the party
was told by the porcupine in a dream to join their new house with
his (the porcupine's). So they completed their house; and ever since
that time they have made yearly feasts in honour of the porcupines
that live beneath the house, and no one in the house dare injure one
of them, though they will still kill and eat other porcupines in the
jungle. They have had no death in the house during the seven years that
it has been built, and this they attribute to the protecting power of
the porcupines; and when any one is sick, they offer food to them, and
regard their good offices as far more important than the ministrations
of the MANANG (the medicine-man). Last year some relatives of these
Ibans moved to this village, and for three months the knowledge of
the part played by the porcupines was hidden from them as a mysterious
secret. At the end of that time this precious mystery was disclosed to
the new-comers, and the porcupines were feasted with every variety of
cooked rice, some of it being made into a rude image of a porcupine,
and with rice-spirit and cakes of sugar and rice-flour, salt and
dried fish, oil, betel-nut, and tobacco. Several fowls were slain,
and their blood was daubed on the chin of each person in the house,
a ceremony known as ENSELAN. The liver of one fowl was carefully taken
out and put with the food offered to the porcupines, that they might
read the omens from it; and they were then informed of the arrival of
the new-comers. The fowls were waved over the heads of the people by
the old men, while they prayed the porcupines to give them long life
and health, and a token of their goodwill in the form of a smooth
rounded pebble. On an occasion of this sort it is highly probable
that the required token will be found; for the secret helper would no
doubt be surreptitiously helped by some member of the household who,
being deficient in faith, prefers to make a certainty of so important
a matter rather than leave it entirely to the NGARONG.
Inquiries made since the publication of the facts reported in the
foregoing paragraphs have shown us that the cult of the NGARONG
or secret helper is probably not common to all branches of the Sea
Dayaks people. We have heard of its occurrence amongst the Ulu Ai
Dayaks both of the Batang Lupar and Rejang districts, but we have no
positive knowledge of its occurrence among other branches unless the
custom known as NAMPOK has some connection with it.
Conclusion
We have now to discuss some problems suggested by a review of the
facts set forth above, and to bring forward a few additional facts
that seem to throw light on these questions.
The question that we will first discuss is this: Are all or any of the
instances of peculiar regard paid to animals, or of animals sacrificed
to gods or spirits, or of the ceremonial use of their blood, to be
regarded as institutions surviving from a fully developed system of
totemism now fallen into decay? It will have been noticed that many of
the features of totemism, as it occurs in its best developed forms,
occur among the people of one or other of the tribes of Sarawak. We
have, in the first place, numerous cases in which a whole community
refuses to kill or eat an animal which is believed to protect and
aid them by omens and warnings and in other ways, and in which the
animal is worshipped with prayer and sacrifice (E.G. the hawk among
various tribes); we have at least one instance of a community claiming
to be related to a friendly species (Long Patas and the crocodile),
and having as usual an extravagant myth to account for the belief; we
have the domestic animal that is sacrificially slain, its blood being
sprinkled on the worshippers and its flesh eaten by them, and that is
never slain without religious rites (pig of the Kenyahs and Kayans); we
have the animal that must not be killed tatued on the skin of the men
(the dog), or its skin worn by fully grown men only (the tiger-cat), or
images of it made of clay or carved in wood and set up before the house
(the hawk and crocodile); we have also the animal that is claimed as
a relative imitated in popular dances (the Dok-monkey of the Kayans);
the belief that the souls of men assume the form of some animal that
must not be killed or eaten (deer and the ARCTOGALE among Klemantans);
the observance by invalids of a very strict avoidance of contact with
any part of an animal that must not be killed or eaten in any case
(horned cattle among many Kenyahs and Kayans).
Not only do we see these various customs, which in several parts of
the world have been observed as living elements of totem-cults, and
which in other parts have been accepted as evidence of totem-worship in
the past, but in the agricultural habits of the people we may see an
efficient cause of the decay of totemism, if at some time in the past
it has flourished among them. For it has been pointed out, especially
by Mr. Jevons in his INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION, that
totemism seems to flourish most naturally among tribes of hunters, and
that the introduction of agriculture must tend towards its decay. Now
there is some reason to suppose that the introduction to Borneo of
rice and of the art of cultivating it is of comparatively recent
date. Crawford reckoned that the cultivation of PADI was introduced
to the southern parts of Borneo from Java some 300 years ago, and
into the northern parts from the Philippine Islands about 150 years
ago. But whatever the date of the occurrence may have been, it seems
to be certain that, by the introduction of PADI cultivation from some
other country, most of the tribes of Sarawak were converted, probably
very rapidly, from hunting to agriculture. This conversion must have
caused great changes in their social conditions and in their customs
and superstitions; and, if totemism flourished among them while they
were still simple hunters, its decay may well have been one of the
chief of these changes.
A second factor that would have tended to bring about this change is
the prevalence of a belief in a god or beneficent spirit more powerful
than all others, and more directly concerned with the welfare of
his worshippers, however this belief may have come into being. And a
third factor that may have tended in the same direction is the custom
of head-hunting, and the important part played by the heads in the
religious life of the people. For there is some reason to think that
head-hunting is a comparatively young institution among the tribes
of Sarawak.
But in spite of all this, and although we do not think it is possible
completely to disprove the truth of the hypothesis that some or all
of these animal cults are vestiges of a once fully developed totemic
system, we are inclined to reject it. We are led to do so by four
considerations. In the first place, if by totemism we mean a social
organisation consisting in the division of a people into groups or
clans, each of which worships or holds in superstitious regard one
or more kinds of animal or plant, or other natural objects to which
the members of the group claim to be related by blood or by descent,
then it seems to us sufficiently wonderful that this system should
have existed among peoples so remote from one another in all things,
save certain of the external conditions of life, as the Indians
of North America and the natives of Australia. And it seems to us
that to invoke the aid of the hypothesis of totemism in the past to
explain the existence of a set of animal or plant superstitions in
any particular case is but to increase the mystery that shrouds their
origin; for unless it can be shown that the adoption or development
of totemism by any people brings with it immense advantages for them
in the struggle for existence, every fresh case in which the evidence
compels us to admit its occurrence, whether in the past or as a still
flourishing institution, can but increase the wonder with which we
have to regard its wide distribution.
Secondly, we have in the total absence of totemism among the Punans
very strong ground for rejecting the suggestion of its previous
existence among the Kenyahs. For in physical characters, in language,
and, as far as the difference in the mode of life permits, in customs
and beliefs, the Punans resemble the Kenyahs so closely that we must
assume them to be closely allied by blood; and it seems probable
that the Punans have merely persisted in the cultural condition from
which the Kenyahs and other tribes have been raised by the adoption
of agriculture and the practice of building substantial houses. Yet,
as we have said, the Punans, although in that condition of nomadic
hunters which is probably the most favourable to the development and
persistence of totemism, observe hardly any restrictions in their
hunting, and in fact seem to kill and eat with equal freedom almost
every bird and beast of the jungle, shooting them with the blow-pipe
and poisoned darts with consummate skill. The only exceptions to
this rule are, so far as we know, the omen-birds, a carnivore, and
a lizard, and, as we have said, it seems doubtful whether even these
are excepted in the case of Punans who have not had much intercourse
with other peoples.
Thirdly, although it may be said that even at the present time many
of the features of the religious side of totemism are present, we
have not been able to discover any traces of a social organisation
based upon totemism. There is no trace of any general division of
the people of any tribe into groups which claim specially intimate
relations with different animals, except in the case of the Klemantans;
and in their case such special relations seem to be the result merely
of the different conditions under which the various scattered groups
now live. There are no restrictions in the choice of a wife that might
indicate a rule of endogamy or exogamy. There are no ceremonies to
initiate youths into tribal mysteries; certain ceremonies in which the
youths take a leading part are directed exclusively to training them
for war and the taking of heads in battle. We know of no instance
of any group of people being named after an animal or plant which
is claimed as a relative; and in the case of the more homogeneous
tribes, such as the Kenyahs and Kayans, all prohibitions with regard to
animals and all benefits conferred by them are shared equally by all
the members of any one community, and, with but very few exceptions,
are the same for all the communities of the tribe.
Lastly, we think it unnecessary to regard the various animal
superstitions of these tribes as survivals of totemism, because
it seems possible to find a more direct and natural explanation of
almost every case. The numerous cases seem to fall into two groups:
the superstitious practices concerned with the sacrificial animals,
the pig and fowl on the one hand, and all those concerned with the
various other animals on the other hand. These latter may, we think,
be regarded as the expression of the direct and logical reaction of
the mind of the savage to the impression made upon it by the behaviour
of the animals.
It has been admirably shown by Professor Lloyd Morgan[145] how
we ourselves, and even professed psychologists among us, tend to
overestimate the complexity of the mental processes of animals;
and there can be no doubt that savages generally are subject to
this error in a very much greater degree, that, in fact, they make,
without questioning and in most cases without explicit statement even
to themselves, the practical assumption that the mental processes of
animals -- their passions, desires, motives, and powers of reasoning
-- are of the same order as, and in fact extremely similar to, their
own. That the Kenyahs entertain this belief in a very practical manner
is shown by their conduct when preparing for a hunting or fishing
excursion. If, for example, they are preparing to poison the fish
of a section of the river with the "tuba" root, they always speak
of the matter as little as possible, and use the most indirect and
fanciful modes of expression. Thus they will say, "There are many
leaves floating here," meaning, "There are plenty of fish in this
part of the river." And these elaborate precautions are taken lest
the birds should overhear their remarks and inform the fish of their
intentions -- when, of course, the fish would not stay to be caught,
but would swim away to some other part of the river.
Since this belief seems to be common to all or almost all savages
and primitive peoples, it would be a strange thing if prohibitions
against killing and eating certain animals and various superstitious
practices in regard to animals were not practically universal among
them. Bearing in mind the reality of this belief in the minds of these
peoples, it is easy to understand why they should shrink from killing
any creature so malignant-looking and powerful for harm as a snake,
and why they should feel uneasy in the presence of, and to some extent
dread, the MAIAS and the longnosed monkey, creatures whose resemblance
to man seems even to us somewhat uncanny. Their objection to killing
their troublesome and superfluous dogs seems to be due to a somewhat
similar feeling -- a recognition of intelligence and emotions not
unlike their own, but mysteriously hidden from them by the dumbness of
the animals. In the same way it is clear that it is but a very simple
and logical inference that the crocodiles are a friendly race, and
but the clearest dictate of prudence to avoid offending creatures so
powerful and agile; for if the crocodiles were possessed of the mental
powers attributed to them by the imagination of the people, they might
easily make it impossible for men to travel upon the rivers or dwell
on their banks. A similar process would lead to the prohibition against
the eating of the tiger-cat, the only large and dangerous carnivore.
The origin of the prohibitions against killing and eating deer and
horned cattle is perhaps not so clear. But it must be remembered that
until very recently the only horned cattle known to the tribes of the
interior were the wild cattle (the Seladang of the Malay peninsula),
very fierce and powerful creatures. These wild cattle hide themselves
in the remotest recesses of the forests, and, as they are but very
rarely seen, they may well be regarded as somewhat mysterious and
awful. Deer, on the other hand, abound in the forests, and, like most
deer, are very timid; and it is perhaps their timidity that has led in
some cases to the prohibition against their flesh, for we have seen
how a Kenyah chief feared lest his little son, safe at home, should
be infected with the deer's timidity if he himself a hundred miles
away should come in contact with the skin of one. In another case we
have seen that by the people of one community deer are regarded as
relatives, or as containing the souls of their ancestors, and that
this belief probably had its origin in the fact that deer are in
"the habit of frequenting the grassy clearings made about the tombs
by the people. And we saw that a similar belief in respect of certain
carnivores probably had a similar origin.
We think that even the elaborate cult of the hawk and of the other
omen-birds is to be explained on these lines. If we think of the
hawk's erratic behaviour, how he will come suddenly rushing down out
of the remotest blue of the sky to hover overhead, and then perhaps
to circle hither and thither in an apparently aimless manner, or
will keep flying on before a boat on the river, or come swiftly to
meet it, screaming as he comes, -- if we think of this, it is easy to
understand how a people whose whole world consists of dense forests and
dangerous rivers, a people extremely ignorant of natural causation,
yet intelligent and speculative, and always looking out for signs
that shall guide them among the mystery and dangers that surround
them, may have come to see in the hawk a messenger sent to them by
the beneficent Supreme Being. For this Being is vaguely conceived by
them as dwelling in the skies whence the hawk comes, and whither he so
often returns. And then we may suppose that the messenger himself has
come to be an object of worship in various degrees with the different
tribes, as seems to be the rule in all religious systems in which
servants of a deity mediate between him and man.
The origin of the various rites in which the fowl and pig are
sacrificed, and their blood smeared or sprinkled on men or on the
altar-posts of gods, or on the image of the hawk, and their souls
charged with messages to the Supreme Being -- the origin of this
group of customs must be sought in a different direction. To any
one acquainted with Robertson Smith's RELIGION OF THE SEMITES,
and with Mr. Jevon's INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION, the
idea naturally suggests itself that these animals are or were true
totems, of which the cult has passed into a late stage of decay. It
might be supposed that, being originally totem animals, they thereby
became domesticated by their worshippers; that they were occasionally
slain as a rite for the renewal of the bond between them and their
worshippers, their blood being smeared or sprinkled on the latter,
and their flesh ceremonially eaten by them; and that the eating of
them has become more and more frequent, until now every religious
rite, of however small importance, is made the occasion for the
killing and eating of them. It might also be supposed that, with the
development or the adoption of the conception of a Supreme Being,
the original purpose and character of the rites had become obscure,
so that the slaughtered animals are now regarded in some cases as
sacrifices offered to the deity.
But we do not think that this tempting hypothesis as to the origin of
the rites can be upheld in this case. In the first place, the wild
pig of the jungle is hunted in sport and killed and eaten freely by
all the various tribes, and is, in fact, treated on the whole with
less respect and ceremony than perhaps any other animal. Secondly,
the domestic pig differs so much from the wild pig that Mr. Oldfield
Thomas has pronounced it to be of a different species, and it seems
possible that it has been introduced to Borneo by the Chinese at
a comparatively recent date. Further, there is reason to suppose
that the custom of sacrificing pigs and fowls arose through the
substitution of them for human beings in certain rites. For there
is a number of rites of which it is admitted by the people that the
slaughter of human beings was formerly a central feature; of these,
the most important and the most widely spread are the funeral rites
of a great chief, the rites at the building of a new house, and those
on returning from a successful war expedition. In all these fowls
or pigs are now substituted as a rule, but we know of instances in
which in recent years human beings were the victims. Thus some years
ago, on the death of the chief of a community of Klemantans (the
Orang Bukit), a slave was bought by his son, and a feast was made,
and the slave was killed through each man of the community giving
him a slight wound. This was said to be the revival of an old and
almost obsolete custom. In another recent case, when a mixed party
of Kayans and Kenyahs returned from a successful war expedition, only
the Kenyahs had secured heads. The Kayans therefore took an old woman,
one of the captives, and killed her by driving a long pole against her
abdomen, as many of them as possible taking part by holding and helping
to thrust the pole. The head was then divided among the parties of
Kayans, and pieces of the flesh were hung on poles beside the river,
just as is done with the flesh of slain enemies and with the flesh of
the pigs that are always slaughtered on such occasions. It was said
that this killing of a human being was equivalent to killing a pig,
only much finer.
Kayans tell us that they used to kill slaves at the death of a chief,
usually three, but at least one, and that they nailed them to the tomb,
in order that they might accompany the chief on his long journey to
the other world and paddle the canoe in which he must travel. This is
no longer done, but a wooden figure of a man is put up at the head
and another of a woman at the foot of the coffin of a chief as it
lies in state before the funeral. And a small wooden figure of a man
is usually fixed on the top of the tomb, and it is said that this
is to row the canoe for the chief. A live fowl is usually tied to
this figure, and although it is said to be put there merely to eat
the maggots, we think there can be no doubt that we see here going
on the process of substitution of fowl for slave.
In building a new house it is customary among almost all these tribes
to put a fowl into the hole dug to receive the first of the piles
that are to support the house, and to allow the end of the pile to
fall upon the fowl so as to kill it. The Kenyahs admit that formerly
a girl was usually killed in this way, and there is reason to believe
that in all cases a human victim was formerly the rule, and that the
fowl is a substitute merely.[146]
In the following cases, too, we see the idea of substitution of fowls
or pigs for men.
It is customary with the Malanaus of Niah to kill buffalo, and also
to kill fowls, and put them together with eggs on poles in the caves
in which the swifts build the edible nests, in order to secure a good
crop of nests. One year, when the nests were scanty they bought a slave
in Brunei, and killed him in the cave, in the hope of increasing the
number of nests.
It was formerly the custom to exact a fine of one or more slaves as
punishment for certain offences, E.G. the accidental setting fire to
a house. At the present time, when slaves are scarcer than of yore,
they are rarely given in such cases, but usually brass gongs; and
the gongs are always accompanied by a pig.
Now, when slaves were killed and nailed to the tomb of a chief,
the purpose was perfectly clear and simple. It Was done in just the
same spirit in which the weapons and shield and clothing are still
always hung on the tomb of a deceased warrior, in order, namely,
that his shade may not be without them on the journey to the other
world. On the introduction of the domestic pig it may well have become
customary for the poorer classes, who could not afford to kill a
slave, or for families which owned no slaves, to kill a pig as in
some degree a compensation for the want of human victims. If such
a custom were once introduced, it may well have spread rapidly from
motives of both economy and humanity; for a slave is as a rule very
kindly treated by his master, and in many cases comes to be regarded
as a member of the family.
We may suppose, too, that it was formerly the custom to kill a slave
when prayers of public importance were made to the Supreme Being, in
order that the soul of the slave might carry the prayer to him. If this
was the case, the substitution of pig for slave, on the introduction
of the domestic pig, may be the more readily conceived to have become
customary, when we remember that these people regard the souls of
animals as essentially similar to their own.[147] If such a custom of
substitution once gained a footing, it would naturally become usual to
take the opportunity of communicating with the higher powers whenever
a pig was to be slaughtered.
This view, that in all sacrifices of the pig and fowl these are
but substitutes for human victims, finds very strong support in the
following facts: -- The Kalabits, a tribe inhabiting the north-western
corner of the Baram district, breed the water-buffalo and use it in
cultivating their land. It has probably been introduced to this area
from North Borneo at a recent date. The religious rites of this people
closely resemble those of the tribes with which we have been dealing
above; but in all cases in which pigs are sacrificed by the latter,
buffaloes are used by the Kalabits.
The rite of sprinkling the blood of pigs and fowls on men and on the
altar-posts and images may, we think, be an extension or adaptation
of the blood-brotherhood ceremony. We have seen that with the Kayans
and Kenyahs the essential feature of this ceremony is the drawing of
a little blood from the arm of the two men, each of whom then drinks
or consumes in a cigarette the blood of the other one. Such a rite
calls for no remote explanation; it seems to have suggested itself
naturally to the minds of primitive people all the world over as a
process for the cementing of friendship. When two hostile communities
wished to make a permanent peace with one another, it would be natural
that they should wish to perform a ceremony similar to the rite of
blood-brotherhood. But the interchange of drops of blood between large
numbers of persons would obviously be inconvenient; and if the idea of
substituting fowls and pigs for human victims had once taken root in
their minds, it would have been but a small step to substitute their
blood for human blood in the peacemaking ceremonies. We have seen
above that in such a ceremony fowls are exchanged by the two parties,
so that the men of either party are smeared with the blood of the fowl
originally belonging to the other party. It may be that here, too, the
blood of slaves was formerly used, but of this we have no evidence. The
custom of smearing the blood of fowls and pigs on the two parties to
a friendly compact having been arrived at in this way, the rite might
readily be extended to the cases in which the hawk, represented by
his wooden image, or the Supreme Being, also represented by an image,
is invoked as one of the parties to the compact. We are inclined to
think that in some such way as we have here suggested, namely, by the
substitution of pigs and fowls for human victims, and of their blood
for human blood, the origin of the customs of sacrificing fowls and
pigs, and of ceremonially sprinkling their blood, may be explained.
We conclude, then, that the various superstitions entertained by these
tribes in regard to animals are not to be looked upon as survivals
of totemism, but that they may all be explained in a simpler and more
satisfactory manner.
Suggested Theory of the Origin of Totemism
Before bringing this chapter to an end, we would point out that among
the facts we have described there are some which seem to suggest a
possible and, indeed, as it seems to us, a very natural and probable
mode of origin of totem-worship. We refer to the varieties of the
NGARONG of the Ibans and sporadic analogous cases among the other
tribes. We have seen that the NGARONG may assume the form of some
curious natural object, or of some one animal distinguished from its
fellows by some slight peculiarity, which receives the attentions of
some one man only. In such cases the NGARONG is hardly distinguishable
from a fetish. In other cases the man, being unable to distinguish the
particular animal which he believes to be animated by his NGARONG,
extends his regard and gratitude to the whole species. In such a
case it seems difficult to deny the name "individual totem" to the
species, if the term is to be used at all. In other cases, again,
all the members of a man's family and all his descendants, and, if
he be a chief, all the members of the community over which he rules,
may come to share in the benefits conferred by his NGARONG, and in the
feeling of respect for it and in the performance of rites in honour
of the species of animal in one individual of which it is supposed
to reside. In such cases the species approaches very closely the
clan-totem in some of its varieties. (In speaking of the "Kobong"
of certain natives of Western Australia, Sir G. Grey[148] says,
"This arises from the family belief that some one individual of the
species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime,
and to be carefully avoided.")
Of similar cases among other tribes of guardian-animals appearing
to men in dreams and claiming their respect and gratitude, we must
mention the case of Aban Jau, a powerful chief of the Sebops, a
Klemantan sub-tribe. He had hunted and eaten the wild pig freely
like all his fellow-tribesmen, until once in a dream a wild boar
appeared to him, and told him that he had always helped him in his
fighting. Thereafter Aban Jau refused, until the day of his death,
to kill or eat either the wild or the domestic pig, although he would
still consult for omens the livers of pigs killed by others.[149]
We have described above (vol. ii., p. 76) how a Kayan may become
blood-brother to a crocodile in a dream, and may thereafter be called
Baya (crocodile), and how in this way one Kayan chief had come to
regard himself as both son and nephew to crocodiles, and how he
believed that they brought him success in hunting and carried him
ashore when (in a dream) he had fallen into the river. The cousin
of this chief, too, regarded himself as specially befriended by
crocodiles because his great-grandfather had become blood-brother to
one in a dream. So it is clear that the members of the family to which
these young men belong are likely to continue to regard themselves
as related by blood to the crocodiles, and bound to them by special
ties of gratitude.
In another case we saw how all the people of one household regard
themselves as related to the crocodiles and specially favoured by them,
explaining the relation as due to one of their ancestors having become
a crocodile. In another case we saw that some ill-defined relation
to the gibbon is claimed by a community of Kenyahs whose house is
decorated with carvings of the form of the gibbon, and whose members
will not kill the gibbon. And in yet another case we saw that a Kayan
house is decorated with conventionalised carvings of some animal
whose species has been forgotten by the community. In each of these
last three cases, it seems highly probable that the special relation
to the animal was established by some such process as we see going
on in the preceding case; so that we seem to have in this series one
case of incipient totemism and others illustrating various stages of
decay of abortive beginnings of totemism. And it is easy to imagine
how in the absence of unfavourable conditions such beginnings might
grow to a fully developed totem-system. For suppose that in any one
community there happened to be at one time two or more prosperous
families, each claiming to be related with and protected by some
species of animal as the result of friendly overtures made by the
animals to members of the families in their dreams. It would then be
highly probable that members of other families, envious of the good
fortune of these, would have similar dream experiences, and so come
to claim a similar protection; until very soon the members of any
family that could claim no such protection would come to be regarded
as unfortunate and even somewhat disreputable beings, while the faith
of one family in its guardian-animal would react upon and strengthen
the faith of others in theirs. So a system of clan-totems would be
established, around which would grow up various myths of origin,
various magical practices, and various religious rites.
It is well known that such dreams as convince the Iban, the Kayan,
and the Kenyah of the reality of his special relation to some animal,
and lead him to respect all animals of some one species, produce
similar results in other parts of the world. We quote the following
passages from Mr. Frazer's remarks on individual totems in his book
on totemism: -- "An Australian seems usually to get his individual
totem by dreaming that he has been transformed into an animal of that
species." "In America the individual totem is usually the first animal
of which a youth dreams during the long and generally solitary fast
which American Indians observe at puberty." Such dream experiences
are then the VERA CAUSA of the inception of faith in individual
totems among the peoples in which totemism is most highly developed;
and among the tribes of Sarawak we find cases which illustrate how a
similar faith, strengthened by further dreams and by the good fortune
of its possessor, may spread to all the members of his family or
of his household and to his descendants, until in some cases the
guardian animal becomes almost, though not quite, a clan-totem. The
further development of such incipient totems among these tribes is
probably prevented at the present time, not only by their agricultural
habits, but also by their passionate addiction to war and fighting and
head-hunting; for these pursuits necessitate the strict subordination
of each community to its chief, and compel all families to unite
in the cult of the hawk to the detriment of all other animal-cults,
because the hawk is, by its habits, so much better suited than any
other animal to be a guide to them on warlike expeditions.[150]
The prevalence of the belief in a Supreme Being must also tend to
prevent the development of totemism.
Plants
In Chapter VI. we have described most of the superstitious beliefs
and practices connected with the PADI plant and the rice.
It is not clear that any other plants are regarded as be-souled; but
we mention here certain customs in connection with some of them that
seem to point in that direction. The SILAT, a common jungle palm,
figures most prominently in rites and beliefs of the Kayans. The
leaves of this palm are used to decorate the heads taken in war;
and on the occasion of any ceremonial use of the heads, fresh leaves
are always hung upon or about them. No other leaves will serve this
purpose, though it is difficult to say in what the special virtue of
this plant consists. The leaves of the same plant are hung about the
doorway of a new house when the people first take up their abode in it;
but it is hung in such a way that passers-by do not brush against it,
and children especially are kept away from it. It is commonly hung
about the altar-posts of the gods; and it is a strip of this leaf
that is tied about the wrist of a sick man to confine his soul to his
body at the close of the soul-catching ceremony. It is tied also about
the wrists of men returning from any warlike expedition. When applied
for any ceremonial purpose it is called ISANG; and it is not until it
has been so used that it becomes an "unclean" object. It is used in
its merely material aspect for roofing leaf shelters in the jungle,
and is put to other similar uses to which the broad tough leaves are
well adapted. Most or all of the peoples use the leaves of this plant
in the same ways as the Kayans.
LONG, a species of CALADIUM, is commonly hung, both root and leaves,
upon the door of a room to mark that it is LALI (tabu) owing to
sickness, harvesting, or any other circumstance.
OROBONG, a weed (not unlike the foxglove in appearance) which always
grows freely among the young PADI, is gathered by the female friends
of any woman passing through the ordeal of childbirth. They boil
the leaves and wash her body with the decoction on several days
following the delivery. It is held that, if this is not done, the
woman's abdomen will not regain its normal state. This usage also is
common to the Kayans with many other tribes.
The leaves of the DRACAENA are sometimes tied beneath the prow of
a boat during journeys to distant parts (as mentioned on p. 70,
vol. ii.); they are also hung upon the tombs and, with the ISANG,
upon altar posts, when the rites are performed.
The Ibans and some of the Klemantans will not make the first stroke
in cutting down the TAPANG tree (ARBOURIA), alleging that, if they
do so, great troubles will befall them.
Supplementary Note on the NGARONG
Since correcting the proofs of this chapter we have come upon a brief
account of the guardian spirits of the Iban, which corroborates
our account of the Ngarong. It is contained in a series of papers
entitled RELIGIOUS RITES AND CUSTOMS OF THE IBANS OR DYAKS OF SARAWAK,
BORNEO, written by Leo Nyuak (an Iban educated in a mission school),
and translated by the Very Rev. Edm. Dunn (ANTHROPOS, vol. i. p. 182,
1905). In this account the guardian spirit is called TUA, and we are
told that ,The TUA or guardian spirit of an Iban has its external
manifestation in a snake, a leopard, or some other denizen of the
forest. It is supposed to be the spirit of some ancestor renowned
for bravery, or some other virtue, who at death has taken an animal
form ... it is revealed in a dream what animal form the honoured dead
has taken."
CHAPTER 16
Magic, Spells, and Charms
Magic is in a comparatively neglected and backward condition among the
Kayans and Kenyahs, Punans, Ibans, and the more warlike up-country
Klemantans. On the other hand, some of the coastwise tribes of
Klemantans, especially the Malanaus and Kadayans, cultivate magic
with some assiduity.
The Kayans dislike and discourage all magical practices, with the
exception of those which are publicly practised for beneficent purposes
and have the sanction of custom.
In the old days they used to kill those suspected of working any evil
by magic. There are no recognised magicians among them other than
the DAYONGS, and these, as we have seen, perform the functions of the
priest and the physician rather than those OF the wizard or sorcerer.
Some of the DAYONGS make use at certain ceremonies of a rough mask
carved out OF wood, or made from the shell of a gourd. The mask is
merely an oval shell with slits for eyes and mouth, generally blackened
with age and use. It may be worn during the soul-catching ceremony,
but not during attendance on the recently deceased. This use of a
mask is not known to us among any other of the peoples (Pl. 151).
The medicine man of the Ibans is known as MANANG; the MANANGS are
more numerous than the DAYONGS of the Kayans; they are more strictly
professional in the sense that they do but little other work, depending
chiefly on what they can earn by their treatment of disease and by
other ways of practising upon the superstitions of their fellows. They
generally work in groups of three or four, or more in cases of serious
illness, and, with the imitativeness and disregard for tradition
characteristic of the IBAN, they have developed a great variety of
procedures,[151] into most of which the element of deliberate fraud
enters to a much greater extent than into the practice of the Kayan
DAYONGS. The Sea Dayak MANANG is usually covered with skin disease
(tinea) and shirks all hard work with the other members of the village.
A peculiar and infrequent variety of Sea Dayak MANANG are the MANANG
BALI. They are men who adopt and continuously wear woman's dress
and behave in all ways like women, except that they avoid as far as
possible taking any part in the domestic labour. They claim to have
been told in dreams to adopt this mode of life; they are employed
for the same purpose as the more ordinary MANANGS, and they practise
similar methods.
Among the IBANS certain persons get a bad reputation for working harm
by magic. They are said to be cunning in sorcery (TAU TEPANG), and
these persons may properly be said to be sorcerers or witches. They are
believed to work harm in many ill-defined ways, especially to health;
but their procedures are not generally known; they probably include
poisoning, but, like the practices of our European witches in recent
times, they probably have but little existence outside the timorous
imaginations of the people. Such persons are disliked and shunned,
though not killed as they would be among Kayans or Kenyahs. They are
not professional sorcerers, I.E. their help is not called in by other
persons who wish to work evil on their enemies, for others do not dare
to do this. At the present time in Sarawak, if a man accuses another
of practising TEPANG, he is liable to be sued for libel and fined.[152]
Black Magic
The most important of the magical practices is one known and
occasionally resorted to among all the peoples for the purpose of
bringing about the death of a personal enemy. We describe the procedure
as carried out by the Sebops (Klemantans), but in all essentials the
account holds good for all or nearly all the peoples. It is not usual
to invoke the aid of any recognised magician. The man whose heart is
filled with hatred against another will retire secretly to a spot at
the edge of a PADI field, or of some other clearing, where he can see
a large expanse of sky and yet feel sure of being unobserved. Here
he sets up the BATANG PRA, a pole supported horizontally some six or
eight feet above the ground, its ends resting on two vertical poles. A
little figure of a man or woman (according to the sex of the person
aimed at), which has been carved for the purpose out of soft wood,
is fixed upright in the ground beneath the BATANG PRA. This is called
TEGULUN KALINGAI USA, which, literally translated, is "the reflected
image of the body." The operator makes a fire beside the TEGULUN,
digs a small hole in the ground, and fills it with water coloured with
ferruginous earth. This pool is called BAWANG DAAR,[153] the lake of
blood. Sitting before the TEGULUN he scans the space of sky framed by
the BATANG PRA, searching for some hawk upon the wing. As soon as he
sees a hawk within this area, he addresses it, waving in one hand a
small frayed stick, and saying, "Put fat in the mouth of So-and-So,"
and he puts a bit of pork fat into the mouth of the TEGULUN. Then
saying, "Send him to BAWANG DAAR," he immerses the TEGULUN in his pool
of reddened water; and taking it out again he thrusts into it a little
wooden spear. After this he buries the TEGULUN in a hole in the ground,
covering it with earth. (Only people who die by violence or of some
much-feared disease are normally buried in this fashion.) This done
he keeps shouting to the hawk to go to the left, at the same time
waving his stick in that direction. If the hawk passes out of the
area of operations towards the right, he knows that his attempt will
not succeed, and he desists for the time being; if it flies out to
the left he knows that his arts will prevail, and he addresses the
hawk as follows: --
"BALI FLAKI TUAI MUSIT, OU MATEI IYA KALUNAN ITO TAMA ODOH (the name
of the victim), TUJU KAU, BALI FLAKI, MIEU TUOR BAWANG DAAR AU MULOH
USUK, BALI FLAKI, MIEU NIAK BOIN NA ALAM UJUN, PALA UJA MATEI SAGAM;
MATEI DAAR KAYU SAGAM; MATEI SUAT; MATEI AIOH SAGAM; MATEI MANYAT ALAM
SUNGEI; MATEI PADAM; MATEI NAKAP BAYA; MATEI SAKIT ULUN; MATEI SAKIT
USOK." (Translation runs -- "O Bali Flaki, go your way, let this man
Tama Odoh die; go and put him in the lake of blood, O Bali Flaki;
stab him in the chest, Bali Flaki, put fat of pig in his mouth that
he may die to-morrow (this is equivalent to -- let his head be taken;
for fat is always put in the mouth of the head taken in battle); let
him be killed by a falling tree, to-morrow; let him die from a wound;
let him die by the hand of his enemy, tomorrow; let him be drowned,
to-morrow; let him die of a deadly disease; let him be caught by
a crocodile; let him die of pain in the head; let him die of pain
in the chest.") It will be observed that the formula calls upon the
hawks to give effect to the malevolent wishes, so that the operation
is not one of direct magical or sympathetic action, but rather is
one by which the aid of a higher power is invoked. This feature of
the process renders it one which the strongest minded cannot pooh-pooh.
With this comprehensive curse the rite is concluded and the vengeful
man returns home and secretly observes his enemy. The latter may
become aware that magic is being worked against him through dreaming
that fat is put into his mouth; and as he is probably more or less
aware of the hatred of his enemy, it is not unlikely that such a dream
will come to him.[154] There can be no doubt that, if in this or any
other way a man learns that he has been made the object of a magical
attempt of this sort, he, in many cases, suffers in health; and it is
probable that in some cases such knowledge has proved fatal. If it is
discovered that any man has attempted to injure another in this way,
he falls into general reprobation, and, if the case can be proved
against him, heavy damages in the form of pigs, gongs, etc., may be
awarded by the house-chief.
A curse is sometimes imposed without formality, and in the heat of
the moment, in the face of their enemy. Under these circumstances
the curse is usually muttered indistinctly, and seems then to work
upon the victim all the more powerfully. The words used are similar
to those of the curse written out above.
A characteristic bit of Iban magic is the following: -- A man, angered
by finding that some one has deposited dirt in or about his property
or premises, takes a few burning sticks and, thrusting them into the
dirt, says, "Now let them suffer the pains of dysentery."
Therapeutic Magical Procedures
It was said in Chapter XIV. that the Kayans treat disease by three
distinct methods, namely, by soul-catching, by drugs and regimen,
and by extraction of the supposed cause of the trouble. This last
operation seems to fall under the head of magic and may be described
here. It is usually performed by the DAYONGS, and is applied more
particularly in cases in which localised pain is a prominent feature
of the disorder. The DAYONG comes provided with a short tube, prepared
by pushing out the core of a section of the stem of a certain plant
of the ginger family. After inquiring of the patient the locality of
his pains, he holds up the polished blade of a sword, and, gazing at
it as one seeing visions, he sings a long incantation beginning: --
BALI DAYONG USUN LASAN
URIP ULUN KAM KELUNAN
NINI KETAI NATONG TAWANG LEMAN
BALI DAYONG.[155]
The crowd of people, men and women, sitting round the central figure,
join in the BALI DAYONG, which recurs as the refrain at the end of
each verse, intoning in loud deep voices. It seems clear from the use
of the words BALI DAYONG that the whole is addressed to some superior
power; for no human DAYONG, and indeed no human being, is addressed or
spoken of with the title BALI. And it would perhaps be more correct,
therefore, to describe the address as a supplication rather than
an incantation, and the whole operation as a religious rite rather
than a magical procedure. But we are here on the disputed borderland
between magic and religion, and other features incline us to regard
the process as magical rather than religious.
During the singing of a number of verses in this way, the DAYONG seems
to become more and more distraught and unconscious of his surroundings;
and when the singing ceases he behaves in a strange manner, which
strikes the attendant crowd with awe, starting suddenly and making
strange clucking noises. Then he produces the tube mentioned above,
and pressing one end upon the skin of the part indicated by the
patient as the seat of the pain, he sucks strongly, and, presently
withdrawing it, he blows out of it on to his palm a small black
pellet, which moves mysteriously upon his hand as he exhibits it
to the patient and his friends as the cause of the pain; and if the
patient has complained of more than one seat of pain, the operation
is repeated. It only remains for the DAYONG to return gradually with
some violent gestures and contortions to his normal state, and to
receive his fee, which properly consists of the sword used by him
in the ceremony, and a live fowl. The whole procedure is very well
adapted to secure therapeutic effects by suggestion. The singing and
the atmosphere of awe engendered by the DAYONG'S reputation and his
uncanny behaviour prepare the patient, the suction applied through the
tube gives him the impression that something is being drawn through
his skin, and the skilful production of the mysterious black pellet
completes the suggestive process, under the influence of which, no
doubt, many an ache or pain has suddenly disappeared. On one occasion,
one of us being a little indisposed in a Klemantan house, we made an
opportunity to examine the methods of the DAYONG a little more closely
than is usually possible, by inviting one to undertake the extraction
of his pains. We were then able to realise more vividly the suggestive
force of the procedure, and to see that the black pellets were bits of
dark beeswax which were carried upon the finger-nails of the DAYONG,
and surreptitiously introduced by him into his mouth as they were
required for exhibition after being blown through the tube; we could
see also that the mysterious movements of the pellets upon his palm
were produced by the help of short fine hairs protruding from it. It
seems impossible to deny the presence of a certain element of fraud in
this procedure, but we think that it would be hasty and uncharitable
to assert that the DAYONG'S attitude is wholly one of fraud; we
must remember that our most orthodox medical practitioners accord a
legitimate place in their armamentarium to MISTURA RUBRA (solution of
burnt sugar) and to similar aids whose operation is purely suggestive.
Most of the coastwise tribes seek to drive away epidemic disease by
the following procedure: -- One or more rough human images are carved
from the pith of the sago palm and placed on a small raft or boat,
or full-rigged Malay ship, together with rice and other food carefully
prepared. The boat is decorated with ribbons of the leaves and with the
blossoms of the areca palm, and allowed to float out to sea with the
ebb-tide in the belief or hope that it will carry the sickness with it.
Among the Ibans, if a man has deceived people in a serious matter by
means of a malicious lie, and if the untruth is discovered, one of
the deceived party takes a stick and throws it down at some spot by
which people are constantly passing, saying in the presence of others,
"Let any one who does not add to this liar's heap (TUGONG BULA) suffer
from pains in the head." Then others do likewise, and the nature of
the growing heap becoming known, every passer-by throws a stick upon
it lest he should suffer pains. In this way the heap grows until it
attains a large size, in some cases that of a small haystack, and,
being known by the name of the liar, is a cause of great shame to him.
When any man has his hair cut or shaved, he sees that the hair cut
off is burnt or otherwise carefully disposed of. This is common to all
the Borneans. It would seem that this is not prompted by fear of any
definite harm, nor is there, so far as we know, any recognised way
of using the hair cut off to work injury to its former owner. The
custom seems rather to be due to the fact that shields and swords
are decorated with the hair of enemies by Kenyahs and others;
therefore it is felt that to use a man's hair for this purpose is
almost equivalent to taking his head; and it is well to guard against
this possibility. No doubt also it is vaguely felt that if the hair
of one's head should come into the possession of any other person,
that person would acquire some indefinable power over one.
Magical practices for the injury of enemies and rivals are more various
and frequent among the coastwise Klemantans, especially the Bisayas,
Kadayans, and Malanaus. It is probable that they have learnt much
of this from the Malays. One variety is to hang up at the edge of
a PADI field a yam or other root covered with projecting spikes of
bamboo cane. This is done openly to spoil the crop.
Another trick is to tie under a bench in the boat of one's enemy a
pebble, generally of quartz. This is supposed to make the boat so
heavy that it can only travel very slowly.
Charms
These practices involve the application of charms. Charms are
extensively used by all the peoples, least so by Kayans. In every
house is at least one bundle of charms, known as SIAP AIOH by the
Kenyahs, by whom more importance is attached to it than by any of
the other tribes. This bundle, which is the property of the whole
household or village, generally contains hair taken from the heads
that hang in the gallery; a crocodile's tooth; the blades of a few
knives that have been used in special ceremonies; a few crystals or
pebbles of strange shapes; pig's teeth of unusual shape (of both wild
and domestic pig); feathers of a fowl (these seem to be substitutes
for Bali Flaki's feathers, which they would hardly dare to touch);
stone axe-heads called the teeth of Balingo;[156] and ISANG, I.E. palm
leaves that have been put to ceremonial use (Fig. 80).
The whole bundle, blackened with the smoke and dust of years, hangs
in the gallery over the principal hearth beside the heads, usually
in a widemeshed basket. It constitutes the most precious possession
of the household, being of even greater value than the heads. No one
willingly touches or handles the SIAP, not even the chief. And when
it becomes necessary to touch the bundle, as in transferring it to
a new house, some old man is specially told off for the duty; he who
touches it brings upon himself the risk of death, for it is very PARIT
to touch it, I.E. strongly against custom and therefore dangerous.[157]
Its function seems to be to bring luck or prosperity of all kinds to
the house; without it nothing would prosper, especially in warfare.
Many individuals keep a small private bunch of SIAP, made up of various
small objects, of unusual forms, generally without any human hair
(Fig. 81). These are generally obtained through dreams. A man dreams
that something of value is to be given him, and then, if on waking
his eye falls upon a crystal of quartz, or any other slightly peculiar
object, he takes it and hangs it above his sleeping-place; when going
to bed he addresses it, saying that he wants a dream favourable to
any business he may have in hand. If such a dream comes to him, the
thing becomes SIAP; but if his dreams are inauspicious, the object
is rejected. Since no one can come in contact with another man's SIAP
without risk of injury, the inconvenience occasioned by multiplication
of SIAP bundles puts a limit to their number. Nevertheless a man who
possesses private SIAP will carry it with him attached to the sheath
of his sword, and special hooks are provided in most houses for the
hanging up of such swords (Fig. 82).
There are many instances of SIAP of specialised function. A man
specially devoted to hunting with the blowpipe will have a special
blow-pipe SIAP tied to his quiver (this is especially common among
Punans). He will dip this SIAP in the blood of every animal he kills,
so that it becomes thickly encrusted. This is thought to increase or
preserve its virtue.
Another special kind of SIAP is that which ensures a man against hurt
from firearms, through causing any gun aimed at him to miss fire.
The Ibans use personal charms which they call PENGAROH; but in
accordance with their more individualistic disposition, they have
no important charm common to the whole household corresponding to
the household SIAP of the other peoples. The objects composing the
PENGAROH are an assortment even more varied and fantastic than the
SIAP of other peoples. In many cases they are carried with small china
pots of oil, which are used to rub on the body as a universal remedy.
A curious object to be occasionally seen in some Sea Dayak houses
is the empugau. It is a blackened bundle hung in a basket among the
heads above the hearth. It is covered with the smoke and soot of ages,
and though it is generally claimed as the property of some one man who
has inherited it from his forefathers, even he knows nothing of its
history and composition, and is unwilling to examine it closely. It
is regarded by the Ibans as the head of some half-human monster. On
careful examination of several specimens we have found the EMPUGAU
to consist of a large cocoanut in its husk, tricked out with a rude
face mask having part of the fibrous husk combed out to look like
hair. The Ibans regard it with some awe, and it seems probable that
it has formerly played some part in magical procedures.
Love Charms
Love charms are used by most of the peoples, though the Kayans and
Kenyahs are exceptions, since they prefer to rely chiefly upon the
power of music and personal attractions. These charms are in almost all
cases strongly odorous substances. The Iban youth strings together
a necklace of strongly scented seed known as BUAH BALONG. This
he generally carries about with him, and, when his inclination is
directed towards some fair one, he places it under her pillow, or
endeavours to persuade her to wear it about her neck. If she accepts
it, he reckons her half won.
Klemantans, among whom love charms go by the generic name SANGKIL,
make use of a variety of charms, of which one of the most used is a
scented oil that they contrive to smuggle on to the garments or other
personal property of the woman.
Those that have had much contact with Malays make use of pieces of
paper on which they scrawl certain conventional patterns.
Charms are used by Ibans to ensure success in trapping. The trapper
carries a stick one end of which is carved to represent the human
form (Fig. 83). He uses this to measure the appropriate height of
the traps set for animals of different species.
All the peoples observe a large number of restrictions in regard to
contact with objects, especially articles of food. Some of these are
mentioned in other chapters. Here we notice a few typical instances. In
Chapter XV. we related that each of the peoples avoid certain animals;
in some cases they avoid not only killing or touching these animals,
but also even very remote relations with them: as, for example,
taking food from a vessel in which their flesh has been cooked on some
previous occasion; coming within the range of the odour of the object;
coming into a house in which there is any part of such an animal.
The evil resulting from breach of any such prohibitions generally takes
the form of wasting sickness with pains in the head, chronic cough,
dysentery, or spitting of blood. When a Kenyah has knowingly for
any reason, or unintentionally, come in contact with any one of the
forbidden objects, or if he finds himself suffering from any of these
things, and therefore suspects that he has unwittingly come under their
influence, he subjects himself to a process of purification. At break
of day he descends, with other members of his family, to the brink of
the river provided with a chicken, a sword-blade, two frayed sticks,
and a length of spiky vine known as ATAT. This latter is bent into
the form of a ring, within which he takes his stand and awaits the
appearance of Isit (the spider hunter -- one of the omen-birds). He
calls it by name, Bali Isit; and as soon as Isit calls in reply,
he pours out a long-winded address, charging him to convey to Bali
Penyalong his prayer for recovery or protection. Then he snips off
the head of the chicken, and wipes some of its blood on the frayed
sticks and on the ring. The ring, with the chicken and the frayed
sticks, are then lifted above his head by his attendants, and water is
poured upon them from a bamboo, so that it drips from them on to his
head. Eight times the ring is lifted up, and each time the pouring out
of the water is repeated. Then, standing on the blade of the sword,
he again addresses the omen-bird as before. This completes the rite,
which is known as LEMAWA.
A similar rite of purification is practised by most of the other
peoples. In some cases the principal feature of the rite of
purification is being spat upon by the chief.
It may be broadly said that all these peoples are constantly on the
alert to provide against unknown dangers; that, having no definite
theories of causation, they are apt to accept every hint of danger
or hurtful influence suggested by the attributes and relations of
things, and to seek to avoid these influences or to ward them off
or counteract them by every means that in any way suggests itself to
their minds as possibly efficacious.
Although the Kayans regard a madman as possessed by an evil spirit,
they seem to have no traditional methods of casting out the spirit;
but some of the Klemantans practise a rite of exorcism; this varies
in detail from tribe to tribe, and attains the greatest elaboration
among the Malanaus. The rite is known as BAYOH, and bears a general
resemblance to the corresponding Malay rite known as BERHANTU. The
Malanaus are Klemantans of the coast regions of Sarawak, most of
whom have recently become converted to Islam, while all of them have
been much influenced by contact with Malays. The following account is
reproduced from a paper published by one of us (C. H.) in the REVIEW
OF THE FAR EAST (Feb. 1907), to the editor of which we are indebted
for permission to make use of the paper: --
The ceremony of casting out evil spirits is of frequent occurrence
among Malanaus, and the noise of gongs and drums throughout the night,
lasting every night for sometimes a whole week, cannot fail to impress
even a casual observer.
The natives of Niah, who are Malanaus, believe in a multitude of
spirits, good and bad, great and small, important and of little
account. At the head of these is Ula Gemilang, the sea divinity,
a power who works for the good of man.[158] Adum Girang is another
spirit of the sea, as also is Raja Duan, who has power over the sun,
a spirit who is distinguished, when he appears in human form, by his
white head-cloth. Majau is said to be pre-eminently rich. Aiar Urai
Arang is said to be a small child whose mother is Aiar. Besides these
there are other powerful spirits of the sea, the land, the up-river
country, and so forth, and each is attended by innumerable slaves
and attendants of ghostly kind; they have influence of many kinds
over the dwellers in this world, some for good, others very much for
evil. Madness is caused by various evil spirits throwing themselves
into mortals, ghosts with red eyes which flash like lightning. The
"amok" devil which comes from the swamp, differs from those which
drive people to commit suicide -- these again being quite distinct
from those which cause merely harmless lunacy.
It not infrequently happens that when a woman (or more rarely a man)
is insane or is very ill, she is urged to admit that a devil has
possessed her, and to become a medicine woman. By this means she
becomes well of her complaint, and at the same time acquires the
power of helping others to cast out devils. But she is not able of
her own accord to determine whether she shall become a medicine woman
or not. For three nights she is taken through the ceremony of BAYOH,
afterwards to be described, without a rattan swing, and then for three
nights with the swing. If the indications are favourable, some three
weeks are allowed to elapse before she undergoes the final test of
five nights with the swing. The first BAYOH is to satisfy the people,
the second to appease the demon; and if her malady is cured by the
eleven nights of artificial hysteria, she is considered to have been
accepted both by men and spirits in her new role of exorciser.
As one woman expressed it, she is now "in with the demons." Even
then, however, it does not follow that she is able to see when an
evil spirit has ceased to possess a person. One old female, who had
worked at BAYOH for fifteen years, admitted that if a devil went into
herself she could turn it out, but only a more powerful woman than
herself could turn devils out of others.
Two forms of BAYOH are known to the people of Niah, but it is only
with the BAYOH SADONG that there is any need to deal here. The other
form is used by the Punans, or mixed Punans and Malanaus. If it is
supposed that some illness is due to possession by an evil spirit, it
is decided to call the medicine women and get the unwelcome visitant
to depart, though it is not considered possible in all cases to turn
a demon out of his mortal abode. Offerings of eggs and fowls to the
good spirits having proved fruitless, a day is fixed for the BAYOH,
preferably shortly after a good harvest, and the household begins its
preparations for the occasion. As powerful spirits are to be invited
to the house, the room where they are to appear is decked with a
profusion of ornaments suited to such exalted guests. Great tassels
of white shavings are hung upon the walls, a white cloth adorned with
the blossoms of the areca palm hides the rafters, and these graceful
inflorescences are spread out fanwise over the doors and among the
shavings. In one corner a hollow cone of areca blossoms and shavings
spread over a framework of rattan is suspended from a rafter; and
a model of a ship or raft is placed just outside an open window. As
the function takes place at night, candles of beeswax are set about
to give light. At the appointed time brass dishes are put on the
floor with rice of many colours -- yellow, red, and blue -- spread in
patterns of crocodiles; popcorns of rice and maize, water, and washing
utensils, boxes of betel ready for chewing, tobacco, and cigarettes,
to appease the varied appetites of the spirits invoked. just after
sundown the neighbours troop in and settle themselves round the room,
the ill-mannered pushing themselves in front. Certain of the villagers
agree to form the band. Soon the house is full of people, boys and old
men contentedly chewing and smoking, women retiring to darker parts
of the room to gossip. A person of importance will be received with
some show of civility, but without any definite ceremony. Arabian
incense, KAMANYAN, which is used nowadays because the native GARU
has too high a value for export to be consumed at home, disperses
a not unpleasant smell through the gathering. Then the fun begins,
gongs and drums are struck, and the strains of music sound through
the village. With intervals of a quarter of an hour every two hours,
the monotonous melody proceeds until seven the next morning, to be
resumed, in all probability, the next night for another twelve hours,
and perhaps maintained night after night for a whole week.
The medicine women -- one, two, or three, rarely four in number --
have collected in the middle of the room. Generally experienced by
years of performing, they are often too old to be attractive, despite
the gorgeous raiment with which they conceal their aged frames and
the hawkbells which jingle as they move. At first they collect round
the earthenware censers to warm their hands. They then begin to step
with the music and wave their arms, hissing loudly through their
teeth the while, and occasionally breaking into a whistle. After a
time they sit down and nod this way and that to the music, as though
engaged in training the muscles of the neck. But the drums and gongs go
faster, till the long hair of the woman flies round with her head. The
whistling is varied by a chant, SADONG, in an ancient language now
barely understood.
"Why do you speak? Why do you SADONG? Why are you such a long
time? As long as it takes a pinang (areca) to become old? The fruit
of the cocoanut has had time to reach maturity and drop. Come to this
country below the heavens. What do you wish? What is your desire? I
have come to heal the sick one who lies on the floor, feeble and
unable to rise, thin and shrivelled like a floating log. Have pity
from your heart and prevent my soul from parting from my skin and my
bones from failing away. This sickness is very severe and I am unable
to contend against it."
One of the women goes to the patient, who, clad in black, sits alone
on a mat, and brings her a pinang blossom to hold, covering her head
with a cloth. The unfortunate being is then brought to the hollow cone
of shavings and seated within it; it is then whirled round till the
white shreds rise like a ballet dancer's skirt. Gradually the sick
person is worked up to a frenzy, and, keeping time with the music,
the medicine women sway about and wag their heads. So the proceedings
go on, with weird fantastic dancing, nodding, howling, whistling,
chanting, for all the hours of the tropical night. Then the medicine
women are whirled round in the cone, and one by one they fall into a
faint, to be recovered by fanning with the pinang blossom. They dance
about and brush against the onlookers as though unable to control their
movements, and are only kept at a distance by finding handfuls of rice
flung in their faces. The point of giddiness and hysteria eventually
reached can only be compared with certain stages of drunkenness.
The outsider will find it difficult to detect much method in the
madness, but on more sober occasions the performers can offer
intelligible explanations of their behaviour. The account given
by an old medicine woman at Niah, and confirmed by the man who
conducts the ceremonies at the same village, shows that the part
taken by the spirits is quite as definite as the performance of the
exorcisers. Attracted by the music, the followers of the chief evil
spirits gather round the house when the BAYOH has begun, and hunt
about. These little demons ask the chief medicine woman, "Why have
you called us?" She replies, "Tell your master that I have called you
because there is a person here sick." They then go back and fetch the
more powerful spirit whom they serve. This demon comes up from the
sea to the JONG, a small ship or raft that stands behind the house
(Fig. 84), and finds his way up the rope ladder. He asks the BAYOH
woman, "Why have you called me, mother?" She answers, "I have called
you because there is a sick person here. You can help him! See whether
you can help him or not." If the demon finds the sickness beyond
his power to cure, he says, "I cannot help you; get some one else";
and the next night another one is invoked, until the evil spirit is
cast out of the patient. If for seven nights the attempt is made in
vain, the BAYOH is stopped and medicines are tried again, but with
little hope that they will do much good. One of the BAYOHS I saw at
Niah was on behalf of a slightly mad woman, who became very violent
during the performance. She was said to be mad because she had become a
Mohammedan, and it was explained that the Malanau demons had no power
over the evil spirits of Islam. The poor woman was consequently put
into stocks in her own room, and not long afterwards recovered.
When a big spirit comes into one of the medicine women, as they say,
like a flash she feels its presence, but does not see its form. If
it agrees to help, the woman goes on with the regular BAYOH, and soon
feels confident that she is able to make the patient well. She asks for
rice and other food, and spirit made from fruit, which she eats and
drinks to gratify the demon within her. She calls upon the people to
see that the viands are good, but not from any selfish motive, for it
is said that she is not aware that she is eating at all. The coloured
rice, which has been prepared, is the spirit's share, and eggs are
also given. The demon invoked to help calls out to the evil spirit
in possession of the sick person, "You stay in this craft whilst I
sit here." "If you don't wish to stay here you can go to the woods,
or your former abode." The evil spirit then goes from the patient
into the basket prepared for his reception, and is then induced or
ordered to depart by the demon in the medicine woman. What remains of
the food set apart for the spirit is scattered along the river. The
BAYOH is stopped, and thanksgiving offerings are floated out to sea
that the exertions of the supernatural powers may not have been in
vain, or these gifts may be taken into the jungle, where the hollow
cone and raft are also placed or hung from a tree.
The medicine women work for a fee, and it is likely enough that
the length of the BAYOH is influenced to some extent by their
pay. Sometimes the ceremony is most gorgeous. A rattan swing,
covered with a beautiful cloth, is provided for the women and the
patient to swing in, with a platform near at hand to receive the evil,
spirit. Sometimes Ula Gemilang himself is invoked. On these occasions
the expenditure is profuse. A box is placed in the middle of the room
with a handsome covering. The walk up the floor is covered with cloth
of gold thread. There are seven candles in seven brass sticks, seven
betel stands, and seven men carrying spears. When the god arrives,
seven people carry the umbrella over his head. If every thing is not
perfectly satisfactory in his judgment, he demands through the medicine
woman whose body he has occupied some expensive gift, and if this is
refused she may fall in a dead faint. Rice is thrown on her and she is
fanned with the pinang blossoms, but the women who attend to her only
share her fate and also become senseless. Eventually they recover, but
there is now but little hope for the patient, for Gemilang is angry. In
a despairing mood the BAYOH women then seek help from lesser powers.
Needless to say, the women bear out their part of the pantomime with
great skill, becoming "possessed" at the proper time, snatching at
the sick person's head as though to catch the evil spirit, and so
forth. It is probable that in some cases the ceremony works a cure by
suggestion. In any case the villagers have not too many occasions for
social gatherings and feasts, and since those who hold BAYOHS must
offer a good deal of hospitality to their neighbours, such meetings
in a village are exceedingly popular with all except those who wish
to go to sleep.
CHAPTER 17
Myths, Legends, and Stories
Among all the peoples of Borneo a number of myths are handed on from
generation to generation by word of mouth. These are related again
and again by those who make themselves reputations as story-tellers,
especially the old men and women; and the people are never tired of
hearing them repeated, as they sit in groups about their hearths
between supper and bed-time, and especially when camping in the
jungle. The myths vary considerably in the mouths of different
story-tellers, especially of those that live in widely separated
districts; for the myths commonly have a certain amount of local
colouring. Few or none of the myths are common to all the peoples;
but those of any one people are generally known in more or less
authentic form to their neighbours.
Although many of the myths deal with such subjects as the creation of
the world, of man, of animals and plants, the discovery of fire and
agriculture, subjects of which the mythology has been incorporated
in the religious teachings of the classical and Christian worlds, the
mythology of these peoples has little relation to their religion. The
gods figure but little in the myths, and the myths are related with
little or no religious feeling, no sense of awe, and very little
sense of obligation to hand them on unchanged. They are related
in much the same spirit and on the same occasions as the animal
stories, of which also the people are fond, and they may be said to
be sustained by the purely aesthetic or literary motive, rather than
the religious or scientific motives. In fact it is not possible to
draw any sharp line between myths and fables. If it is asked, Do the
people believe the myths? no clear answer can be given; for few of
the myths have any direct bearing upon practical life, and therefore
belief in them is not brought to the test of action, the only test
that can reveal the reality of belief, or indeed differentiate belief
from merely unreflective acceptance of a story. Where such practical
bearing is not altogether wanting, we commonly see conduct regulated
in conformity with the myth or story, as in the case of the story
of the bat carrying to the creatures in the river the news of the
intention of the people to poison the water.
A certain number of the Bornean myths and legends have been published
in Mr. Ling Roth's book and elsewhere, especially those of the
Ibans. We have chosen for reproduction some representative specimens
that have not hitherto appeared in well-known publications. A few
stories that properly belong to this chapter are scattered in other
parts of this book.
We give first in a condensed form the substance of a long rambling
creation-myth current among all branches of the Kayan people. This
myth is sung in rhymed blank verse, a fact which is partly responsible
for the wealth of names occurring in it.
In the beginning there was a barren rock. On this the rains fell and
gave rise to moss, and the worms, aided by the dung-beetles, made soil
by their castings. Then a sword handle (HAUP MALAT) came down from
the sun[159] and became a large tree. From the moon came a creeper,
which hanging from the tree became mated with it through the action of
the wind.[160] From this union were born KALUBAN GAI and KALUBI ANGAI,
the first human beings, male and female. These were incomplete, lacking
the legs and lower half of their trunks, so that their entrails hung
loose and exposed. Leaves falling from the tree became the various
species of birds and winged insects, and from the fallen fruits sprang
the fourfooted beasts. Resin, oozing from the trunk of the tree, gave
rise to the domestic pig and fowl, two species which are distinguished
by their understanding of matters that remain hidden from all others,
even from human beings. The first incomplete human beings produced
PENGOK NGAI and KATIRA MUREI; the latter bore a son, BATANG UTA TATAI,
who married AJAI AVAI and begot SIJAU LAHO, ODING LAHANG, PABALAN,
PLIBAN, and TOKONG, who became the progenitors of the various existing
peoples. ODING LAKANG is claimed as their ancestor by the Kayans,
and also by the Kenyahs and some of the Klemantan tribes.
TOKONG is claimed as ancestor by the Sebops (a tribe of Klemantans)
and by the Punans. The former attribute to him the introduction of
head hunting. The story goes that once upon a time, when TOKONG and
his people were preparing to attack a village, he was addressed by
the frog, who called out, "WONG KA KOK, TETAK BATOK." This fairly
represents the cry of this species of frog (BUFO); and TETAK BATOK
in the Sebop language means "cut through the neck." At first the
people, who hitherto had taken only the hair of their enemies to
adorn their shields, scoffed at this advice; but the frog assured them
that the taking of heads would bring them prosperity of every kind,
and demonstrated the procedure he advised by decapitating a small
frog. TOKONG therefore determined to follow the frog's advice and
carried away the heads of his enemies; this was followed immediately
by increased prosperity. As the party returned home and passed through
their fields the PADI grew very rapidly. As they entered the fields the
PADI was only up to their knees, but before they had passed through
it was full-grown with full ears. As they approached the house their
relatives came to meet them, rejoicing over various pieces of good
fortune that had befallen them. The words of the frog thus came true,
and Tokong and his people continued to follow the new practice,
and from them it was learned by others.
Although the help of the stars is not needed by the Borneans in
directing their course when travelling, since all but very short
journeys are made on the rivers, most of them are familiar with
the principal constellations, and name them in accordance with the
resemblances they discover to men, animals, and other objects. Some of
the tribes determine the arrival of the season for sowing PADI by the
observation of the stars. Thus the LONG KIPUTS (Klemantans) name the
great square of Pegasus PALAI, the PADI storehouse (these houses are
generally square); the Pleiades they call a well; and the constellation
of which Aldebaran is a member they call a pig's jaw. They measure
the altitude of a star by filling a tall bamboo vessel with water,
inclining it until it points directly to the star, and then setting
it upright again, and measuring the height at which the surface of
the water remaining in the vessel stands above its floor. Orion is
interpreted as the figure of a man, LAFAANG, in much the same way as
by Europeans; but his left arm is thought to be wanting. They tell
the following story about LAFAANG, who of course is regarded as of
their own tribe.
The Story of LAFAANG
The daughter of PALAI (the constellation Pegasus) fell in love with
a Long Kiput youth, LAFAANG by name, and invited him to ascend to
the heavens, warning him at the same time that the customs in her
celestial home were very different from those of earth. The girl
was very beautiful, and LAFAANG was not slow to find his way to her
father's house. PALAI, surprised to see this mortal visitor, enquired
of his daughter, "Who is this man, and why does he come here?" "It
is the man I wish to wed," replied the girl. The kind-hearted father
told her to give her lover food, and consented to the realisation of
her hopes. So LAFAANG took up his abode in the house of PALAI and
was wedded to his daughter. But in spite of repeated instructions,
LAFAANG found it very difficult to conform to the customs of his
adopted country. He put his food into his mouth with his fingers
instead of using a needle for the purpose, and by doing so distressed
his wife, who chid him for his disobedience to her instructions. On
the morrow of his arrival he was invited to clear a patch of jungle
for a PADI field; and his wife told him that, in order to fell a tree,
he was merely to lay the axe she gave him at the foot of the tree,
which would forthwith fall to the ground. But habit was too strong to
be controlled, and, when LAFAANG set his hand to the task, he fell
to chopping at the tree. But though he chopped with might and main
he made no impression, and his gentle spouse was horrified to see
the crudeness of his methods. On the next day he was told to watch
PALAI at work felling the trees. Squatting in the jungle he saw how
the great trees fell when PALAI merely laid the blade of the axe at
the foot of each one. This spectacle filled LAFAANG with terror and he
would have ran away, but that his wife reproached him for cowardice. On
the following day he set to work again; and once more forgetting his
lesson, he began to chop at the stems of the trees. This gross breach
of custom was punished by the fall of a tree from the patch of jungle
hard by that on which PALAI was at work; for the tree in falling cut
off LAFAANG'S left arm. Disgusted by these disagreeable incidents and
by the awkward appearance of his wife, who was now far advanced in
pregnancy, LAFAANG made up his mind to return to his own people. His
wife reproached him for his intention; but, when she could not alter
his determination, she gave him sugar-cane tops and banana roots,
previously unknown to men, and let him down to earth by means of a
long creeper. Before he reached the ground he heard the cry of his
new-born child, and begged to be allowed to go back to see him. But
his entreaties were unavailing, and weeping bitterly, he alighted on
the earth at TIKAN ORUM (a spot in the upper Baram district). Still
his disobedience was not overcome; for, although he had been told to
plant the sugar-cane and banana by merely throwing them on the ground,
he planted them carefully in the soil; and to this day a tall coarse
grass (BRU) grows on the spot. Nevertheless some sugar-cane and banana
plants grew up; but they were of an inferior quality, and such they
have remained wherever they have spread in this world. LAFAANG died
among his own people on earth, but the bright constellation that
bears his name and shape still moves across the heavens, reminding
men of his journey to the world above the sky and of the misfortunes
he suffered there.[161]
The Story of USAI
The following myth, current under several forms among the Klemantans,
accounts for a number of the geographical features of the Baram
district, in which it was told us. The story was evoked from an
old man of the Long Kiputs by a question as to his views about the
nature of the stars. He explained that the stars are holes in the
sky made by the roots of trees in the world above the sky projecting
through the floor of that world. At one time, he explained, the sky
was close to the earth, but one day USAI, a giant, when working sago
with a wooden mallet accidentally struck his mallet against the sky;
since which time the sky has been far up out of the reach of man. Our
informant, warming up with the excitement of the recital, went on to
give us the following history of USAI: --
USAI was the brother of the guardian of the shades of men. His
wife desired to have a large prawn that lived in the Baram river;
so USAI built a dam across the river at LUBOK SUAN (a spot where the
river is about 250 yards in width) and baled out the water below it,
seizing the crocodiles with his fingers and whisking them out on to
the bank. While this operation was in progress, the dam gave way;
and USAI'S wife was drowned in the sudden rush of water. In vain
he sought for his wife, weeping bitterly. Disconsolately he waded
down the river. At the mouth of the PELUTAN he wept anew, throwing
aside the crocodiles as he explored the bed of the river. At LONG
SALAI he found his wife's coat and wept again. At LONG LAMA he found
his wife's waist-cloth and gave up hope, and at TAMALA he clucked
like a hen, so great was his grief. Still he went on wading down
the river. The water, which at LONG PLUSAN was only just above his
ankles, reached his middle at the mouth of the TUTAU, and covered
all his body at the place where the Tinjar (the largest tributary)
flows into the Baram. At the mouth of the ADOI he wailed aloud,
"ADOI, ADOI!" (a sorrowful cry in common use, nearly the equivalent
of our Alas!). He began to shiver with cold, but at the mouth of the
BAKONG he wept again. When he reached LUBOK KAJAMAN he was out of his
depth (this is a part known to be very deep) and colder than ever;
but he kept on, and presently the water reached only to his belly,
and when he reached the sea it came only to his knees. (There is a
shallow bar at the river mouth.) On seeing the boundless ocean, USAI
gave up the search and strode down the coast to Miri, where he lived
on charcoal and ginger. (The belief is widely held that the people of
Miri, formerly ate charcoal in large quantities.) The people of Miri
seemed to him like maggots; and they, taking him to be a great tree,
climbed up on him. When he brushed them off, he killed ten men with
each sweep of his hand. The Miri people set to work to hew down this
great tree, and blood poured from USAI'S foot as they worked. Then
USAI spoke to them, asking them what sort of creatures they might be,
and said, "Listen to my words. I am about to die. My brains are sago,
my liver is tobacco. Where my head falls there the people will have
much knowledge, where my feet lie will be the ignorant ones." Then,
his legs being cut through, he fell with a mighty crash, his head
falling towards the sea, his feet pointing up river. ("This accounts
for the fact that white men and Chinese know so many things, while
the people of Borneo are ignorant" said our informant; but this was
probably his own comment.) The Miris, of whom a thousand were killed
by the fall of USAI, have beautiful hair, because his head fell in
their district; but the other people have only such hair as grew on
USAI'S limbs. The mosquitoes that existed in the time of USAI were
as big as fowls, and their bites were terribly painful. The people
hewed them into small pieces, so that now they are the smallest of
the animals; but their bite is still painful.
The Iban Story of Simpang Impang
The following story, which is an old favourite among the Ibans (Sea
Dayaks) of the Batang Lupar, will serve to illustrate, with its many
heterogeneous features, the myth-making faculty of this imitative
and fun-loving people. It will be noticed that the story combines the
characters of a creation-myth, an animal fable, and a fairy tale: --
Once upon a time some people were looking for edible vegetables in
the jungle, when they came upon a huge python, which they took to
be a log. Sitting upon it to cut up their vegetables, they by chance
wounded it, and caused the python's blood to flow out. Recognising then
the nature of their resting-place, the people cut up the python and
began to cook its flesh. Then heavy rain began to fall, and it rained
like anything for days and days, so that all the land was covered with
water, and only the top of TIANG LAJU (the highest peak of the Batang
Lupar district) stood out above the flood. All the people and animals
were drowned except one woman, a dog, a rat, and a few other small
animals, which climbed to the top of this mountain. The woman, seeking
shelter from the rain, noticed that the dog seemed to have found a
warm place beneath a creeper. The creeper was swaying in the wind
and rubbing against a tree, and thus was warmed by the friction. The
woman, taking the hint, rubbed the creeper hard on a piece of wood,
and so for the first time produced fire. Having no husband the woman
took the creeper for her mate, and soon afterwards gave birth to a
son, who was but one-half of a human being, having one arm, one leg,
one eye, and so on. This child, SIMPANG IMPANG, whose only companions
were the animals, often complained bitterly to his mother of his
incompleteness. One day SIMPANG IMPANG discovered some PADI grain
which the rat had hidden in a hole. He spread it out to dry on a leaf,
which he put on top of a stump. On this the rat demanded the PADI back;
and when SIMPANG IMPANG refused it, he grew very angry, and swore that
he and all his race would always retaliate by taking the PADI of men
whenever they could get at it. While they were disputing, SELULAT
ANTU RIBUT, the wind-spirit, came by and scattered the PADI grains
far and wide in the jungle. SIMPANG IMBANG looked round in anger and
astonishment, and could perceive nothing but the noise of the wind. So
he set out with some of his companions to get back his corn from the
wind-spirit, or know the reason why. After wandering for some days he
came to a tree on which were many birds; they picked off its buds as
fast as the tree could push them out. SIMPANG IMPANG asked the tree to
tell him the way to the house of the wind-spirit; and the tree said,
"Oh, yes, he came this way just now, and his house is far away over
there. When you come to it, please tell him I am tired of putting out
my leaves to have them bitten off by these rascal birds, and that I
want him to come and end my miserable life by blowing me down."
SIMPANG IMPANG went on and came to a lake, which said, "Whither are
you going, friend?" And when he answered that he was going to find
the wind-spirit, the lake complained that its outlet to the river was
blocked with a lump of gold, and told him to get the wind-spirit to
blow away the obstruction. SIMPANG IMPANG promised to put in a word
for the lake, and, passing on, came to a cluster of sugar-canes and
bananas. "Whither are you going, friend?" said they. "I'm going to the
wind-spirit" he answered. "Oh! then, will you please ask him how it is
we have no branches like other trees; we should like to have branches
like them."[162] "Yes, I'll remember it," said SIMPANG IMPANG, and,
passing on, he soon came to the home of the wind-spirit. There he
heard a great noise of wind blowing, and the wind-spirit said, "What
do you want here, SIMPANG IMPANG." He answered angrily that he had
come to demand the PADI that the wind-spirit had carried away. "We'll
settle the dispute by diving" said the wind-spirit,[163] and he dived
into the water; but being only a bubble, he very soon popped up to
the surface. Then SIMPANG IMPANG called on his companion the fish
to dive for him; and when the windspirit saw that he had no chance
of coming out the winner in this ordeal, he said, "No, this is not
fair, we'll settle the matter by jumping," and he leapt right over the
house. SIMPANG IMPANG called on the swift as his substitute, and the
swift, rising from the ground, jumped right out of sight. Still the
wind-spirit would not give in. "We'll have another test; let's see who
can go through this blow-pipe"; and he went whistling through. Then
SIMPANG IMPANG did not know what to do, for none of his companions
seemed able to help him. But he had forgotten the ant, until a little
squeaky voice called out, "I can do it"; and forthwith the ant crawled
through the blow-pipe. Still the wind-spirit would not give in, and
SIMPANG IMPANG was very angry, and seizing his father, the fire-drill,
he set the windspirit's house on fire. Then at last the wind-spirit
called out that he would make compensation for the PADI he had taken
away. "But," said he, "I haven't any gongs or other things to pay
you, so I'll make you a whole man with two arms and two legs and two
eyes." SIMPANG IMPANG accepted the bargain, and was overjoyed to find
himself a whole man. Then he remembered the messages he had brought
from the tree and the lake, and the wind-spirit promised to do as
he was asked. And then SIMPANG IMPANG put to him the question of the
bamboo and of the banana plant; and the wind-spirit said, "They have
no branches because human beings are always offending against custom;
they often utter the names of their father-in-law and mother-in-law,
and sometimes they walk before them in going through the jungle;
that is why the bamboo and the banana have no branches."
Kenyah Fable of the Mouse-deer and the Tortoise
Animal fables are current among all the peoples of Borneo, and
are frequently repeated and listened to with much enjoyment; some
individuals who acquire the reputation of being good story-tellers are
frequently called upon to practise their art. Closely allied with this
enjoyment of fables is the practice of describing incidents of social
or tribal intercourse in fables, parables, or allegories, which are
made to suit the occasions and to point the appropriate moral.
Once upon a time PLANDOK (the tiny mouse-deer) and KELAP (the
water-tortoise) went out together to find fruit. They found a tree
laden with ripe fruit close by a house. "I can't climb up that tree,"
said PLANDOK, "but I'll give you a leg up, and then you can get on to
that branch." So he pushed up KELAP on to the lowermost branch. KELAP
threw down all the fruit, but then didn't know how to get down,
and called to PLANDOK for help. "Oh! get down anyway you like,"
said PLANDOK. "But I can't get down forwards and I can't get down
backwards." "Then throw yourself down," said PLANDOK, and KELAP threw
himself down and came to the ground with a great thud. The people in
the house heard the sound and said," There's a durian falling." Then
PLANDOK began to divide the fruit into heaps. "This is for me and
that's for you," he kept calling out; and every time he put some
more fruit to KELAP'S heap, he shouted louder than before. "Hello,"
said the people in the house, "there's somebody dividing something,"
and they ran out to see what was going on. PLANDOK skipped away with
his share of the fruit, and left KELAP to hide himself as best he
could under the broad leaves of a Caladium plant. The people saw
the tree stripped of its fruit, and KELAP'S tracks on the ground
soon led to the discovery of his hidingplace. "Here's the thief,"
said the people, "let's put him in the fire." "Oh yes," said KELAP,
"please put me in the fire; last time they put me in the fire they
only half did the thing, and left one side quite untouched by the
fire."[164] "0h! that won't do," said the people, "let's squeeze him
in the sugar-cane press." "Oh yes, please squeeze me in the press,"
said KELAP, "last time they put me in the press they only squeezed one
side of me."[165] "Then that won't do either," they cried, "let's throw
him into the river." "Oh! don't throw me into the river," said KELAP,
and began to weep. So they threw him into the river. KELAP swam out to
the middle of the river and, putting up his head above the surface,
called out, "That's alright, this is my home." At this the people
saw that he had got the better of them, and determined to turn the
tables by poisoning the water with TUBA.[166] The bat overheard
what they were saying, and at once flew off to KELAP, and advised
him to get out of the river. "No, I shall stay here," said KELAP,
"this is the safest place for me," and he went and stood quite still
among the big stones in the shallow water.
Presently the people began to beat out the TUBA root on the stones, and
one man, taking KELAP'S back for a stone, began to beat his TUBA upon
it. Then KELAP made his back sink lower little by little, so that the
water began to cover it. "Hello!" said the man, "the water's rising,
it's no good trying to poison the river when the water's rising." So
they went home.
The Kenyah Story of the BELIRA Fish
The BELIRA is a fish that has an extraordinary number of bones. The
following story accounts for this exceptional number of bones and,
in conjunction with the foregoing story, explains why Kenyahs, when
proposing to poison the river with TUBA in order to take the fish,
speak of their intentions only in parables.
The fish began to complain that they were so often caught by men
who poisoned the river. So they decided they must have a DAYONG who
could make rain for them[167] so as to prevent the poisoning of the
water. They asked one fish after another to become a DAYONG; but all
refused until they came to the BELIRA, who said he would do his best
to become a DAYONG and to make rain for them, if each of the other
fishes would give him a bone. They accepted the bargain and each gave
him a bone, and that is why the BELIRA has so many bones.
The Story of the Stupid Boy
The following Klemantan story illustrates the taste of the people
for the comic: --
One day SALEH and his father set out in their boat for their
farm. "Look out for logs" (I.E. floating timber), said SALEH'S
father. They had not gone very far when SALEH sings out, "I see some
timber." ,Where?" says his father. "Why, there on the bank," says
SALEH, pointing to the jungle. "Oh! you silly," says his father, "go
on." So they went on and landed, and the father, leaving SALEH to cook
some rice in the large pot, began to cut down some trees. Presently
he came back and found SALEH with the pot upside down over the fire,
and nothing cooked. "What are you at?" cries the father. "Well,"
says SALEH, "I put the pot over the fire as you told me to do, but
when I poured the water on it, it all ran into the fire and put it
out." "You stupid boy, you should have put the pot on the other way
up." But you didn't tell me so," says SALEH.
The father had chipped his axe, so he sends SALEH home to fetch
another. SALEH sets out gaily singing, the blade of the axe lying
in the bow of the boat. Soon the boat strikes a snag and overboard
goes the axe-blade. "Oh, bother!" says SALEH, "but never mind, I'll
mark the place," and he whips out his knife and cuts a notch in the
gunwale of the boat at the spot where the axe fell in. Arriving at
the landing stage before his father's house, he begins to dive into
the water to find the lost axe-head, and continues vainly seeking it
till his mother comes out to ask what he is doing. "I'm looking for
the axe that fell into the water just at this notch, as I was coming
down river," says SALEH. "Oh! you are a stupid," says his mother, and
fetches him a new axe. SALEH goes back to his father, who has found a
fruit tree. He tells SALEH to gather the fruit in his basket while he
goes on felling trees. Presently the father comes back and finds SALEH
fastened with his back to the tree by the shoulder-basket, which he has
put right round its stem, and his legs going up and down. "Hello! what
ARE you up to now?" says the father. "Why, I'm carrying away the whole
tree to save trouble," says SALEH, "and I'm watching the clouds up
there to see how fast I'm walking with this tree on my back."
A Story with a Moral
We conclude this chapter with an example of a fable which points a
moral. It is told by the Barawans of their neighbours, the Sebops
(both are Klemantan tribes), who, they say, put off every task till
the morrow.
One wet night KRA, the monkey, and RAONG, the toad, sat under a log
complaining of the cold. "KR-R-R-H" went KRA, and "Hoot-toot-toot"
went the toad. They agreed that next day they would cut down a KUMUT
tree and make themselves a coat. of its bark. In the morning the sun
shone bright and warm, and KRA gambolled in the tree-tops, while RAONG
climbed on the log and basked in the sunlight. Presently down comes KRA
and sings out, "Hello, mate! How are you getting on?" "Oh! nicely,"
says RAONG. "Well, how about that coat we were going to make?" says
KRA. "Oh! bother the coat," says RAONG, "we'll make it to-morrow;
I'm jolly warm now." So they enjoyed the sunshine all day long. But,
when night fell, it began to rain again, and again they sat under the
log complaining of the cold. "KR-R-R-H," went KRA, and "Hoot-toot-toot"
went RAONG. And again they agreed that they must cut down the KUMUT
tree and make themselves a coat of its bark. But in the morning the
sun was shining again warm and bright; and again KRA gambolled in the
tree-tops and RAONG sat basking in the sunshine; and again RAONG,
said, "Oh! bother the coat, we'll make it tomorrow." And every day
it was the same, and so to this day KRA and RAONG sit out in the rain
complaining of the cold, and crying "KR-R-R-H" and "Hoot-toot-toot."
CHAPTER 18
Childhood and Youth of a Kayan
From the time that the parents of a Kayan become aware of his existence
they faithfully observe, without intermission until his appearance in
the world, certain tabus. Or, in their own language, they are MALAN
and certain things and acts are LALI for them. The belief that the
child will resemble in some degree the things which arrest the glance
of his mother while she carries him (LEMALI) is unquestioningly held
and acted upon; hence the expectant woman seeks to avoid seeing all
disagreeable and uncanny objects, more especially the Maias and the
long-nosed monkey; she observes also the tabus imposed upon sick
women in general, and besides these a number of other tabus peculiar
to her condition, most of which apply to acts or situations which
may symbolise any difficulty in delivery of the child; for example,
she must not tie knots, she must not thrust her hand into any narrow
hole to pull anything out. The tabus of the latter class are observed
by the husband even more strictly, if possible, than by the wife. The
woman must also avoid certain kinds of flesh and fish. It frequently
happens that the woman begins to crave to eat a peculiar soapy earth
(BATU KRAP), and this is generally supplied to her.
The woman will also take positive measures to ensure the prosperous
course of her pregnancy and delivery. At the quickening she sacrifices
a young pig and charges it to convey her prayer to Doh Tenangan;
and on the occurrence of any untoward incident, such as a fall, the
prayer and sacrifice are repeated. The carcases of the victims are
stuck upon poles before the house near her door, and the inevitable
feathered sticks, smeared with blood, are thrust behind a roof beam
in the gallery opposite her door.
In every Kayan house are certain elderly women (not the DAYONGS)
who have a reputation for special knowledge and skill in all matters
connected with pregnancy and childbirth. One of these is called in
at an early stage; she makes from time to time a careful examination
of the patient's abdomen and professes to secure the best position
of the child.
She has also a number of charms, which she hangs in the woman's room,
and various unguents, which she applies externally. But all these
procedures are surrounded by a veil of secrecy which we have failed
to penetrate. And, in fact, all information in regard to the processes
of childbirth is difficult to obtain, for all Kayans are very reticent
on the matter, even among themselves.
In all other respects the pregnant woman follows her ordinary mode
of life until the pains of labour begin. Then she is attended by the
wise woman and several elderly relatives or friends. She sits in
her room which is LALI to all but her attendants and her husband;
and she is hidden from the latter by a screen of mats. During the
pains she grasps and pulls on a cloth fixed to a rafter above and
before her. The pains seem to be severe, since the woman generally
groans and cries out; but the duration of labour is commonly brief,
perhaps two or three hours only. The attendants' great anxiety is lest
the child should go upward, and to prevent this they tie a cloth very
tightly round the patient about the upper part of her abdomen. During
the pains two of them press down with great force upon the uterus,
one from each side. The wise woman professes to accomplish version
by external manipulation, if she judges that the feet are about to
present. But we do not know whether her claim to so much skill is well
founded. If the after-birth does not follow immediately upon the child,
the attendants become very anxious; two of them lift up the patient,
and, if it does not soon appear, an axe-head is tied to the cord in
order to prevent its return within the body, and possibly that the
weight may hasten its extrusion. We have no reason to suppose that
any internal manipulation is attempted at this or any other stage of
labour or of pregnancy. Immediately after delivery the cord is tied
and cut across with a bamboo knife. If the child does not cry at once,
its nostrils are tickled with a feather.
The after-birth is usually buried or merely thrown away. But if
the child is born enclosed in the membranes (with a caul), they are
dried and preserved by the mother. It is said that, when dried, it
is pounded to a powder and mixed with medicines administered to the
child in later years.
If labour is unusually difficult or prolonged, or if accidents happen,
the news spreads quickly through the house; and, if the attendants
begin to fear a fatal issue, the whole household is thrown into
consternation, for death in childbirth is regarded with peculiar
horror. All the men of the house, including the chief and boys, will
flee from the house, or, if it is night, they will clamber up among
the beams of the roof and there hide in terror; and, if the worst
happens, they remain there until the woman's corpse has been taken
out of the house for burial. In such a case the burial is effected
with the utmost despatch. Old men and women, who are indifferent to
death, will undertake the work, and they expect a large fee.
The body, wrapped in a mat, is buried in a grave dug in the earth
among the tombs, instead of being put in a coffin raised on a tall
post; for the soul of the woman who dies in childbirth goes, with the
souls of those who fall in battle, or die by violence of any kind,
to Bawang Daha (the lake of blood).
If twins are born, one is chosen, generally the boy, if they are
of different sexes. The other is got rid off by exposure in the
jungle. The avowed motive for this practice (which, of course, is
rapidly passing away under the influence of the European governments)
is the desire to preserve the life of the survivor; for they hold
that his chances of life are diminished not only by the necessity of
dividing the mother's care and milk between the twins, if both survive,
but also by the sympathetic bond which they believe to exist between
twins, and which renders each of them liable to all the ills and
misfortunes that befall the other; and to Kayans the loss of a child
of some years of age is a calamity of the first magnitude, whereas
the sacrifice of one of a pair of new-born twins is hardly felt.
At the moment the child is completely born, a TAWAK or a drum
(according as it is male or female) is beaten in the gallery with
a peculiar rhythm. All members of the household (I.E. all whose
rooms are under the roof of the one long house, and who, therefore,
are under the same omens and tabus) who are within the house at this
moment have the right to a handful of salt from the parents of the
child; and all members who are not under the roof at the moment are
expected to make a present of some piece of iron to the child. This
is an ancient custom, which is no longer strictly observed, and which
seems to be undergoing a natural decay.
During the confinement of a woman, Kayans (more especially those
of the upper Rejang) sometimes perform a dance which is supposed to
facilitate delivery. It is commonly performed by a woman, a friend
or relative of the labouring woman, who takes in her arms a bundle
of cloth, which she handles like a baby while she dances, afterwards
putting it into the cradle (HAVAT) in which a child is carried on the
back. An old story relates the origin of this dance as follows. A
widow died in childbirth, and the child was given to a woman who
happened to be dancing at the time of its birth, and who afterwards
became a very influential and prosperous person.
When the delivery has been normally accomplished and all goes well,
the mother at once nurses the child; and a woman of the lower class
may resume her lighter household duties within twenty-four hours. A
woman of the upper class may remain recumbent for the most part of
several days or even weeks. For seventeen days the mother wears
threads tied round the thumbs and big toes, and during this time
she is expected to avoid heavy labour, such as farm-work and the
pounding of hadi. There seems to be no trace of any such custom as
the COUVADE, though the father observes, like the mother, certain
tabus during the early months and years of the child's life, with
diminishing strictness as the child grows older. The child also is
hedged about with tabus. The general aim of all these tabus seems to
be to establish and maintain about the child a certain atmosphere
(or, as they say, a certain odour)[168] in which alone it can
thrive. Neither father nor mother will eat or touch anything whose
properties are thought to be harmful or undesirable for the child,
E.G. such things as the skin of the timid deer (see vol. ii. p. 72),
or that of the tiger-cat; and the child himself is still more strictly
preserved from such contacts. Further, nothing used by or about the
child -- toys, garments, cradle, or beads -- must be lost, lent, sold,
or otherwise allowed to pass out of the possession of the parents;
though, if one child has thriven, its properties are preferred to all
others for the use of a younger brother or sister. It is important
also that no stranger shall handle or gaze too closely upon the child;
and when it is put down to sleep in the parents' room, the mat or
rude wooden cradle on which it lies is generally surrounded by a
rough screen. The more influential the stranger, the more is his
contact to be feared; for any such contact or notice may attract
to the infant the unwelcome and probably injurious attentions of
the TOH. For the same reason it is forbidden, or PARIT, to a child
to lie down on the spot where a chief has been sitting or where he
usually reposes. And it is a grave offence for a child to, jump over
the legs of a reclining chief; but in this case the disrespect shown
is probably the more important ground of the disapprobation incurred.
If any such contact has unwittingly occurred, or if, for example,
a Kayan mother has consented to submit an ailing child to inspection
by a European medical man, the danger incurred may be warded off
by the gift from the stranger to the child of some small article
of value. In a similar way the breach of other tabus, such as the
entering of a room which is LALI, may be rendered innocuous.
The infant is carried by the mother almost continuously during the
waking hours of its first year of life; it is generally suspended in
a sling made of wood or of basket-work, resembling in shape the baby's
swing familiar in our nurseries; the child sits on a semicircular piece
of board, its legs dependent, its knees and belly against the mother's
back, and its own back supported by the two vertical pieces of the
cradle (see Pl. 166). The mother nurses the infant in her arms during
most of her leisure moments, and she hushes it to sleep by crooning
old lullabies as she rocks it in her arms or in a cradle suspended
from a pliable stick.[169] The father hardly handles it during its
first year, but many fathers nurse and dandle the older infants for
hours together in the most affectionate manner; and, if the child's
grandfather is living, he generally becomes its devoted attendant.
About the end of its first year the infant begins to crawl and toddle
about the room and gallery, to sprawl into the hearth and eat charcoal,
and to get into all sorts of mischief in the usual way. During the
first year he lives chiefly on his mother's milk, but takes also
thick rice-water from an early age.
Towards the end of the first year the lobes of the ears are perforated,
and a ring (or, in the case of a girl, several small rings) is inserted
in each. Of childish affections of health, the commonest at this age
is yaws (FRAMBOESIA) about the mouth. Kayan mothers believe that every
child must go through this, and that one attack protects against its
recurrence; and the rareness of the disease in adults seems to bear
out this belief. Most of the children are weaned about the end of
their second year.
During the next years, until the boy is five or six years of age,
he remains always under the care of his mother. He spends the day
running about within and around the house and among the boats at
the landing-place, playing with his fellows, chasing the pigs and
fowls, and bathing in the river. The children are in the main what is
commonly called good, they cry but little, and quarrels and outbreaks
of temper are few. During the boy's third year a hole is punched
in the shell of each ear. A single blow with a bamboo punch takes
out a circular piece; into this a circular plug of wax or wood is
inserted. The girl, on the other hand, has more rings added to the
lobes of her cars, which gradually yield to the weight, and begin to
assume the desired character of slender loops. During these years the
boy normally takes the first step of his initiation as a warrior by
striking a blow at a freshly taken head, or, if need be, at an old one
(see vol. ii. p. 169).
It is at some time in the course of these years, usually not earlier
than the beginning of the child's third year, that he first receives
a name. The occasion of the rite is a general naming of all the
children of the house of suitable age; and the time is determined by
the conclusion of a successful harvest; for a general feast is made
for which much rice and BURAK are required, and these cannot be spared
in a year of poor harvest. For each child who is to be named a small
human image in soft wood is prepared. This is an effigy of Laki Pesong,
the god whose special function it is to care for the welfare of the
children. A small mat is woven and a few strips of rattan provided
for each child. Each child sits with his (or her) mother in the
gallery beside the door of their room, and the parents announce the
name they propose for the child. Then the father, or some other man,
after killing a chick or young pig, lays the image on the mat before
the child, passes one of the rattan strips beneath it, and, holding
the image firmly with a big toe on each end of it, pulls the strip
rapidly to and fro, until it is made hot by its friction against the
image, and smoke begins to rise. While this goes on, the same man,
or another, pours out a stream of words addressed to Laki Pesong,
the sense of which is a supplication for an answer to the question,
"Is this a suitable name? Will he be prosperous under it? Will he
enjoy a long life?" etc. He continues the sawing movement until the
strip breaks in two. The two pieces are then compared; if they are of
unequal length, this result is regarded as expressing the approval of
the proposed name by Laki Pesong; if they are of approximately equal
length, the god is held to have expressed his disapproval, and another
name is proposed and submitted to the same test. If disapproval is
thus expressed several times, the naming of the child is postponed
to another occasion (Pls. 53, 168).
If a name has been approved, the image, together with the knife used
in killing the pig or chicken, is wrapped up in the small mat; the
bundle, which, as well as the ceremony, is called PUSA, is thrust
behind the rafters of the gallery opposite the door of the child's
room, to remain there as a memento of the naming.
When the naming is accomplished a general feast begins, the parents
of the newly named children contributing the chief part of the good
things; and a number of specially invited guests may participate.
The name so given at this ceremony is borne until the child becomes a
parent; when he resigns it in favour of the name given to his child
with the title Taman (= father) prefixed (or Tinan in the case of
a woman).
Among the Kayans of the upper Rejang the naming ceremonies differ
widely from those described above, and are even more elaborate. The
following description was given us by Laki Bo, a Kayan PENGHULU.[170]
A child is named sometime between its third month and the end of
its second year, the date depending partly on the father's capacity
to afford the expenses incidental to the ceremony. The father and
his friends obtain specimens of all the edible animals and fish,
and after drying them over the fire, set them up in his room in
attitudes as lifelike as possible. He procures also the leaves of a
species of banana tree which bears very large horn-like fruit, known
as PUTI ORAN; and having procured the services of a female DAYONG,
who has a reputation for skill in naming, he calls all the friends and
relatives of the family to the feast. The DAYONG enters the room where
the child is, bearing a fowl's egg, while gongs and drums are beaten
and guns discharged. She strokes the child from forehead to navel
with the egg, calling out some name at each stroke, until she feels
that she has found a suitable name. The whole company then pretends
to fall asleep; and presently some go out into the gallery. The
DAYONG then calls upon sixteen of the women to enter the room; they
enter led by a woman who, pretending to be a fowl, clucks and crows,
and says, "Why are you all asleep here? It has been daylight for a
long time. Don't you hear me crowing? Wake up, wake up." The child,
which has been kept in its parents' cubicle during this first part
of the ceremony, is then brought into the large room, and a fowl and
small pig are slaughtered and their entrails examined. If these yield
favourable omens, the DAYONG begins to chant, invoking the protection
of good spirits for the child. Then sixteen men and sixteen women,
whose parents are still living, are sent to fetch water for the use
of the child and its mother. The feasting then begins, some person
eating on behalf of the child, if it is too young to partake of the
feast. Eight days later the DAYONG again invokes the protection of
the beneficent spirits, and the child is taken out into the gallery
and shown to all the household. Some near relative makes a cross upon
its right foot with a piece of charcoal, and the child is taken to the
door of each room to receive some small present from each roomhold. The
child must then return to its parents' room and remain there eight
days. After the next harvest a similar feast of pigs' flesh and dried
animals is made, and the name is confirmed. But if in the meantime
the child has been ill, or any other untoward event has happened,
a new name is given to it. In this case it would be usual to choose
the well-tried name of some prosperous uncle or aunt. Again the child
must be confined to its parents' room for eight days following the
feast; and after that time it is free to go where it will, or rather
wherever children are allowed to go.
From five or six years onwards the boy more and more accompanies
the men in their excursions on the river and in the jungle, and is
taught to make himself useful on these occasions, and also on the PADI
farm, where he helps in scaring pests and in other odd jobs. But he
still has much leisure, which is chiefly devoted to playing with his
fellows. Among the principal boys' games the following deserve mention:
-- Spinning of peg-tops of hard wood, usually thrown overhand, but
sometimes underhand, in a manner very similar to that of English boys,
each boy in turn striving to strike the tops of the others with his
own; this game is played about the time of PADI harvest. Simple kites
are flown. A roughly made bow with unfeathered arrow is a somewhat
rare toy. Most of the out-door games are of the nature of practice
for the chase and war, and of trials of strength and of endurance of
pain. Wrestling is perhaps the most popular sport with the older boys
and with men. Each grips his antagonist's waist-cloth at its lower edge
behind, and strives to lay him on his back (Pl. 169). Throwing mock
spears at the domestic pigs or goats, and thrusting a spear through a
bounding hoop, afford practice for sport and war. Running games like
prisoner's base, and diving and swimming games, are also played. All
these boys' games are but little organised, and the competitive
motive is not very strongly operative; there are few set rules,
and but little scope for, training in leadership and subordination
is afforded by them.
In the house less active games are played. In one of the most popular
of these a number of children squat in a ring upon the floor; one
takes a glowing ember from a hearth, and passes it on to his neighbour,
who in turn passes it on as quickly as possible. In this way it goes
round and round the ring until the last spark of fire goes out. He or
she who holds it at that moment is then dubbed ABAN LALU or BALU DOH
(=widower Lalu or widow Doh).
Pets, in the form of birds and the smaller mammals, especially
hornbills, parrokeets, squirrels, porcupines, are kept in wicker cages.
About the age of ten years the Kayan boy begins to wear a waist-cloth
-- his first garment -- his sister having assumed the apron some two or
three years earlier; we are not aware of any ceremony connected with
this. From this time onward the boy begins to accompany his father on
the longer excursions of the men, especially on the long expeditions
in search of jungle produce; and on these occasions he is expected
to take an active part in the labours of the party. Participation
in such expeditions affords, perhaps, the most important part of his
education. There is little or no attempt made to impart instruction to
the children, whether moral or other, but they fall naturally under the
spell of custom and public opinion; and they absorb the lore, legends,
myths, and traditions of their tribe, while listening to their elders
as they discuss the affairs of the household and of their neighbours
in the long evening talks. They learn also the prohibitions and
tabus by being constantly checked; a sharp word generally suffices to
secure obedience. Punishments are almost unknown, especially physical
punishments; though in extreme cases of disobedience the child's ear
may be tweaked, while it is asked if it is deaf. A sound scolding also
is not infrequent, and an incorrigible offender, especially if his
conduct has been offensive to persons outside his family, may be haled
before the chief, who rates him soundly, and who may, in a more serious
case, award compensation to be paid by the delinquent's father. But in
the main the Spencerian method of training is followed. A parent warns
his child of the ill effects that may be expected from the line of
behaviour he is taking, and when those effects are realised, he says,
"Well, what did I tell you?" and adds a grunt of withering contempt.
The growth of the children in wisdom and morality is aided also by the
hearing from the lips of their elders wise saws and ancient maxims that
embody the experience of their forefathers, many of which are possibly
of Malay origin. A few of these seem worthy of citation here: --
"Never mind a drop or two so long as you don't spill the whole."
"Better white bones than white eyes" (which means -- that death is
preferable to shame).
"If you haven't a rattan do the best you can with a creeper."
It is difficult to say exactly at what age puberty begins with the
youths. The girls mostly begin their courses in the fourteenth or
fifteenth year. By this time the girl of the better class has the lobes
of her ears distended to form loops, which allow her heavy ear-rings
to reach to her collar-bone or even lower, and she is far advanced
towards completion of her tatu on thighs, feet, hands, and forearms
(see Chap. XII.). The process is begun at about the tenth year, and is
continued from time to time, only a small area being covered at each
bout, owing to the pain of the operation and the ensuing inflammation
and discomfort.
The boys begin at about fifteen years, or rather earlier, to assert
their independence, by clubbing together with those of their own
age, and taking up their sleeping quarters with the bachelors in the
gallery. At an earlier age the children have picked up a number of
songs and spontaneously sing them in groups, but now they begin to
develop their powers of musical. expression by practising with the
KELURI, Jew's harp, drum and TAWAK.
Of these instruments the first is the most used, especially by the
youths. It is a rude form of the bagpipes. The KELURI consists of
a dried gourd which has the shape of an oval flask with a long neck
(Fig. 85). The closed ends of a bundle of six narrow bamboo pipes are
inserted in the body of the gourd through a hole cut in its wall,
and are fixed hermetically with wax. Their free ends are open, and
each pipe has a small lateral hole or stop at a carefully determined
distance from the open end. The artist blows through the neck of
the gourd, and the air enters the base of each pipe by an oblong
aperture which is filled by a vibrating tongue or reed; this is
formed by shaving away the wall of the bamboo till it is very thin,
and then cutting through it round three sides of the oblong; it is
weighted with a piece of wax. The holes are stopped by the fingers,
3ach pipe emitting its note only when its hole is stopped. The physical
principles involved are obscure to us. Varieties of this instrument
are made by all the tribes of Borneo as well as by many other peoples
of the far East (Pl. 70).
The bamboo harp is similar to that made and used by the Punans (see
Fig. 86); the SAPEH is a two-stringed instrument of the banjo order;
the strings are thin strips of rattan; the whole stem and body are
carved out of a single block of hard wood (see Pl. 170 and Fig. 20).
Some of the girls learn to execute a solo dance, which consists largely
in slow graceful movements of the arms and hands (Pl. 170). The bigger
boys are taught to take part in the dance in which the return from
the warpath is dramatically represented. This is a musical march
rather than a dance. A party of young men in full war-dress form up
in single line; the leader, and perhaps two or three others, play the
battle march on the KELURI. The line advances slowly up the gallery,
each man turning half about at every third step, the even numbers
turning to the one hand, the odd to the other hand, alternately,
and all stamping together as they complete the turn at each third
step. The turning to right and left symbolises the alert guarding of
the heads which are supposed to be carried by the victorious warriors.
A more violent display of warlike feeling is given in the war-dance
which is executed by one or two warriors only. The youth, in full
panoply of war, and brandishing a PARANG and shield, goes through
the movements of a single combat with some fanciful exaggeration
(Pl. 171). He crouches beneath his shield, and springs violently hither
and thither, emitting piercing yells of defiance and rage, cutting and
striking at his imaginary foe or his partner in the dance. But it is
characteristic of the Kayans that neither in this dance nor in actual
practice in fencing do they attempt to strike one another. The boy,
besides watching these martial displays, is instructed in the arts
of striking, parrying, and shielding by the older men, who strike
at him with a stick but arrest the blow before it goes home. And we
have found it impossible to introduce among them a more realistic
mode of playful fencing. The ground of this reluctance actually to
strike one another in fencing is probably their strong feeling for
symbolism and the prevailing tendency to believe that the symbolical
art brings about that which it symbolises. In part also it is due
to the fact that to draw the blood of any member of the household is
LALI and involves the penalty of a fine.[171]
The youth goes through no elaborate rite of initiation to manhood;
and, to the best of our knowledge, there exists no body of secret
knowledge or of tradition or rites shared in only by the adult men,
to participation in which he might be admitted in the course of such
a rite. The only rite that is required to qualify him for taking
his place as a full-fledged member of the community is the second
occasion on which he strikes at the heads taken in battle. We have
seen that he performs this ceremonial act for the first time when
still of tender age. The age at which he repeats it depends in part
upon the occurrence of an opportunity; it commonly falls between his
eighth and fifteenth year. If in a house there is a number of big
lads who have not performed this rite, owing to no heads having been
taken for some years, a head may be borrowed for the purpose from
a friendly household; and in this case the borrowed head is brought
into the house with all the pomp and ceremony of successful war.
As the returning war-party approaches the village, the boys who are to
take part in the rite are marshalled before the house by a master of
the ceremonies. He kills a fowl and thrusts a sharpened stake right
through it, so that the point projects from its beak, and slashes
the carcase into three pieces, one for the adults of the house, one
for the boys, and one for the infants. He then takes a short bamboo
knife, and a bunch of ISANG leaves, and, after making a short address
to the boys, ties a band of ISANG round the wrist of each of them,
and, diluting the blood of the fowl with water, smears some of the
mixture on each boy's wrist-band. He puts a handful of rice on a
burning log and gives a grain of it to each of the boys to eat.
Some old man of the house goes down to the river to meet the returning
war-party and brings up the head (or one of the heads) and holds
it out, while the master of ceremonies, holding the portion of the
fowl's carcase assigned to the boys, leads up each boy in turn to
strike at the head with a sword. The boys then go down to the river;
and, while they bathe, a bunch of ISANG with which the head has been
decorated is waved over them. During the feasting which follows the
boys may eat only twice a day. No youth may join a war-party until he
has taken part in this rite. The boys are with few or no exceptions
keen to go out to war and therefore they like to go through this
ceremony at the earliest permissible opportunity.
When the youth begins to feel strongly the attraction of the other
sex, he finds opportunities of paying visits, with a few companions,
in friendly houses. It is then said in his own house that he has gone
"to seek tobacco," a phrase which is well understood to mean that he
has gone to seek female companionship.[172]
We must not pass over without mention a peculiar mutilation which
is practised by most of the Kayan youths as they approach manhood,
namely, the transverse perforation of the GLANS PENIS and the insertion
of a short rod of polished bone or hard wood.
A youth of average presentability will usually succeed in becoming the
accepted lover of some girl in his own or another house (cp. Chap. V.);
and though he may engage himself in this way with two or three girls
in turn before deciding to "settle down," he is usually not much over
twenty years of age when he becomes accepted as the future husband
of a girl some years his junior. A Kayan youth who has rendered
pregnant a girl with whom he has kept company can be relied upon
to acknowledge his responsibility and to marry her before her time
comes. In general it may be said that the rite of marriage does not
mark so complete a change in the recognised relations of the young
couple as with ourselves, except perhaps in those parts of this country
where "handfasting" is recognised as customary and regular. A time is
appointed for the wedding, generally shortly after the completion of
the padi-harvest; but this date is liable to be repeatedly postponed
to the following year by the occurrence of various events which are
regarded as of evil omen and as foretelling the early death of one of
the couple if they should persist in going through the ceremony. Such
omens are hardly ever disregarded; not even if the girl is far advanced
in pregnancy.[173] In the latter case the girl does not incur the odium
that attaches to the production of bastard offspring (see Chap. XX.);
she is treated as a married woman would be, and her child is regarded
as legitimate.
We describe in the following paragraphs the wedding of the son of an
influential Kayan chief to the daughter of the chief of another house
of the same village, such as we have had occasion to assist at. The
weddings of couples of less exalted station are correspondingly less
elaborate in all particulars.
When the appointed time draws near, the bridegroom sends a trusted
friend (his "best man") to open negotiations with the bride's
parents. The emissary carries with him a number of presents whose value
accords with the status and wealth of the bridegroom's parents. For
some time the fiction is maintained that the object of his visit is
not even suspected by the family, who make enquiries into the nature
of his business. After some fencing he comes to the point and asks
on behalf of his friend for a definite date at which he may marry the
daughter. The parents raise objections and difficulties of all sorts,
and perhaps nothing is settled until a second or third visit. If the
parents accept the proposal, the best man hands to them five sets
each of sixteen beads, the beads of each set being of uniform shape
and colour, namely (1) small yellow beads (UTEH); (2) black beads
(MEDAK); (3) a set known as HABARANI which may not be worn by the bride
before the naming of her first child; (4) light blue beads (KRUTANG);
(5) dark blue beads (TOBI). Each of these sets of beads is held to
ensure to the bride the enjoyment of some moral good. The girl also
sends a string of beads to her lover by the hand of his best man,
and at last the date is fixed, due regard being paid to the phases
of the moon; new moon is considered the most favourable time of the
month. The importance ascribed to the phase of the moon seems to arise
from the fact that the shape of the half-moon suggests the state of
pregnancy. Tally is kept by both parties of the date agreed upon. On
two long strips of rattan an equal number of knots is tied. Each party
keeps one of these tallies (often it is carried tied below the knee)
and cuts off one knot each morning; when the last knot alone remains,
the appointed day is at hand.
The parties on both sides invite the attendance of their friends
and relatives, who crowd the gallery of the bride's house. Early in
the morning the bridegroom arrives with his best man and a party of
young friends in full war-dress; they land from a boat even though
they have come but a few yards by water. They march up to the house,
some of them carrying large brass gongs; ascending the ladder, they
lay the gongs down the gallery from the head of the ladder towards
the door of the bride's room at such intervals that the bride can
step from one to another. It is understood that these gongs become the
property of the bride and her parents. Others of the bridegroom's band
carry other articles of value, and when the party reaches the door
of the bride's room, they parley with her parents and friends who
are gathered in the room, displaying and offering these objects to
the defenders of the room as inducements to admit them. They strive
also to push open the door. Presently the men of the defending party
make a sortie from the room fully armed, and repel the attackers
with much show of violence, but without bloodshed. After this sham
fight has been repeated, perhaps several times, the bridegroom and
his supporters are at last admitted to the room, and they rush in,
only to find, perhaps, that the coy maiden has slipped away through
the small door which generally gives access to a neighbouring room. The
impatient bridegroom cannot obtain information as to her whereabouts,
and so he and his men sit down in the room and accept the proffered
cigarettes. Presently the bride relents and returns to her parents'
room accompanied by a bevy of her girl friends. But the bridegroom
takes no notice of her entry. The inevitable pig meanwhile has been
laid in the gallery, together with a few gifts for the DAYONG who is
to read its liver. Here the final steps of the bargaining are conducted
by the friends of the bridegroom. (It is impossible to say in each case
how far this bargaining is genuine and how far the terms of the bargain
have been arranged beforehand.) More gongs are added to the row upon
the floor, chiefly by the friends invited by the bridegroom, who thus
make their wedding gifts, perhaps until the row extends to the door of
the bride's room. The pig is then killed and its liver examined; and,
if necessary, this is repeated with another and another pig, until one
whose liver permits of favourable interpretation is found. (A series
of bad livers would lead to postponement.) The DAYONG then sprinkles
pig's blood and water from a gong upon all the assembly, invoking the
blessing of the gods upon the young couple, asking for them long life
and many children. Then the bride and bridegroom walk up and down
the row of gongs eight times, stepping only upon the metal. In some
cases the bridegroom descends to his boat at the landing-stage on
each of these eight excursions, thus showing that he is free to come
and go as he pleases and has no entanglements. In this degenerate
age the ceremony terminates with this act, but for the feasting and
speech-making which fill up the evening hours. But in the old days,
as we are credibly informed by those who have been eye-witnesses,
the bride descended with the groom and his party to his boat and was
then carried off at full speed, pursued by several boat-loads of her
friends. The fleeing party would then check the pursuit by throwing
out on to the bank every article of value still remaining among them;
each article in turn would be snapped up by the pursuers, who then,
having thus resisted to the last and extorted the highest possible
price from the bridegroom, would allow the happy pair to console each
other in peace for the many trials they had had to endure.
It may seem difficult to reconcile the form of the marriage ceremony
(involving as it does a blending of symbolical capture with actual
purchase) with the fact that, in accordance with the custom almost
universally followed among Kayans, the bridegroom becomes a member
of the room of his father-in-law and remains there for some years
before carrying off his wife to his own house. But we think this latter
practice, which in some quarters has been regarded as a survival from a
matriarchal organisation of society, is a recently introduced custom,
which has come rapidly into favour as a means by which the bridegroom
and his friends avoid a part of the expense involved in the older form
of marriage. For the residence for a period of years of the young
couple in the house and room of the wife's parents is made a part
of the marriage contract. If the bride is the only child of a chief,
her husband may remain permanently in her home and succeed her father
as chief. But in most cases the couple migrates to the husband's house
after a few years, generally on the occasion of the building of a new
house or on the death of his father, both of which events afford him
the opportunity of becoming head of a room and thus taking rank as,
and assuming the full responsibilities of, a PATER FAMILIAS.
The marriage ceremonies of the Kenyahs and Klemantans are similar
but less elaborate. But the Sea Dayak ceremony is different. A feast
is made in the house of the girl's parents. The bridegroom makes no
considerable gifts to the parents of the bride, though he is generally
expected to become a member of their household for the first few years
of his married life. The principal feature of the ceremony is the
splitting open of a PINANG (the seed of the areca palm) during the
feast, in the presence of the young couple and their relatives. The
two halves are examined for signs of decay or imperfection; and if
there are none, the marriage is regarded as approved. A live fowl is
waved over the couple by the chief of the house as he says, "Make
them prosperous, make them happy, give them long life, make them
wealthy, etc. etc." The phrases conform to a conventional pattern,
but each orator modifies and adapts them freely. The words seemed to
be addressed to the fowl, and it seems impossible to discover in the
Iban mind any conception of a higher power behind or beyond the fowl,
though we may suspect that in a vague way the live fowl symbolises
or represents Life in general or the power behind Nature (Pl. 173).
Few or no Kayans can state their age without going through some
preliminary calculations, and even then their statements are apt to
be vague and uncertain. A Kayan mother can generally work out the
age of each of her children on request. She puts down in a row bits
of leaf or stick, one for each year, working back from the present,
and recalling each year by the name of the place where the PADI crop
of that year was raised. When she reaches back to, the year of the
birth of any one of her children, she says that the child was born
about or before or soon after this particular harvest, and by counting
the pieces of stuff laid down she then arrives at the child's age.
An elderly man can generally make no more accurate statement regarding
his age than that at the time of the great eclipse he had just
begun to wear a waist-cloth, or that when the great guns were heard
(I.E. the sound of the eruption of Krakatoa) he was just beginning
"to look for tobacco."
We mention here a statement commonly made by Kayans, which, if true,
is of some interest as reporting a curious exception to a world-wide
custom commonly regarded as directly determined by the difference of
nature between the sexes, the report, namely, that among the Kalabits
the initiative in all love-making is taken by the women. We have
no detailed information in regard to their courtship and marriage
procedures.
CHAPTER 19
The Nomad Hunters
In almost all parts of Borneo there are to be found hidden in
the remotest recesses of the jungles small bands of homeless nomad
hunters. All these closely resemble one another in physical characters
and in mode of life; but differences of language mark them as belonging
to several groups, of which the Punans, the Ukits, the Sians, the
Bukitans, the Lugats, and the Lisums are the best known. Hitherto we
have designated all these groups by the name Punan, which properly
belongs to the largest group only. These groups inhabit different
areas, though there is considerable overlapping; and it seems probable
that they are merely local varieties of one stock, and that their
differences are mainly the results of geographical separation and
of intercourse with, and probably some mingling of blood with, the
settled tribes of the regions inhabited by the several groups. For
their languages seem to be closely allied; but in each region the
nomads seem to have adopted many words from their settled neighbours,
with whom they trade; and instances are known to us in which the
men of the settled tribes have married women of the nomads and have
adopted their mode of life, and others in which children of nomad
women, married into Kenyah, Kayan, or other villages, have gone back
to their mothers' people.
The Punans proper are found in the central highlands wandering through
the upper parts of the basins of all the large rivers; here and there
they range into the lowlands, and in rare instances they even reach
the coast. The Ukits, on the other hand, confine themselves to the
interior, and are found chiefly in the upper parts of the basins of the
Kotei, the Rejang, the Kapuas, and Banjermasin rivers. The Bukitans
inhabit chiefly the upper basins of the rivers of Sarawak. Although
these nomads wander perpetually in the forests, moving their camp every
few weeks or months, any one group attaches itself to a particular
area, partly because they become familiar with its natural resources,
partly because they establish friendly relations with the villagers
of the region, with whom they barter jungle-produce to the advantage
of both parties. The settled tribesmen of any region find this trade
so profitable that they regard the harmless nomads with friendly
feelings, learn their language, and avoid and reprobate any harsh
treatment of them that might drive them to leave their district. In
fact they look upon them with a certain sense of proprietorship and
are jealous of their intercourse with other tribes; the nomads, in
fact, rank high among the many natural products of the jungle that
render any particular region attractive to the tribesmen.
Of all these nomad groups the Punans are the most numerous and we have
seen more of them than of any others. We therefore describe their
peculiar mode of life; but it may be understood that what we say of
them holds good in the main of the other groups of nomads with but
little modification.
From the point of view of physical development the Punans are among
the finest of the peoples of Borneo. They resemble the Kenyahs more
closely than any other tribe; that is to say, they are of very pale
yellow colour, of short stature with long body and short legs, but
otherwise well proportioned and very sturdily built with well-rounded
limbs and large muscular development. Their heads are subbrachycephalic
and inclining to be square; their features are more regular than those
of most other tribes; their most distinctive physical characters are
a relatively well-developed nasal bridge, nostrils directed so much
forward that one seems to look right into their heads through them,
and the slight greenish tinge and fine silky texture of their pale
yellow skins. The greenish tinge may be noticed in all nomad Punans,
and it is possible that the ruddier darker tint of the agricultural
peoples is largely or wholly due to their greater exposure to the sun;
for the Punan fears the broad daylight and rarely or never leaves
the deep shade of the jungle.
In fineness of texture of the skin they surpass all the other tribes,
and they seldom or never suffer from the disfiguring scaly affections
of the skin so common among the others.
The Punans are more uniform as regards their physical characters than
the other peoples; there are no distinctions of upper and lower social
strata as among the other tribes, and thus the mixture of blood,
which in the Kayan and Kenyah communities results from the adoption
of war captives into the lower class, does not occur with them;
and they present none of the wide diversities of type such as are
common in the other tribes, especially between the upper and lower
social classes. They correspond, in fact, to the relatively pure bred
upper classes of the other tribes, and present the same high standard
of physical development and vigour. It is not improbable that the
severer conditions of their mode of life contribute to maintain this
high standard.
The facial expression and the bodily attitudes of the Punans are also
characteristic. When gathered in friendly talk with strangers, even
those whom they have every reason to trust, they prefer to remain
squatting on their heels, rather than to sit down on a mat; and the
tension of their muscles, combined with the still alert watchfulness
of their faces, conveys the impression that they are ready to leap
up and flee away or to struggle for their lives at any moment. It
is doubtless this alertness of facial expression and bodily attitude
that gives the Punan something of the air of an untameable wild animal.
In spite of his distrustful expression the Punan is a likeable person,
rich in good qualities and innocent of vices. He never slays or attacks
men of other tribes wantonly; he never seeks or takes a head, for his
customs do not demand it; and he never goes upon the warpath, except
when occasionally he joins a war-party of some other tribe in order to
facilitate the avenging of blood. But he will defend himself and his
family pluckily, if he is attacked and has no choice of flight; and,
if any one has killed one of his relatives, he will seek an opportunity
of planting a poisoned dart in his body. In a case of this kind all
the Punans of a large area will aid one another in obtaining certain
information as to the identity of the offender; and any one of them
will avenge the injury to his people, if the opportunity presents
itself. They do not avenge themselves indiscriminately on all or any
member of the offender's village or family, but they will postpone
their vengeance for years, if the actual offender cannot be reached
more promptly. It seems worth while to recount a particular instance
of Punan vengeance. The Punans of the Tinjar basin were claimed by
a Sebop chief; that is to say, the chief, Jangan by name, regarded
them as under his protection and as therefore under an obligation
to trade with him and his people only. But the Pokun people in the
basin of a neighbouring river, the Balaga, a tributary of the Rejang,
also claimed similar rights over the Punans of the district. One of
these Pokuns, a man of the upper class, being angered by the adhesion
of the Punans to the chief Jangan and by their refusal to trade with
him, cut down one of them during an altercation in the jungle, leaving
him dead on the spot. The companions of the murdered man retired, and
all the Punans deserted the neighbourhood of the Pokuns. Some four
years later the Pokun community migrated to the Tinjar; and shortly
afterwards the murderer, thinking the whole matter was forgotten, set
out through the jungle with a small party to seek to trade with another
group of Punans. While on the march he was struck in the cheek (the
favourite spot for the aim of the Punan marksman) by a poisoned dart
from an unseen assailant and died within ten minutes. His companions,
remembering the incident of four years before, suspected the Punans,
but saw no trace of any.
The Punans confessed the act of vengeance to Jangan, and he
communicated the facts to the Resident of the Baram district (C. H.),
who happened to be in the neighbourhood at the time. The Pokuns
wished to take vengeance on the Punans, and they would undoubtedly
have turned out in force to hunt down and kill all the Punan men
they could find, but that the Resident forbade them to take action,
and enforced his command by threatening to burn down their houses in
their absence. It is only fair to add that the Pokun chief recognised
the justice of this prohibition and showed no resentment.
That the Punans will not allow the slaying of any one of their number
to go unavenged on the person of the slayer is well known to all
the people of the country, and this knowledge does much to give them
immunity from attack.
The Punans cultivate no crops and have no domestic animals. They live
entirely upon the wild produce of the jungle, vegetable and animal. Of
the former, sago and a form of vegetable tallow found in the seed
of a tree (SHOREA) are the most important. Animals of all kinds are
eaten, and are secured principally by the aid of the blow-pipe and
poisoned darts, in the use of which the Punans are very expert. The
Punan dwelling is merely a rude low shelter of palm leaves, supported
on sticks to form a sloping roof which keeps off the rain but very
imperfectly, and leaves the interior open on every side.[174]
A Punan community consists generally of some twenty to thirty adult men
and women, and, about the same number of children. One of the older men
is recognised as the leader or chief. He has little formally defined
authority, but rather the authority only that is naturally accorded to
age and experience and to the fuller knowledge of the tribal history
and traditions that comes with age. His sway is a very mild one; he
dispenses no substantial punishments; public opinion and tradition
seem to be the sole and sufficient sanctions of conduct among these
Arcadian bands of gentle wary wanderers. Decisions as to the movements
of the band are arrived at by open discussion, in which the leader will
exercise an influence proportioned to his reputation for knowledge
and judgment. He is mainly responsible for the reading of the omens,
and has charge of the few and simple household gods -- if that lofty
title may be given to the wooden image of a crocodile and the bundle
of charms attached to it which are always to be seen in a Punan camp.
If, in case of disagreement, one or more of the members of a band
refuses to accept the judgment of the leader and of the majority,
he, or they, will withdraw from the community together with wife and
children, to form a band which, though in the main independent of
the parent group, will usually remain in its near neighbourhood and
maintain some intercourse. Fighting between Punans, whether of the
same or of different communities, is very rare; the only instances
known to us are a few in which Punans have been incited by men of
other tribes to join in an attack on their fellows.
The members of the band are for the most part the near relatives
of the leader, brothers and sons and nephews with their wives and
children. Each man has usually one wife. We know of no instances of
polygyny amongst them; though we know of cases in which a Punan woman
has become the second wife of a man of some other tribe. On the other
hand, polyandry occurs, generally in cases in which a woman married
to an elderly man has no children by him. They desire many children,
and large families are the rule; a family with as many as eight or
nine children is no rarity.
Marriage is for life, though separation by the advice and direction
of the chief, or by desertion of the man to another community,
occurs. Sexual restraint is probably maintained at about the same
level as among the other peoples, the women being more strictly chaste
after than before marriage. The ceremony of marriage is less elaborate
than among the settled tribes. A young man will become the lover of a
girl generally of some other group than his own, and when she becomes
pregnant the marriage is celebrated. There is little or no formal
arrangement of marriages by the elders on behalf of the young people.
The ceremony of marriage consists merely in a feast in which all,
or most of, the members of the two communities take part. Speeches
are made, and the leaders exhort the young couple to industry and
to obedience to themselves, making specific mention of the principal
duties of either sex, such as collecting camphor and procuring animal
food for the man, the preparing of sago, cooking, and tending the
children for the woman.
After the ceremony, the husband joins the wife's community and
generally remains a member of it; unlike the Kayans, among whom a
husband, though he may live for some years with his wife's people,
eventually brings her to his father's village. No definite payment
is made to the parents of the bride, but some small gift, perhaps
two or three pounds of tobacco, is usually presented to them by
the bridegroom.
Adverse omens may cause the postponement of a marriage; but beyond this
there seems to be no regular method of obtaining or seeking divine
sanction for the marriage; an offering of cooked food may be made
to Bali-Penyalong, by placing it on a stake beneath the image of the
crocodile (which seems to serve as an altar) with some dedicatory words
-- for like the other peoples the Punans are voluble in speech, both
in human intercourse and in appealing to the supernatural powers. On
such occasions the words uttered usually take in part the form of a
prayer for protection from danger.
Those who are accustomed to all the complex comforts and resources of
civilisation, and to whom all these resources hardly suffice to make
tolerable the responsibility and labour of the rearing of a family,
can hardly fail to be filled with wonder at the thought of these gentle
savages bearing and rearing large families of healthy well-mannered
children in the damp jungle, without so much as a permanent shelter
above their heads. The rude shelter of boughs and leaves, which is
their only house, is perhaps made a little more private than usual for
the benefit of the labouring woman. The pregnant woman goes on with
her work up to the moment of labour and resumes it almost immediately
afterwards. She at once becomes responsible for the care of the
infant. The only special treatment after childbirth is to sit with the
back close to a fire, so as to heat it as much as can be borne. The
delivery is sometimes aided by tightly binding the body above the
gravid uterus in order, it would seem, to prevent any retrogression of
the process. While the mother goes about her work in camp, the infant
is usually suspended in a sling of bark-cloth from a bent sapling or
branch, an arrangement which enables the mother to rock and so soothe
the child by means of an occasional push. When travelling or working
in the jungle the mother carries the infant slung upon her back,
either in a bark-cloth or a specially constructed cradle of plaited
rattan such as is used by the Kayans. The infant is suckled from one
to two years, and then takes to the ordinary diet of boiled wild sago,
varied with other animal and vegetable products of the jungle.
The children begin to help in the family work at a very early age. They
are disciplined largely by frequent warnings against dangers, actual
and suppositious, of which they remain acutely conscious throughout
life. This discipline no doubt contributes largely to induce the air
and the attitude of timid alertness which are so characteristic of the
Punan. Harmony and mutual help are the rule within the family circle,
as well as throughout the larger community; the men generally treat
their wives and children with all kindness, and the women perform
their duties cheerfully and faithfully.
The religious beliefs and practices of the Punans are similar to
those of the Kayans, but are less elaborated. They observe a simpler
system of omens, of which the behaviour and calls of lizards and
grasshoppers and of the civet cat (ARCTOGALE) are the chief. They
pray to Bali Penyalong, who seems to be the principal object of
their trust. This being is probably conceived anthropomorphically,
but his human qualities are not so clearly marked as in the case of
the gods of the settled tribes. They make no images in human form,
and we do not know that Bali Penyalong is supposed by them to have
a wife. The only image used in rites is the wooden image of the
crocodile, which is carried from place to place with every change of
camp. In communicating with the omen-creatures, fire and the frayed
sticks are used in much the same way as by the Kayans. Their rites
involve no animal sacrifices, and they do not look for guidance or
answer to prayer in the entrails of animals. It seems probable that
the Punans in each region have absorbed some of their religious and
superstitious notions from the settled tribes of the same region;
for in each region the Punan beliefs are different, showing more
or less affinity to those of the settled tribes. It is an obscure
question whether all their religious belief has been thus absorbed
from more cultured neighbours, or whether the Punans represent in this
and other respects the perpetuation (perhaps with some degeneration
or impoverishment) of a more primitive culture once common to the
ancestors of all, or the greater part of, the tribes of Borneo.[175]
The fact that the principal divinity recognised by them bears the same
name (Bali Penyalong) as the chief god of the Kenyahs is compatible
with either view.
Beside Bali Penyalong the Punans are aware of the existence of other
divinities, which, however, are very obscurely conceived and seldom
approached with prayer or rite. As regards the land of shades and
the journey thither, Punan beliefs are closely similar to those of
Kenyahs and some of the Klemantans. Their account of the journey of
the dead includes the passage of a river guarded by a great fish and a
hornbill (see Chap. XIV.). But they practice no burial and no funeral
rites. As soon as a man dies in any camp, the whole community moves
on to a new camp, leaving his body under one of their rude shelters,
covered only with a few leaves and branches.
Their view of the life after death seems to involve no system of
retribution and to be wellnigh devoid of moral significance. Their
religious beliefs probably influence their conduct less strongly than
do those of the Kayans; for among the latter such beliefs certainly
make strongly for social conduct, I.E. for obedience to the chiefs
and for observance of custom and public opinion; but in the Punan
community the conditions of life are so simple and so nearly in harmony
with the impulses of the natural man that temptations to wrong-doing
are few and weak; external sanctions of conduct, therefore, are but
little needed and but little operative.
Danger assails the Punan on every side and at all times, hence
alertness, energy, and courage are the prime virtues; courage
is rated highest, and a woman looks especially for courage in her
husband. But though courageous and active, Punans are not pugnacious;
as was said above, they rarely or never fight against one another,
and the nomadic groups of each region maintain friendly relations
with one another. Within each group harmony and mutual helpfulness
is the rule; each shares with all members of the group whatever
food, whether vegetable or animal, he may procure by skill or good
fortune. On returning to camp with a piece of game, a Punan throws
it down in the midst and it is treated as common property. If he has
slain a large pig or deer, too heavy for him to bring in unaided, he
returns to camp and modestly keeps silence over his achievement until
some question as to his luck is put to him; then he remarks that he
has left some small piece of game in the jungle, a mere trifle. Three
or four men will then set out and, following the path he has marked
by bending down twigs on his way back to camp, will find the game
and bring it in. If a present of tobacco is made to one member of
a group of Punans, the whole mass is divided by one of them into as
many heaps as there are members of the band present; and then each
of them, men and women alike, takes one heap for his or her own use,
the one who divided the mass taking the heap left by the rest.
In spite of their shyness and timidity, they respond readily to
kind treatment. They are never seen on the rivers, as they have
no boats and cannot easily be persuaded to venture a trip in a
boat. It is possible to make many expeditions through the jungle
without getting any glimpse of them. One of us (C. H.) had lived in
the Baram district six years before succeeding in seeing a single
Punan. The history of his first meeting with Punans may serve to
illustrate their timidity, caution, and good feeling. On making a
long hunting trip on the slopes of Mount Dulit, he took with him a
Sebop who was familiar with Punans and their language. For some days
no trace of them was seen; but one morning freshly made footprints
were observed round about the camp. The following night a cleft stick
was set up at some twenty paces from the camp with a large cake of
tobacco in the cleft, and on the stick a mark was carved which would
be understood by the Punans as implying that they were at liberty to
take the tobacco. This is a method of opening communications and trade
with them well known to the Klemantans. In the morning the tobacco had
disappeared, and fresh foot prints showed that its disappearance was
due to human agency. The following night this procedure was repeated,
and in the course of the day Punan shouts were heard, coming from a
distance of some hundreds of yards. The interpreter was sent out with
instructions to parley and, if possible, to persuade the Punans to come
into camp. Presently he returned with two shy but curious strangers,
who squatted at some distance and were gradually encouraged to come to
close quarters. After staying a few minutes and accepting presents of
tobacco and cloth, they made off. On the following day they returned
with eight male companions, bringing a monkey, a hornbill, and a rare
bird, all killed with their poisoned darts; and they enquired how
much rubber they should bring in return for the tobacco. They were
told that no return was expected, but, understanding that animals of
all sorts were being collected, they attached themselves to the party,
lent their unmatched skill to adding to the collections, and brought
in many rare specimens that now repose safely in the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington. They soon gained confidence and took up
their sleeping quarters under the raised floor of the rough hut; and,
when after some weeks the time for parting came, they voluntarily
took a prominent part in carrying down the collections to the boats,
and went away well satisfied with the simple presents they received.
Punans never build boats or travel on the water of their own initiative
and agency. In fact they dislike to come out from the shade of the
forest on to a cleared space or the stony bed of the river. They are
very conservative in spite of their intercourse with more advanced
tribes, and they harbour many irrational prejudices. They entertain
a particular aversion to the crocodile, an aversion strongly tinged
with awe. They will not kill it or any one of their omen-beasts. They
are very shy of whatever is unfamiliar. Many of them will not eat
salt or rice when opportunity offers.
The medicine men or DAYONGS of the Punans are distinguished for
their knowledge and skill, and are in much request among the other
tribes for the catching of souls and the extraction of pains and
disease. They are therefore fairly numerous; but, as among the other
peoples, the calling is a highly specialised one, though not one which
occupies a man's whole time or excuses him from the usual labours of
his community. Their methods do not differ widely from those of the
Kayan and Kenyah DAYONGS.
The Punan has great faith in charms, especially for bringing good luck
in hunting. He usually carries, tied to his quiver, a bundle of small
objects which have forcibly attracted his attention for any reason,
E.G. a large quartz crystal, a strangely shaped tusk or tooth or
pebble, etc., and this bundle of charms is dipped in the blood of
the animals that fall to his blow-pipe.
As regards dress and weapons the Punan differs little from his
neighbours. A scanty waist-cloth of home-made bark-cloth, or equally
scanty skirt for the woman, strings of small beads round wrists or
ankles or both, numbers of slender bands of plaited palm-fibre below
the knees and about the wrists, and sometimes a strip of cloth round
the head, make up his costume for all occasions.
All his belongings are such as can easily be transported. He carries
a sword, a small knife, a blow-pipe with spear-blade attached, and a
small axe with long narrow blade for working camphor out of the heart
of the camphor-tree. Besides these essential tools and weapons, which
he constantly carries, the family possesses sago-mallets and sieves,
dishes and spoons or spatulas of hard wood, and tongs of bamboo for
eating sago,[176] a few iron pots,[177] large baskets for carrying
on the back, a few mats of plaited rattan, and small bamboo boxes.
These are the sum of the worldly goods of a Punan family, and it would,
we suppose, be difficult to find another people who combine so great
a poverty in material possessions with so high a level of contentment
and decent orderly active living.
Although his material possessions are so few, the Punan is not capable
of fashioning all of them by his own independent efforts. All his
metal tools he obtains from the Kayans (or other tribes) who are his
patrons. But everything else he makes with his own hands. The long
blow-pipe of polished hard-wood, which is his favourite weapon, he
makes by the same methods and as well as the Kayans. But the iron rod
which he uses in the process of boring the wood he cannot make. This
illustrates his intimate dependence on other tribes, and seems to
imply that the blow-pipe, at least in the highly finished form in
which it is now used, cannot have been an independent achievement
of the Punans. They are especially skilful in the plaiting of rattan
strips to make baskets, mats, and sieves. They do little wood-carving,
but carve some pretty handles for knives and decorative pieces for
the sword-sheaths from the bones of the gibbon and deer. They are
expert also in making bamboo pipes with which to imitate the calls
of the deer and of some of the birds.
Hunting, tracking, and trapping game are the principal and favourite
pursuits of the men; they display much ingenuity in these pursuits
and attain a wonderful skill in the interpretation of the signs of the
jungle. For example, a Punan is generally able to read from the tracks
left in the jungle by the passage of a party of men, the number of the
party, and much other information about it. They are expert scouts,
and, when their neighbourhood is invaded by any party whose intentions
are not clearly pacific, they will follow them for many days, keeping
them under close observation while remaining completely hidden.
The Punan has few recreations. His highest artistic achievement
is in song. His principal musical instrument is a simple harp made
from a length of thick bamboo (Fig. 86); from the surface of this
six longitudinal strips are detached throughout the length of a
section of twenty inches or more, but retain at both ends their
natural attachments. Each strip is raised from the surface by a pair
of small wooden bridges, and is tuned by adjusting the interval
between these. The only other musical instrument is a very simple
"harmonica." A series of strips of hard-wood, slightly hollowed and
adjusted in length, are laid across the shins of the operator, who
beats upon them with two sticks. But the finest songs are sung without
accompaniment and are of the nature of dramatic recitals in the manner
of a somewhat monotonous and melancholy recitative. To hear a wild
Punan, standing in the midst of a solemn circle lit only by a few
torches which hardly seem to avail to keep back the vast darkness of
the sleeping jungle, recite with dramatic gesture the adventures of
a departing soul on its way to the land of shades, is an experience
which makes a deep impression, one not devoid of aesthetic quality.
In dancing, the Punan attains only a very modest level. The men dance
upon a narrow plank (for the good reason that they have nothing else
to dance upon); and the exhibition is one of skilful balancing on this
restricted base while executing a variety of turning movements and
postures. The women dance in groups with very restricted movements
of the feet, and some monotonous swaying movements of the arms and
body. The men also imitate the movements of monkeys and of the hornbill
and the various strange sounds made by the latter.
The most striking evidence of the low cultural standing of the Punan
is the fact that he cannot count beyond three (the words are JA,
DUA, TELO); all larger numbers are for him merely many (PINA). Yet,
although in culture he stands far below all the settled agricultural
tribes, there is no sufficient reason for assuming him to be innately
inferior to them in any considerable degree, whether morally or
intellectually. Any such assumption is rendered untenable by the fact
that many Punans have quickly assimilated the mode of life and general
culture of the other tribes; and there can be no doubt, we think, that
many of the tribes that we have classed as Klemantan and Kenyah are
very closely related to the Punans, and may properly be regarded as
Punans that have adopted Kayan or Malay culture some generations ago.
CHAPTER 20
Moral and Intellectual Peculiarities
In this chapter we propose to bring together a number of observations
which have found no place in foregoing chapters but which will throw
further light on the moral and intellectual status of the pagan tribes.
We have seen that among the Kayans the immediate sanction of all
actions and of judgments of approval and disapproval is custom, and
that the sanction of custom is generally supported by the fear of
the TOH and of the harm they may inflict upon the whole house. The
principle of collective or communal responsibility of the household,
which is thus recognised in face of the spiritual powers, as well
as in face of other communities, gives every man an interest in
the good behaviour of his fellows, and at the same time develops
in him the sense of obligation towards his community. The small
size of each community, its separation and clear demarcation by its
residence under a single roof, its subordination to a single chief,
and its perpetual conflict and rivalry with other neighbouring
communities of similar constitution, all these circumstances also
make strongly for the development in each of its members of a strong
collective consciousness, that is to say, of a clear consciousness
of the community and of his place within it and a strong sentiment of
attachment to it. The attachment of each individual to his community is
also greatly strengthened by the fact that it is hardly possible for
him to leave it, even if he would. For he could not hope to maintain
himself alone, or as the head of an isolated family, against the
hostile forces, natural and human, that would threaten him; and
it would be very difficult for him to gain admittance to any other
community.
It is only when we consider these facts that we can understand how
smoothly the internal life of the community generally runs, how few
serious offences are committed, how few are the quarrels, and how few
the instances of insubordination towards the chief, and how tact and
good sense can rule the house without inflicting any other punishment
than fines and compensatory payments.
And yet, when all these circumstances have been taken into account,
the orderly behaviour of a Kayan community must be in part regarded as
evidence of the native superiority of character or disposition of the
Kayans. For though the Sea Dayaks, Klemantans, and Muruts, live under
very similar conditions, they do not attain the same high level of
social or moral conduct. Among the Muruts there is much drunkenness
and consequent disorder, and the same is true in a less degree of
the Sea Dayaks; among them and some of the Klemantan tribes quarrels
within the house are of frequent occurrence, generally over disputed
ownership of land, crops, fruit-trees, or other property. And these
quarrels are not easily composed by the chiefs. Such quarrels not
infrequently lead to the splitting of a community, or to the migration
of the whole house with the exception of one troublesome member and
his family, who are left in inglorious isolation in the old house.
But the higher level of conduct of the Kayans is in most respects
rivalled by that of the Kenyahs, and some importance must therefore be
attributed to the one prominent feature of their social organisation
which is peculiar to these two peoples, namely a clearly marked
stratification into three social strata between which but little
intermarriage takes place. This stratification undoubtedly makes
for a higher level of conduct throughout the communities in which it
obtains; for the members of the higher or chiefly class are brought
up with a keen sense of their responsibility towards the community,
and their example and authority do much to maintain the standards of
conduct of the middle and lower classes.
We have said that almost all offences are punished by fines only. Of
the few offences which are felt to require a heavier punishment,
the one most seriously regarded is incest. For this offence, which is
held to bring grave peril to the whole house, especially the danger of
starvation through failure of the PADI crop, two punishments have been
customary. If the guilt of the culprits is perfectly clear, they are
taken to some open spot on the river-bank at some distance from the
house. There they are thrown together upon the ground and a sharpened
bamboo stake is driven through their bodies, so that they remain pinned
to the earth. The bamboo, taking root and growing luxuriantly on this
spot, remains as a warning to all who pass by; and, needless to say,
the spot is looked on with horror and shunned by all men. The other
method of punishment is to shut up the offenders in a strong wicker
cage and to throw them into the river. This method is resorted to as
a substitute for the former one, owing to the difficulty of getting
any one to play the part of executioner and to drive in the stake,
for this involves the shedding of the blood of the community.
The kind of incest most commonly committed is the connection of
a man with an adopted daughter, and (possibly on account of this
frequency) this is the kind which is most strongly reprobated. It
is obvious also that this form of incest requires a specially strong
check in any community in which the adoption of children is a common
practice. For, in the absence of severe penalties for this form of
incest, a man might be tempted to adopt female children in order to
use them as concubines. We find support for this view of the ground of
the especially severe censure on incest of this form in the fact that
intercourse between a youth and his sister-by-adoption (or VICE VERSA)
is not regarded as incest, and the relation is not regarded as any bar
to marriage. We know of at least one instance of marriage between two
young Kenyahs brought up together as adopted brother and sister.[178]
Of other forms of incest the more common (though, it should be said,
incest of any form is very infrequent) are those involving father
and daughter, brother and sister, and brother and half-sister.
The punishment of the incestuous couple does not suffice to ward off
the danger brought by them upon the community. The household must be
purified with the blood of pigs and fowls; the animals used are the
property of the offenders or of their family; and in this way a fine
is imposed.
When any calamity threatens or falls upon a house, especially a great
rising of the river which threatens to sweep away the house or the
tombs of the household, the Kayans are led to suspect that incestuous
intercourse in their own or in neighbouring houses has taken place;
and they look round for evidences of it, and sometimes detect a case
which otherwise would have remained hidden. It seems probable that
there is some intimate relation between this belief and the second
of the two modes of punishment described above; but we have no direct
evidence of such connection.[179]
All the other peoples also, except the Punans, punish incest with
death. Among the Sea Dayaks the most common form of incest is that
between a youth and his aunt, and this is regarded at least as
seriously as any other form. It must be remembered that, owing to
the frequency of divorce and remarriage among the Sea Dayaks, a youth
may find himself in the position of step-son to half a dozen or more
divorced step-mothers, some of them perhaps of his own age, and that
each of them may have several sisters, all of whom are reckoned as
his aunts; therefore he must walk warily in his amorous adventures.
Sexual perversion of any form is, we think, extremely rare among
the pagan tribes of Borneo. We have never heard of any case of
homosexuality on good authority, and we have never heard any reference
made to it; and that constitutes, to our thinking, strong evidence
that vice of that kind is unknown among most of the tribes. It is
not unknown, though not common, among the Malays and Chinese, and,
if cases occur sporadically among the pagans, they are presumably
due to infection from those quarters.
Homicide
Kayans, as we have seen, have no scruple in shedding the blood
of their enemies, but they very seldom or never go to war with
other Kayans; and the shedding of Kayan blood by Kayans is of rare
occurrence. To shed human blood, even that of an enemy, in the house
is against custom. Nevertheless murder of Kayan by Kayan, even by
members of the same house, is not unknown. In a wanton case, where
two or more men have deliberately attacked another and slain him,
or one has killed another by stealth, the culprit (or culprits)
would usually be made to pay very heavy compensation to relatives,
the amount being greater the higher the social status and the greater
the wealth of the culprit; the amount may equal, in fact, the whole
of his property and more besides; and he might, in order to raise the
amount, have to sell himself into slavery to another, slavery being
their only equivalent to imprisonment. The relatives would probably
desire to kill the murderers; but the chief would generally restrain
them and would find his task rendered easier by the fact that, if
they insist on taking the murderer's life, they would forfeit their
right to compensation.[180] The amount of the compensation to be paid
would not depend upon the social standing of the murdered man, but
the fine paid to the house or chief would be heavier in proportion
to his rank. But we have knowledge of cases in which chiefs have,
with the approval of the house, had a murderer put to the sword. The
murderer who has paid compensation has, however, by no means set
himself right with the household; they continue to look askance
at him. Set fights or duels between men of the same house are very
rare. If a Kayan of one house kills one of another, his chief would
see that he paid a proper compensation to the relatives, as well as
a fine to his own house. If a man killed his own slave, he would be
liable to no punishment unless the act were committed in the house;
but public opinion would strongly disapprove.
'Running AMOK' is not unknown among Kayans, though it is very rare. If
a man in this condition of blind fury kills any one, he is cut down and
killed, unless he is in the house; in which case he would be knocked
senseless with clubs, carried out of the house into the jungle,
and there slain.
Drunkenness during an act of criminal violence is regarded as a
mitigating circumstance, and the fines and compensation imposed would
be of smaller amount than in a case of similar crime deliberately
committed.
Suicide is strongly reprobated, and, as we have seen, the shades of
those who die by their own hands are believed to lead a miserable and
lonely existence in a distressful country, Tan Tekkan, in which they
wander picking up mere scraps of food in the jungle. Nevertheless,
suicides occur among Kayans of both sexes. The commonest occasion
is the enforced separation of lovers, rather than the despair of
rejected lovers. We have known of two instances of Kayan youths who,
having formed attachments during a long stay in a distant house and
who then, finding themselves under the necessity of returning home
with their chief and unable to arrange marriage with their fair ones,
have committed suicide. The method most commonly adopted is to go
off alone into the jungle and there to stab a knife into the carotid
artery. The body of a suicide is generally buried without ceremony
on the spot where it is found. Suicides of women are rarer than those
of men; desertion by a lover is the commonest cause.
Dishonesty in the form of pilfering or open robbery by violence
are of very rare occurrence. Yet temptations to both are not
lacking. Fruittrees on the river-bank, even at some distance from
any village, are generally private property, and though they offer a
great temptation to passing crews when their fruit is ripe, the rights
of the proprietor are usually respected or compensation voluntarily
paid. Theft within the house or village is practically unknown. Even
before the European governments were established, Malay and Chinese
traders occasionally penetrated with boat-loads of goods far into
the interior; and now such enterprises are regularly and frequently
undertaken. Occasionally a trader establishes himself in a village
for months together, driving a profitable trade in hardware, cloth,
tobacco, etc. These traders usually travel in a small boat with a
company or crew of only two or three men, and they are practically
defenceless against any small party of the natives who might choose
to rob or murder them. Such traders have now and again been robbed,
and sometimes also murdered, by roving bands of Sea Dayaks, but we
know of no such act committed by Kayans or Kenyahs. The trader puts
himself under the protection of a chief and then feels his life and
property to be safe.
It would not be true to say that the Kayans or any of the other
peoples are always strictly truthful. They are given to exaggeration
in describing any event, and their accounts are apt to be strongly
biassed in their own favour. Nevertheless, deliberate lying is a
thing to be ashamed of, and a man who gets himself a reputation as
a liar is regarded with small favour by his fellows.
The Kayans, as we have said elsewhere, are not coarse of speech,
and both men and women are strictly modest in respect to the display
of the body. Though the costume of both sexes is so scanty, the
proprieties are observed. The Kayan man never exposes his GENITALIA
even when bathing in the company of his fellows, but, if necessary,
uses his hands as a screen. The bearing of the women is habitually
modest, and though their single garment might be supposed to afford
insufficient protection, they wear it with an habitual skill that
compensates for the scantiness of its dimensions; they bathe naked
in the river before the house, but they slip off their aprons and
glide into the water deftly and swiftly; and on emerging they resume
their garments with equal skill, so that they cannot be said to expose
themselves unclothed. The same is true of most of the other tribes,
with the exception of the men of Kenyah and Klemantan communities
that inhabit the central highlands; these, when hauling their boats
through the rapids, will divest themselves of all clothing, or will
sit naked round a fire while their waist-cloths are being dried,
without the least embarrassment.
There is no Kayan word known to us that could properly be translated
as justice or just, injustice or unjust. Yet it is obvious that they
view just conduct with approval and unjust with disapproval; and they
express their feelings and moral judgments by saying laconically of
any particular decision by a chief, TEKAP or NUSI TEKAP. But the
word TEKAP is of more general application than our word 'just,'
and might be applied to any situation which evokes a judgment of
moral approval; for example, on witnessing any breach of custom or
infringement of tabu a Kayan would say NUSI TEKAP; TEKAP, in short,
is applicable to whatever is as it ought to be.
Specialised terms for moral qualities of character and conduct are,
however, not lacking. A just and wise chief would be said to be TENANG;
but this word implies less purely a moral quality than our word
justice and more of intellectual capacity or knowledge or accuracy;
the word is more especially applied as a term to describe the quality
of a political speech which meets with approval. The word HAMAN means
skilful, or clever, or cunning, in the older sense of capable both
physically and intellectually. A man who fights pluckily is said
to be MAKANG, and the same word is applied to any daring or dashing
feat, such as crossing the river when it is dangerously swollen. To
disregard omens would be MAKANG also; it seems, therefore, to have
the flavour of the word rash or foolhardy.
SAIOH means good in the sense of kindly, pleasantly toned, or
agreeable. JAAK is bad in the sense of a bad crop or an unfortunate
occurrence, or a sore foot, I.E. it conveys no moral flavour. Morally
bad is expressed by SALA; this is used in the same sense in Malay
and may well be a recently-adopted word. In general the language
seems to be very poor in terms expressive of disapproval, adverse
judgments being generally expressed by putting nusi, the negative or
primitive particle, before the corresponding word of positive import;
thus a cowardly act or man would be denounced as NUSI MAKANG.
We think it is true to say that, although they thus distinguish
the principal qualities of character and conduct with appropriate
adjectival terms, they have no substantival terms for the virtues
and vices, and that they have not fully accomplished the processes
of abstraction implied by the appropriate use of such highly abstract
substantives.
As regards the influence of their religious beliefs on the moral
conduct of the Kayans, we have seen that the fear of the TOH serves
as a constant check on the breach of customs, which customs are in
the main salutary and essential for the maintenance of social order;
this fear does at the least serve to develop in the people the power
of selfcontrol and the habit of deliberation before action. The part
which the major spirits or gods are supposed to play in bringing
or fending off the major calamities remains extremely vague and
incapable of definition; in the main, faithful observation of the
omens, of rites, and of custom generally, seems to secure the favour
of the gods, and in some way their protection; and thus the gods
make for morality. Except in regard to that part of conduct which is
accurately prescribed by custom and tradition, their influence seems to
be negligible, and the high standard of the Kayans in neighbourliness,
in mutual help and consideration, in honesty and forbearance, seems
to be maintained without the direct support of their religious beliefs.
The high moral level attained by individuals among the Kayans
and Kenyahs, and less frequently by Klemantans, is, we think,
best exemplified by the enlightened and public-spirited conduct of
some of the principal chiefs. It might have been expected that the
leading chiefs of warlike and conquering peoples like the Kayans and
Kenyahs, which, until the advent of the European governments, had
never encountered any resistance which they could not break down by
armed force, would have been wholly devoted to conquest and rapine;
and that a chief who had acquired a high prestige and found himself
able to secure the adhesion in war of a number of other chiefs and
their followers would have been inspired with the barbarous ideals
of an Alexander, a Napoleon, a Chaka, or a Cetewayo. But though some
of them have shown tendencies of this kind, there have been notable
exceptions who have recognised that chronic hostility, distrust, and
warfare, which had always been characteristic of the relations between
the various tribes and villages, were an unmixed evil. Such men have
used their influence consistently and tactfully and energetically to
establish peaceful relations between the tribes. Unlike some savage
chieftains of warrior tribes in other parts of the world, such as
some of those produced by the Bantu race, or those who established
the great confederation of the Iroquois tribes, they have not sought
merely to bring about the combination of all the communities of
their own stock in order to dominate over or to exterminate all
other tribes. They have rather pursued a policy of reconcilement
and conciliation, aiming at establishing relations of friendship and
confidence between the communities of all languages and races. One
such powerful Kenyah chief of the Baram district, Laki Avit, had
earned a high reputation for such statesmanship before the district
was incorporated in the Raj of Sarawak. His policy was to bring about
intermarriages between the families of the chiefs and upper-class
people of the various tribes. Tama Bulan (see Pl. 27), the leading
Kenyah chief of the same district at a later time, spared no efforts
to bring about friendly meetings between chiefs of different tribes,
for the purpose of making peace and of promoting intercourse and
mutual understanding.[181] It should be added that these peacemaking
ceremonies are generally of lasting effect; the oaths then taken are
respected even by succeeding generations. Tama Kuling, who a decade
ago was the most influential of the Batang Kayan chiefs, had also
spontaneously pursued a similar policy.[182]
It has been said of many savage peoples that they recognise no natural
death, but believe that all deaths not due to violence are due to
black magic. No such statement can be made of the Kayans; few, if
any, deaths are ascribed by them to the efforts of sorcerers. Natural
death is recognised as inevitable in old age, and disease is vaguely
conceived as the effect of natural causes; though as to what those
natural causes are they have no definite ideas. This attitude is shown
by their readiness to make use of European drugs and of remedies for
external application. Quinine for fever, and sulphate of copper for
the treatment of yaws, are most in demand. Cholera and smallpox are the
great epidemic diseases which have ravaged large areas of Borneo from
time to time. The Kayans recognise that both these diseases spread up
river from village to village, and that to abstain from intercourse
with all villages lower down river and to prevent any one coming up
river contributes to their immunity. With this object the people of
a tributary stream will fell trees across its mouth or lower reaches
so as to block it completely to the passage of boats, or, as a less
drastic measure, will stretch a rope of rattan from bank to bank
as a sign that no one may enter (Pl. 183). Such a sign is generally
respected by the inhabitants of other parts of the river-basin. They
are aware also of the risk of infection that attends the handling of
a corpse of one who has died of epidemic disease, and they attempt
to minimise it by throwing a rope around it and dragging it to the
graveyard, and there burying it in a shallow grave in the earth,
without touching it with the hands.[183]
The Kayans have some slight knowledge of the medicinal properties
of some herbs, and make general use of them. They administer as
an aperient a decoction of the leaves of a certain plant, called
OROBONG, which they cultivate for the purpose on their farms. The
root of the ginger plant is used both internally and for external
application. A variety of vegetable products are used in preparing
liniments; the basis most in request for these is the fat of the
python and of other snakes, but wild pig's fat is used as a more
easily obtainable substitute.
There is a small common squirrel (SCIURUS EXILIS), the testicles of
which are strikingly large in proportion to his body. These organs are
dried and reduced to powder, and this powder, mixed with pig's fat,
is rubbed over the back and loins in cases of impotence.[184]
Kayan mothers treat colic in their children by chewing the dried root
of a creeper (known as PADO TANA) with betel nut, and spitting out
the juice on the belly of the patient.
Some of the coastwise Klemantans make use of a bitter decoction of a
certain creeper as a remedy for jungle fever. It is asserted by Kayans
and others that the Punans make use of the poison of the IPOH tree
(the poison used on their darts) as an internal remedy for fever. It
is said also (probably with truth, we think) that the Punans also
apply the IPOH poison to snake-bites and to festering wounds.[185]
Surgery
Broken limbs are bound round with neat splints made of thin slips
of bamboo tied in parallel series. Little effort is made to bring
the broken ends of the bones into their proper positions or to reduce
dislocations. Abscesses are not usually opened with the knife, but are
rather encouraged to point, and are then opened by pressure. A cold
poultice of chopped leaves is applied to a bad boil or superficial
abscess, and it is protected from blows and friction by a small cage of
slips of rattan. Festering wounds are dressed with the chewed leaves
or the juice of the tobacco plant, or are washed with a solution of
common salt. But a clean wound is merely bound up with a rag; or,
if there is much haemorrhage, wood ashes are first applied. They
practise no more efficient methods for arresting haemorrhage.
Headache is treated by tugging the hair of the scalp in small bundles
in systematic order. Massage of the muscles is practised for the relief
of pain, and massage is applied to the abdomen in cases of obstinate
constipation; in certain cases they claim to break up hard lumps in
the belly by squeezing them with the hands. Bodily aches and fatigue
are relieved by pulling and bending the parts of the limbs until all
the joints crack in turn.
Cupping is perhaps the most frequently practised surgical
operation. Severe internal bruising from falls or heavy blows is the
usual occasion. The operation is performed by scratching the skin
with the point of a knife, and then applying the mouth of a bamboo cup
previously heated over the fire. The cup is a piece of bamboo some five
or six inches in length and an inch or rather more in diameter. Its
edge is thinned and smoothed. Several of these may be simultaneously
applied in a case of extensive bruising. Since this operation, like
tatuing, involves the shedding of blood, some small offering, such
as a few beads, must be made to the patient by the operator.
The Kayans have distinct numerals up to ten (JI, DUA, TELO, PAT,
LIMER, NAM, TUSU, SAYA, PITAN, PULU). Those from eleven to nineteen
are formed by prefixing PULU ( = ten) to the names of the digits;
and those from twenty to twenty-nine by prefixing DUA PULU ( =
two twenty); and so on up to JI ATOR ( = one hundred). Two hundred
is DUA ATOR, three hundred is TELO ATOR, and so on up to MIBU ( =
one thousand). All or most of the other tribes (except the Punans)
have a similar system of numerals, though the numbers beyond the
first ten are little used. In counting any objects that cannot be
held in the hand or placed in a row, the Kayan (and most of the other
peoples) bends down one finger for each object told off or enumerated,
beginning with the little finger of the right hand, passing at six to
that of the left hand, and then to the big toe of the right foot, and
lastly to that of the left foot. When all the names or objects have
been mentioned, he holds the toe reached until he or some one else
has told off the number; if the number was, say, seventeen, he would
keep hold of the second toe of the left foot until he had counted up
the number implied by that toe, either by means of counting or by
adding up five and five and five and two; unless the count ends on
the little toe of the left foot, when he knows at once that the number
is twenty. If a larger number than twenty is to be counted, as when,
for example, a chief has to pay in tax for each door of his house,
he calls in the aid of several men, who sit before him. One of these
tells off his fingers and toes as the chief utters the names of the
heads of the rooms; and when twenty have been counted in this way,
a second man begins on his fingers, while the first continues to
hold on to all his toes. A third and a fourth man may be used in the
same way to complete the count; and when it is completed, the total
is found by reckoning each man as two tens, and adding the number of
fingers and toes held down by the last man. The reckoning of the tens
is done by addition rather than multiplication. Both multiplication
and division are almost unknown operations.
When a chief is getting ready to pay in the door tax of two dollars a
door, he does not count the doors and then multiply the number by two:
he simply lays down two dollars for each door and pays in the lot,
generally without knowing the sum total of the dollars. If a chief
were told to pay in the tax for half his doors only, he would not
know how to carry out the instruction. Subtraction is accomplished
only in the most concrete manner, E.G. if a man wished to take away
eight from twenty-five, he would count out twenty-five of the objects
in question, or of bits of leaf or stick, then push away eight and
count up the remainder. A dodge sometimes adopted, especially by the
Kenyah, for counting the persons present, is to take a fern-leaf with
many fronds, tear off a half of each frond, handing each piece to
one of the men, until every man present affirms that he has a piece,
and then to count the number of torn fronds remaining on the stalk.
It will thus be seen that the arithmetical operations of the Kayans
are of an extremely concrete character; those of the other tribes
are similar (with the exception again of the Punans, who do not count
beyond three); though many of the Klemantans get confused over simple
counting and reckoning, which the Kayans accomplish successfully.
Tama Bulan, the Kenyah chief whom we have had occasion to mention in
several connections, obtained and learnt the use of an abacus from a
Chinaman, and used it effectively. This deficiency in arithmetic is,
however, no evidence of innate intellectual inferiority, and there
seems to be no good reason to doubt that most of the people could
be taught to use figures as readily as the average European; those
children who have entered the schools seem to pick up arithmetic with
normal rapidity.
The Sea Dayaks sometimes deposit sums of money with the Government
officers, and they know accurately the number of dollars paid in;
but when they withdraw the deposit, they generally expect to receive
the identical dollars paid in by them.
Measurement
The Kayans use two principal standards of length, namely, the BUKA and
the BUHAK. The former is the length of the span from finger-tip to tip
of outstretched arms; the latter is the length of the span from tip of
the thumb to tip of the first finger of the same hand. In buying a pig,
for example, the price is determined by the number of BUHAK required
to encircle its body just behind the forelegs. The half BUKA is also in
general use, especially in measuring rattans cut for sale, the required
length of which is two and a half BUKA. In order to express the half,
they have adopted the Malay word STINGAH, having no word of their own.
Distances between villages are always expressed in terms of the
average time taken by a boat in ascending the stream from one to the
other. Distances by land are expressed still more vaguely; for example,
the distance between the heads of two streams might be expressed
by saying that, if you bathe in one, your hair would still be wet
when you reach the other (which means about one hour); or a longer
distance, by saying that if you started at the usual time from one
of the places you would reach the other when the sun is as high as
the hawk (which means a journey from sunrise to about 10 A.M.), or
when the sun is overhead (I.E. noon), or when it is declining (about
3 P.M.), or when the sun is put out (sunset), or when it is dark.
In order to describe the size of a solid object such as a fish,
a Kayan would compare its thickness with that of some part of his
body, the forearm, the calf of the leg, the thigh, or head, or the
waist. In describing the thickness of the subcutaneous fat of a pig,
he would mention one, two, three, or even four fingers.
Cosmological and Geographical Notions
The more intelligent Kayans can give a fairly good general description
of the geographical features and relations of the district in which
they live. In order to do this a Kayan will map out the principal
features on a smooth surface by placing pieces of stick to represent
the rivers and their tributaries, and pieces of leaf to represent the
hills and mountains; he will pay special attention to the relations
of the sources of the various streams. In this way a Kayan chief of
the Baram would construct a tolerably accurate map of the whole Baram
district, putting in Bruni and USUN APO and the heads of the Rejang,
Batang Kayan, Tutong, and Balait rivers. He knows that all the rivers
run to the sea, though few Kayans have seen the sea or, indeed, been
outside the basin of their own river. To have been to another river,
or to have seen the sea, is a just ground of pride. He does not know
that Borneo is an island, though he knows that the white men and
the Chinese come from over the sea; he will confidently assert that
the sea is many times larger than the Baram river, even ten times as
large. They seem to regard the sea as a big river of which their main
river is a tributary.
Ibans sometimes speak of AIROPA (meaning Europe), which they take
to mean the river Ropa, as the home of the white man; and all the
tribesmen are apt to think of foreigners as living on the banks of
rivers in forest-covered country much like their own.
Although the Kayans do not observe the stars and their movements
for practical purposes, they are familiar with the principal
constellations, and have fanciful names for them, and relate
mythical stories about the personages they are supposed to represent
(Chap. XVII.).[186] They seem to have paid no special attention
to the planets. Inconsistently with the star myths, the stars are
regarded as small holes in the floor of another and brighter world,
and it is said that these holes have been made by the roots of plants
which have penetrated through the soil of that world.
The sky is regarded as a dome which meets the earth on every hand,
and this limiting zone is spoken of as the edge of the sky; but they
have no notion how far away this edge may be; they recognise that,
no matter how many days one travels in any one direction, one never
gets appreciably nearer to it, and they conclude, therefore, that
it must be very distant. They understand that the clouds are very
much less distant than the sky, and that they merely float about the
earth. Neither sun nor moon seems to be regarded as animated.
Two total eclipses of the sun have occurred in Borneo in the last
half-century. These, of course, caused much excitement and some
consternation.[187] The former of them serves as a fixed date in
relation to which other events are dated.
The traditional lore of the Kayans provides answers of a kind to many
of the deep questions that the spirit of enquiry proposes whenever
man has made provision against the most urgent needs of his animal
nature. Yet the keener intelligences among them do not rest satisfied
with these conventional answers; rather, they ponder some of the
deepest questions and discuss them with one another from time to
time. One question we have heard debated is -- Why do not the dead
return? Or rather, Why do they become visible only in dreams and even
then so seldom? The meeting of dead friends in dreams generally leaves
the Kayan doubtful whether he has really seen his friend; and he will
try to obtain evidence of the reality of the REVENANT by prayer and by
looking for a favourable answer in the liver of a pig, the entrails of
a fowl, or in the behaviour of the omen birds. They argue that persons
who have been much attached to their relatives and friends would surely
return to visit them frequently if such return were at all possible.
The relation of the sky to the earth remains also an open and disputed
question. One of us well remembers how, when staying in a Kenyah house,
he was approached by a group of youths who evidently were debating some
knotty problem, and how they very seriously propounded the following
question: -- If a dart were shot straight up into the air and went
on and on, what would become of it? Would it come up against the sky
and be stopped by it?
The whereabouts of the home of the white men, and how long is spent
on the journey thither, are questions often raised. Tama Bulan once
raised the question of the motion of the sun, and having been told
that really the earth revolves and that the sun only appears to move
round it, he argued that this could hardly be, since we see the sun
move every day. For a long time he said nothing more on this topic
to us, but it continued to occupy his mind; for some years later he
recurred to it and announced that he now accepted the once incredible
doctrine, because he had inquired concerning it of every European he
had been able to meet, and all had given him the same answer.
The methods of argument of the Kayans are characteristic and worthy
of a short description. As we have said, they are great talkers and
orators. They are by no means an impulsive people; far less so than
the Kenyahs or the Sea Dayaks. Although they are not a vivacious or
talkative people in general intercourse, every undertaking of any
importance is carefully discussed in all its aspects, often at what we
should consider unnecessary length, before the first step is taken;
and in such discussions each man likes to have his say, and each is
heard out patiently by his fellows. They have a strong belief in the
efficacy of words; this is illustrated by the copious flood of words
which they pour out whenever they perform any religious or other rite.
In arguing or persuading, or even threatening, they rely largely on
indirect appeals, on analogy, simile, and metaphor, flavoured with
a good deal of humour of a rather heavy kind. Or they may convey a
strong hint by describing a professed dream in which the circumstances
under discussion are symbolised.
The following incident illustrates this mode of speech. Two
Kayans quarrelled over the sale of a pig. The current price was
a dollar a BUHAK (I.E. the span from finger-tip to thumb-tip, see
vol. ii. p. 212). The buyer had insisted on measuring it by spans
from thumb to tip of second finger, whereas the customary span is to
the tip of the index finger. The case was brought before the chief,
who of course might have contented himself, but not perhaps the
purchaser, by authoritatively laying down the law of custom. He,
therefore, being a man of tact and experience, thrust out his second
finger and pointed it at the purchaser of the pig, saying, "Suppose
any one pointed at you like that, instead of with the index finger;
you would all laugh at him." All the people sitting round laughed,
and the purchaser went away convinced of the propriety of using the
index finger in measuring a pig.
To illustrate the way in which a chief may exert influence in matters
in which he has no footing for the exercise of formal authority, we
cite the following bit of history. It is an ancient custom of the
Kayans to have in the house a very large LAMPIT (the mat made of
parallel strips of rattan), the common property of the household,
which is spread on the occasion of the reception of visitors to
serve as a common scat for guests and hosts. The Kayans of the Baram,
under the individualising influences of trade and increasing stocks
of private property, neglected to renew these communal mats; and thus
the good old custom was in danger of dying out. This was observed with
regret by an influential chief, who, therefore, found an opportunity
to relate in public the following story. "A party of Kayans," he said,
"once came over from the Batang Kayan to visit their relatives in the
Baram. The latter dilated upon the benefits of the Rajah's government,
peace, trade, and the possibility of fine dress for themselves and
their wives and of many other desirable acquisitions, all for the small
annual payment of two dollars a door. The visitors looked about them
and confessed that they still had to be content with bark clothing,
bamboo cups, and wooden dishes; 'but,' they added, 'if you come to
our house you will at least find on the floor a good LAMPIT on which
we can all sit together.' " The story quickly went the round of the
Kayan villages in the Baram, with the result that large LAMPITS quickly
came back into general use and the good old custom was preserved.
The Kayans have a keen sense of humour and fun. As with ourselves, the
most frequent occasions of laughter are the small mishaps that happen
to one's companions or to oneself; and practical jokes are perpetrated
and appreciated. For example, at the time when the wild pigs were dying
in large numbers, a boat-load of Kayans working up-river encountered
a succession of pigs' carcases floating down, most of them in a state
of decomposition and swollen with gases. A practical joker at the bow
conceived the notion of prodding the carcases with his spear and thus
liberating the foul-smelling gases for the benefit of those who sat
in the stern of the boat, to their great disgust and the amusement
of those on the forward benches. Again -- a Klemantan example -- a
chewer of betel-nut and lime sometimes prepares several quids wrapped
carefully in SIRIH leaf, and sets them aside till they are required. On
one occasion, while the crew of a boat landed to cook their dinner,
a youngster carefully opened such a quid and substituted a piece of
filth for the betel-nut. When the victim of the joke spat out the
morsel, spluttering with disgust and anger, the crew was moved to loud
laughter, which they tried in vain to suppress out of consideration
for the feelings of the victim; for no one likes to be laughed at.
But, although the Kayans have a strong sense of the ridiculous, their
laughter is not so violent and uncontrollable as that of Europeans
is apt to be, and it is not so apt to recur from time to time at the
mere recollection of an amusing incident.
We refer to some of the stories reproduced in Chapter XVII. as examples
of the less crude forms of humour appreciated by the people. These
stories are repeated again and again, without failing to amuse those
who are perfectly familiar with them. AEsop's fables transposed into a
Bornean key were, we found, much appreciated. In a large proportion of
the entertaining stories of the Kayans, as well as of the other tribes,
the point of the story depends on some reference to sexual relations
or actions But such references are not, as a rule, coarsely put, but
rather hinted at merely, often in a somewhat obscure way; E.G. such
a story may terminate before the critical point is reached with some
such phrase as "Well, well, what of it?" and a shrug of the shoulders.
The tendency of the Kayans to laconic speech is well illustrated by
their way of referring to well-known stories or fables with one or
two words, in order to sum up or characterise a situation -- much as
we say "sour grapes!"
Like all other varieties of mankind (some few savage tribes perhaps
excepted), the Kayans and other tribes are apt to distort the truth in
their own favour, in describing from memory incidents that seriously
affect their interests. When a party has allowed itself to commit some
reprehensible action, such as over-hasty and excessive reprisals,
a whole village, or even several villages, may conspire together
more or less deliberately to "rig up "some plausible version of
the affair which may serve to excuse or justify the act in the
eyes of the government. A good PENGHULU[188] will set about the
investigation of such an affair with much tact and patience. He
will send for those immediately concerned and patiently hear out
their version of the incident. If it departs widely from the truth,
he will find reason to suspect the fact. But, instead of charging the
men with untruthfulness, or attempting to extort the truth by threats,
or bullying, or torture (as is so often done in more highly civilised
courts), he keeps silence, shrugs his shoulders, and tells them to go
away and think it over, and to come back another day with a better
story. In the meantime he hears the version of some other group,
who view the affair from a different angle, and thus puts himself in
a position to suggest modifications of the new version of the former
group. When he has in this way gathered in a variety of accounts of
the incident, he find himself in a position to construct, by a process
of moral triangulation, an approximately correct picture; this he now
lays before the party immediately concerned, who, seeing that the game
is up, fill in the details and supply minor corrections. Throughout
this process the tactful PENGHULU never shuts the door upon his
informants or tries to pin them down to their words, or make them
take them back; rather he keeps the whole story fluid and shifting,
so that, when the true account has been constructed, the witnesses
are not made to feel that they have lost their self-respect.
It seems worth while to describe here one of a large class of incidents
which illustrate at the same time the workings of the native mind
and the way in which an understanding of such workings may be applied
by the administrator. The Resident of the Baram having heard of the
presence in the central no-man's land of a considerable population of
Kenyahs under a strong chief, TAMA KULING, sent friendly messages to
the latter. He responded by sending a lump of white clay, which meant
that he and his people recognised that they were of the same country
as the people of the Baram and that their feelings were friendly;
and with it came an elaborately decorated brass hook (Pl. 184), which
was to serve as a complimentary and symbolical acknowledgment of the
white man's power of binding the tribes together in friendship. He
sent also a verbal message acknowledging his kinship with the Kenyahs
of the Baram; but he added that he and his people were in the dark and
needed a torch (I.E. they wanted more explicit information about the
conditions obtaining in the Baram). In reply to these representations,
the Resident despatched trusty messengers to TAMA KULING bearing
the following articles: a large hurricane lamp for TAMA KULING, and
smaller ones for the other principal chiefs of the district: smaller
lamps again were sent for the heads of houses, and with them a large
stock of boxes of lucifer matches, which were to be dealt out to the
heads of the rooms of each house. In this way the desired torch was
provided for every member of their communities. With these symbols
went a large horn of the African rhinoceros, out of which TAMA KULING
might fashion a hilt for his sword.[189]
We were afterwards informed that, on the arrival of these symbolic
gifts, TAMA KULING called together the chiefs of all the surrounding
villages to receive their share, and to discuss the advisability
of accepting the implied invitation to migrate into the Baram. The
proposition was favourably received, and a large proportion of
the population of that region have since acted upon the resolution
then taken.
To the disjointed collection of remarks which make up this chapter
we venture to add the following observations. It has often been
attempted to exhibit the mental life of savage peoples as profoundly
different from our own; to assert that they act from motives, and
reach conclusions by means of mental processes, so utterly different
from our own motives and processes that we cannot hope to interpret
or understand their behaviour unless we can first, by some impossible
or at least by some hitherto undiscovered method, learn the nature of
these mysterious motives and processes. These attempts have recently
been renewed in influential quarters. If these views were applied to
the savage peoples of the interior of Borneo, we should characterise
them as fanciful delusions natural to the anthropologist who has spent
all the days of his life in a stiff collar and a black coat upon the
well-paved ways of civilised society.
We have no hesitation in saying that, the more intimately one becomes
acquainted with these pagan tribes, the more fully one realises the
close similarity of their mental processes to one's own. Their primary
impulses and emotions seem to be in all respects like our own. It is
true that they are very unlike the typical civilised man of some of
the older philosophers, whose every action proceeded from a nice and
logical calculation of the algebraic sum of pleasures and pains to
be derived from alternative lines of conduct; but we ourselves are
equally unlike that purely mythical personage. The Kayan or the Iban
often acts impulsively in ways which by no means conduce to further
his best interests or deeper purposes; but so do we also. He often
reaches conclusions by processes that cannot be logically justified;
but so do we also. He often holds, and upon successive occasions
acts upon, beliefs that are logically inconsistent with one another;
but so do we also.
CHAPTER 21
Ethnology of Borneo
In the foregoing chapters it has been shown that the six groups which
we have distinguished by the names Kayans, Kenyahs, Klemantans, Muruts,
Nomads or Punans, and Ibans or Sea Dayaks, differ considerably from
one another in respect of material and moral culture as well as of
mental and physical characters. We have used these names as though the
groups denoted by them were well defined and easily to be distinguished
from one another. But this is by no means the case. Our foregoing
descriptions are intended to depict the typical communities of each
group, those which present the largest number of group-marks. Besides
these more typical communities, which constitute the main bulk of the
population, there are many communities or sub-tribes which combine
in some measure the characteristics of two or more of the principal
groups. It is this fact that renders so extremely difficult the
attempt to classify the tribes and sub-tribes in any consistent and
significant fashion, and to which is largely due the confusion that
reigns in most of the accounts hitherto given of the inhabitants of
Borneo. We believe, however, that the divisions marked by the six
names we have used, namely, Kayan, Kenyah, Klemantan, Murut, Punan,
and Iban, are true or natural divisions; and that the intermediate
forms are due, on the one hand, to crossing through intermarriage,
which takes place continually in some degree, and, on the other hand,
to the adoption of the customs and beliefs and traditions and to the
imitation of the arts and crafts of one natural group by communities
properly belonging to a different group. The main groups seem to
us to be separated from one another by differences of two kinds:
some by racial or ethnic differences, which involve differences of
physical and mental constitution, as well as by cultural differences;
others by differences of culture only, the racial characters being
hardly or not at all differentiated.
We propose in this chapter to attempt to justify these main
distinctions, and to define more nearly their essential nature and
grounds. This attempt must involve the statement of our opinion as
to the ethnic affinities of all the principal tribes. We are fully
aware that this statement can be only of a provisional nature, and
must be liable to modification and refinement in the light of further
observation and discussion. But we think that such a statement may
serve a useful purpose; namely, that it may serve as a basis upon
which such corrections and refinements may later be made.
The most speculative part of this statement must necessarily be
that which deals with the affinities of the tribes of Borneo with
the populations of other areas; but even here we think it better to
set down our opinion for what it may be worth, not concealing from
the reader its slight basis. We state in the following paragraph the
main features of the history of the tribes of Borneo as we conceive it.
The wide distribution of remnants of the Negrito race in the islands
round about Borneo and in the adjacent parts of the mainland of Asia
renders it highly probable that at a remote period Negritos lived in
Borneo; but at the present time there exist no Negrito community and
no distinct traces of the race, whether in the form of fossil remains
or of physical characters of the present population, unless the curly
hair and coarse features of a few individuals to be met with in almost
all the tribes may be regarded as such traces. These negroid features
of a small number of the present inhabitants are perhaps sufficiently
accounted for by the fact that slaves have been imported into Borneo
from time to time throughout many centuries by Arabs and Malays and by
the Illanum pirates; and some of these slaves were no doubt Negritos,
and some, possibly, Africans or Papuans.[190]
We leave open the question of an ancient Negrito population, and
go on to the statement that the present population is derived from
four principal sources. From a very early period the island has
been inhabited in all parts by a people of a common origin whose
surviving descendants are the tribes we have classed as Klemantans,
Kenyahs, and Punans. This people probably inhabited Borneo at a
time when it was still connected with the mainland. Their cultural
status was probably very similar to that of the existing Punans. It
seems not improbable that at this early period, perhaps one preceding
the separation of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java from the mainland, this
people was scattered over a large part of this area. For in several
of the wilder parts, where the great forest areas remain untouched,
bands of nomads closely resembling the Punans of Borneo are still
to be found, notably the Orang Kubu of Sumatra, and perhaps the
Bantiks of northern Celebes. The principal characteristics of this
primitive culture are the absence of houses or any fixed abode;
the ignorance of agriculture, of metal-working, and of boat-making;
and the nomadic hunting life, of which the blow-pipe is the principal
instrument. The chief and only important improvement effected in the
condition of the Punans since that early period would seem to be the
introduction of the superior form of blow-pipe of hard wood. This
cannot be made without the use of a metal rod for boring, and, since
none of the Bornean tribes which still lead the nomad life know how
to work metals, it may be inferred that they have learnt the craft
of making the SUMPITAN from more cultured neighbours, procuring from
them by barter the iron tools required -- as they still do.
It is impossible to make any confident assertion as to the affinities
of this widely diffused people from which we believe the Punans,
Kenyahs, and Klemantans to be descended. But the physical characters
of these tribes, in respect of which they differ but slightly from
one another, lead us to suppose that it was formed by a blending
of Caucasic and Mongoloid elements, the features of the former
predominating in the race thus formed. The fairness of the skin, the
wavy and even, in some individuals, the curly character of the hair;
the regular and comparatively refined features of many individuals; the
frequent occurrence of straight and aquiline noses; the comparatively
large, horizontal, or only slightly oblique, palpebral aperture;
the not infrequent absence of all trace of the Mongolian fold of the
eyelid and its slightness when present -- all these characters point
to the predominance of the Caucasic element in the ethnic blend.
On the other hand, the smooth yellowish skin, the long dark thick
hair of the scalp, and the scantiness of the hair on the cheeks,
chin, and lips; the rather broad cheek-bones, the prevailing slight
obliquity of the eyes, the rather narrow palpebral aperture, and
the presence of a slight Mongolian fold -- these characters (all
of which are found in a considerable proportion of these peoples)
are features that point to Mongol ancestry.[191]
It was said above that the skin of these tribes is of very pale yellow
colour. In this respect there is little to choose between them, but
on the whole the Punans are of rather lighter colour than the others,
and, as was said before, of a faintly green tinge. This difference
is, we think, sufficiently accounted for by the fact that the Punan
seldom or never exposes himself to full sunlight, whereas the others
are habitually sun-browned in some degree. But the lighter colour of
this whole group of tribes (as compared especially with the Kayans and
Ibans) cannot be explained in this way; for the habits and conditions
of life of Kenyahs and Klemantans are very closely similar to those of
the Kayans; and it must, we think, be regarded as a racial character.
The name Indonesian is perhaps most properly applied to this people
which we suppose to have resulted from the contact and blending
of the Caucasic and Mongoloid stocks in this corner of Asia. The
systematic ethnographers use this term in a vague and uncertain
manner. Deniker defines the Indonesians by saying that they comprise
"the little intermixed inland populations of the large islands (Dyaks
of Borneo, Battas of Sumatra, various "Alfurus" of Celebes, and certain
Moluccas)."[192] He seems doubtful whether the name Indonesian should
be applied to the eight groups of aborigines of Indo-China which
he distinguishes.[193] He recognises that the Indonesians and the
Malayans are of very similar physical characters, but distinguishes
them as two of four races which have given rise to the population of
the Malay Archipelago -- namely, Malayans, Indonesians, Negritos, and
Papuans. He regards the Indonesians (used in a wide sense to include
Malays) as most closely akin to the Polynesians; but he expresses no
opinion as to their relations to the Mongol and Caucasic stocks.
Keane describes the Indonesians as a Proto-Caucasic race which must
have occupied Malaysia and the Philippines in the New Stone Age. He
separates them widely from the Malays and Proto-Malays, whom he
describes as belonging to the Oceanic branch of the Mongol stock;[194]
and the "Dyaks" of Borneo are classed by him with strict impartiality
sometimes with the Proto-Malays, sometimes with the Proto-Caucasians.
If these oldest inhabitants of Borneo may be regarded as typical
Indonesians (and we think that they have a strong claim to be so
regarded), then we think that the usage of the term by both Keane and
Deniker errs in accentuating unduly the affinity of the Indonesians
with the Polynesians, and that Keane's errs also in ignoring the
Mongol affinities of the Indonesians.
The most plausible view of the relations of these stocks seems to us
to be the following. Polynesians and Indonesians are the product of an
ancient blend of southern Mongols with a fair Caucasic stock. In both
the Caucasic element predominates, but more so in the Polynesian than
in the Indonesian. We imagine this blending to have been effected at a
remote period in the south-eastern corner of Asia, probably before the
date at which Borneo became separated from the mainland. If, as seems
probable, this blending was effected by the infusion of successive
doses of Mongol blood from the north into a Caucasic population
that had previously diffused itself over this corner of Asia from
the west,[195] the smaller proportion of the Mongol element in the
Polynesians may be due to their having passed into the islands,
while the Indonesians remained on the continent receiving further
infusions of Mongol blood.
The separation of Borneo from the mainland then isolated part of the
Indonesian stock within it, at a period when their culture was still
in a very primitive condition, presumably similar to that of the
Punans. The Proto-Malays, on the other hand, represent a blending of
the Mongol stock (or of a part of the Indonesian race) with darker
stock allied to the Dravidians of India, which is perhaps properly
called Proto-Dravidian, and of which the Sakai of the Malay peninsula
(and, perhaps, the Toala of central Celebes) seem to be the surviving
representatives in Malaysia. In this blend, which presumably was
effected in an area south of that in which the Indonesian blend was
formed, the Mongol element seems to predominate.
After the separation of Borneo from the mainland, there came a long
period throughout which it remained an isolated area, the population
of which received no important accessions from other areas. It is
probable that during this period the Indonesian population of the
mainland continued to receive further infusions of Mongol blood;
for there is abundant evidence that for a long time past there has
been a drifting of Mongol peoples, such as the Shans, southwards from
China into the Indo-Chinese area.
We may suppose that during this period the knowledge and practice of
working iron, of building long houses and boats, and of cultivating
PADI, became diffused through the greater part of the population of
this corner of the Asiatic continent. This advance of culture would
have rendered possible the passage of these peoples to the islands
in boats. But it seems probable that no considerable incursion of
people from this area was effected until a comparatively recent date.
In Chapter II. we have mentioned the evidences of Hindu-Javan influence
on Borneo, to which must be ascribed the existence of the Buddhist
court at Bruni before the coming of the Malays, as well as traces of
Hindu culture in south Borneo, including the practice of cremation
by the Land Dayaks, the burning of the bones by other tribes, stone
carvings,[196] and articles of gold and fragments of pottery of Hindu
character. There must have been a certain infusion of Javanese and
perhaps Hindu blood at this time; but both in physical type and in
culture the surviving traces seem to be insignificant.
We have mentioned also in Chapter II. the early intercourse between
China and the Buddhist rulers of Bruni and other parts of north and
northwest Borneo, and the legend of an early settlement of Chinese
in the extreme north.
But these civilised or semi-civilised visitors and settlers were
separated from the indigenous Borneans by a great culture gap,
and they probably had but little friendly intercourse with them
and affected their culture but little, if at all; and though it is
possible that they bartered salt, metal, tools, and weapons, for
camphor and other jungle produce, their influence, like that of the
Malays, probably extended but a little way from the coasts in most
parts of the island. The higher culture of the indigenous tribes of
the interior has been introduced, we believe, by invasions of peoples
less widely separated from them in cultural level, who have penetrated
far into the interior and have mingled intimately with them. Three
such invasions may be distinguished as of principal importance:
that of the Kayans in the south and perhaps in the south-east, of the
Muruts in the north, and of the Ibans in the south-west. Each of these
three invading populations has spread up the course of the rivers to
the interior and has established its communities over large areas,
until in the course of the nineteenth century they have encountered
one another for the first time. Besides these three most numerous
and important invasions, there have been many smaller settlements
from the surrounding islands, especially from Java, Celebes, and the
Philippines, whose blood and culture have still further diversified
the population and culture of the tribes of Borneo and complicated
the ethnographical problems of the island.
Of the three principal invasions, that of the Kayans has been of most
effect in spreading a higher culture among the indigenous population.
There is good reason to believe that the Kayans have spread across
Borneo from the south and south-eastern parts, following up the
course of the large rivers until they reached USUN APO, the central
highlands, in which (see vol. i. p. 2) all the large rivers have their
sources. The tradition of such north-westward migration is preserved
among the Kayans of the Baram, who, according to their own account,
crossed the watershed into the basins of the western rivers only a few
generations ago. This tradition is in accordance with the fact that,
within the memory of men still living, they have spread their villages
farther westward along the banks of the Baram and the Rejang rivers,
driving back the Muruts northwards from the Baram. It is borne out
by the accounts of the Bruni Malays to the effect that the Brunis
first became acquainted with the Kayans some few generations ago,
and had known the Muruts long before the advent of the Kayans; and
further, by the fact that the Kayans have left their name attached to
many rivers both in the south and east, where the name Batang Kayan
(or Kayan River) is the common appellation of several rivers on which
Kayan villages are now very few.
The Kayans seem to have entered Borneo by way of the rivers opening
on the south coast, and gradually to have penetrated to the central
highlands by following up these rivers, pushing out communities every
few years to build new villages higher up the river in the course
of their unceasing search for new areas adapted to their wasteful
farming operations.
There can, we think, be little doubt that the Kayans are the
descendants of emigrants from the mainland, and that they brought
with them thence all or most of the characteristic culture that we
have described. But from what part exactly of the mainland, and by
what route, they have come, and how long a time was occupied by the
migration, are questions in answer to which we cannot do more than
throw out some vague suggestions.
We believe that the Kayans migrated to Borneo from the basin of the
Irrawadi by way of Tenasserim, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra; and
that they represent a part of the Indonesian stock which had remained
in the basin of the Irrawadi and adjacent rivers from the time of the
separation of Borneo, there, through contact with the southward drift
of peoples from China, receiving fresh infusions of Mongol blood;
a part, therefore, of the Indonesians which is more Mongoloid in
character than that part which at a remote period was shut up in
Borneo by its separation from the mainland. During this long period
the Kayans acquired or developed the type of culture characterised by
the cultivation of PADI on land newly cleared of jungle by burning,
the building of long houses on the banks of rivers, the use of boats,
and the working of iron.
The way in which in Borneo the Kayans hang together and keep touch
with one another, even though scattered through districts in which
numerous communities of other tribes are settled, preserving their
characteristic culture with extreme faithfulness, lends colour to the
supposition that the whole tribe may thus have been displaced step by
step, passing on from one region and from one island to another without
leaving behind any part of the tribe. The passage of the straits
between the Peninsula and Sumatra, and between Sumatra and Borneo,
are the parts of this tribal migration that are the most difficult
to imagine. But we know that Kayans do not fear to put out to sea in
their long war-boats. We have known Kayan boats to descend the Baram
River and to follow the coast up to Bruni; and we have trustworthy
accounts of such expeditions having been made in former days by
large war parties in order to fight in the service of the Sultan of
Bruni. The distance from the Baram mouth to Bruni (about 100 miles)
is nearly equal to the width of the broadest stretch of water they
must have crossed in order to have reached Borneo from the mainland
by way of Sumatra. This hypothetical history of the immigration of
the Kayans receives some support from the fact that a vague tradition
of having crossed the sea still persists among them. We attach some
importance to this Kayan tradition of their having come over the sea,
as evidence that they are comparatively recent immigrants to Borneo;
but the principal grounds on which we venture to suggest this history
of the Kayans and of their invasion of Borneo are three: first,
the affinities of the Kayans in respect of physical character and
culture to certain tribes still existing in the area from which we
believe them to have come; secondly, historical facts which go far
to explain such a migration; thirdly, their relations to other tribes
of Borneo. We add a few words under each of these heads.
I. As long ago as the year 1850, J. R. Logan, writing of highland
tribes of the basins of the Koladan and Irrawadi and the south-eastern
part of the Brahmaputra, asserted that "the habits of these tribes
have a wonderful resemblance to those of the inland lank-haired races
of Indonesia... . There is hardly a minute trait in the legends,
superstitions, customs, habits, and arts of these tribes, and the
adjacent highlanders of the remainder of the Brahmaputra basin,
that is not also characteristic of some of the ruder lank-haired
tribes of Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines, Celebes, Ceram, and the
trans-Javan islands."[197]
This assertion, though, no doubt, rather too sweeping, seems to have
a large basis in fact, so far as it concerns the tribes of Borneo.
We have not been able to find that any one tribe of this part of
the mainland agrees closely with the Kayans in respect of physical
characters and all important cultural features. Nevertheless, very
many of the features of the Kayan culture are described as occurring
amongst one or another tribe, though commonly with some considerable
differences in detail. In attempting to identify the nearest relatives
of the Kayans among the mainland tribes, it has to be remembered that
all these have been subjected to much disturbance, in some cases,
no doubt, involving changes of habitat, since the date at which,
as we suppose, the Kayans left the continent. And since the Kayans,
from the time of their arrival in Borneo, have played the part of a
dominating and conquering people among tribes of lower culture, and
have imposed their customs upon these other tribes, without blending
with them or accepting from them any important cultural elements,
it follows that we must regard the Kayans as having preserved, more
faithfully than their relatives of the mainland, the culture which
presumably they had in common with them a thousand years or more ago.
Of all the peoples of the south-eastern corner of the continent,
the one which seems to us most closely akin to the Kayans is that
which comprises the several tribes of the Karens.[198] These have been
regarded by many authors (3) as the indigenous people of Burma. Their
own traditions tell of their coming from the north across a great river
of sand and of having been driven out of the basin of the Irrawadi at
a later date (1). At present the Karens are found chiefly in the Karen
hills of Lower Burma between the Irrawadi and the Salween and in the
basin of the Sittang River, which runs southwards midway between those
two greater rivers to open into the head of the Gulf of Martaban. But
they have been much oppressed by their more civilised neighbours, the
Burmese and the Shans, and their communities are widely scattered in
the remoter parts of the country and are said to extend into Tenasserim
far down the Malay Peninsula. By the Burmese they are called also
KAYENS or KYENS, the Y and R sounds being interchangeable in Burmese
(1 and 3).
Peoples generally recognised as closely akin to the KARENS are the
CHINS (who are also known as Khyens) (14) of the basin of the Chindwin,
the large western tributary of the Irrawadi; and the KAKHYENS (also
called KACHINGS and SINGPHO), who occupy the hills east of Bhamo and
the basin of the river Tapang in the borderlands of Burma and Yunnan
(7). The Nagas of Manipur and of the Naga Hills of Assam also seem
to belong to the same group of peoples, though less closely akin to
the Karens than the Chins and the Kakhyens.
It seems highly probable that all these, together with the Kayans,
are surviving branches of a people which occupied a large area of
south-eastern Asia, more especially the basin of the Irrawadi, for a
considerable period before the first of the successive invasions which
have given rise to the existing Burmese and Shan nations. The physical
characters of all of them are consistent with the view taken above,
namely, that they represent the original Indonesian population of which
the Klemantans of Borneo are the pure type, modified by later infusions
of Mongol blood. In all these occur individuals who are described as
being of almost purely Caucasic type and very light in colour.
Three principal tribes of Karens are distinguished, the Sgan, Pwo,
and Bwe. Of these the Bwe are also known as the Hill-Karens and seem
to have preserved their own culture more completely than the others,
though the Sgan are said to be the purest in blood, the lightest in
colour, and more distinctive in type than any other of the tribes
of south-eastern Asia (4). Of the Hill-Karens, Mason said, "Some
would be pronounced European. Indeed, if not exposed to the sun,
some of them would be as fair, I think, as many of the inhabitants
of northern Europe." Yet the commoner type of Karen is said to show
distinctly Mongoloid facial characters. Of those Karens who have
been least affected by their more cultured neighbours, we are told
that they live in small communities, each of which is governed by
a patriarch who is at once high priest and judge, and who punishes
chiefly by the infliction of fines. He raises no regular tax, but
receives contributions in kind towards the expenses of entertainment
(3). Several communities join together, sometimes under a leading
chief, in order to meet a common foe (3). They build long houses
in which a whole community of as many as 400 persons dwell together
(4). These houses are described as of Himalayic type. "It (the house)
is made by sinking posts of large size firmly in the ground and
inserting beams or joists through the posts eight feet from the ground,
and on these laying the floor with slats of bamboo." The walls and
partitions are mats of woven bamboo, and the roof is thatched with palm
leaves (4). This very incomplete description leaves it open to suppose
that the Karen house is very similar to that built by the Kayans when
for any reason the latter build in hasty and temporary fashion. But the
still more scanty description of another writer (3) implies that the
arrangement of the interior of the house is unlike that characteristic
of the Kayans. They frequently migrate to new sites.
The Karens cultivate PADI and prepare the jungle land for cultivation
by burning down the forest. They prepare from rice a spirit to which
they are much addicted. The hill tribes are truculent warriors and
head-hunters. Captives are made slaves. They use and make spears
and axes, and a cross-bow[199] with poisoned arrows. They rear pigs
and poultry, and train dogs to the chase. The men eradicate their
beards. They wear many small rings on the forearms and legs. The
lobes of the ear are perforated and often enormously distended (3).
They address prayers and supplications for protection and prosperity to
a Supreme Being whom they address as "Lord of the heavens and earth"
(5). They believe also in a multitude of nature spirits, most of whom
are harmful. The fear of them occasions many ceremonial acts. The
taking of heads is said to be a means of propitiating these spirits
(3). They believe that during sickness the soul departs from the
body; and the medicine-man attempts to arrest it and to bring it
back to the body of the patient. In this and other rites the blood
of fowls (which they are said to venerate) (2) is smeared on the
participants. Divination by means of the bones of fowls and the
viscera, especially the liver of the pig, is in common use (5). The
souls of the dead go to a place in which they live much as in this
world. It is called ABU LAGAN[200] (3). In this abode of shades
everything is upside down and all directions are inverted (5). There
are no rewards and punishments after death (3). Parents take the names
of father and mother of So-and-so -- the name of their first child. The
knife with which the navel cord is cut at birth is carefully preserved
(5). Finally, the Karens are said to be distinguished by a lack of
humour, a trait which is well marked also in the Kayans.
In respect of all the characters and culture elements mentioned above,
the Karens resemble the Kayans very closely. Against these we have
to set off a few customs mentioned by our authorities in which they
differ from the Kayans.
The Karens eat everything except members of the cat tribe. They bury
the bodies of the dead after they have lain in state some three or
four days; and they hold an annual feast for the dead at the August
new moon. They ascribe two souls to man, one of a kind which is
possessed also by animals, tools, weapons, the rice, and one which
is the responsible soul peculiar to man.[201]
The bride is taken to the house of the bridegroom's father. Only
one tribe, namely, the Red Karens, practises tatu, and among them a
figure which seems to represent the rising sun is tatued on the back
of the men only (5). They weave a coarse cloth.
These differences are not very great, and their significance is
diminished by the following considerations. The Kayans may have
acquired their aversion to killing the dog through contact with
Malays. They bury the dead in the ground in the case of poor persons
or those dead of epidemic disease. And they have a tradition that they
formerly practised the weaving of cloth. They may also have acquired
the art of making and using the solid wooden blow-pipe from Malays;
and this would account for their having given up the use of the bow
and arrow as a serious weapon. On the other hand, the inferior houses
of the Karens, the lack of restrictions among them upon animal foods,
their earth burial -- all these may well be due to decay of custom
among an oppressed people; and the fact that they seem to make but
little use of boats may well be due to their having been driven
away from the main rivers and pushed into the hills. We have little
doubt that many more points of resemblance would be discoverable,
if we had any full account of the Karens as they were before their
culture was largely affected by contact with Burmese and Shans and
by the influence of the missionaries who have taught so successfully
among them for more than sixty years.
Among the elements of Kayan culture which are lacking or but feebly
represented among the Karens, some are reported among the tribes most
nearly allied to the Karens, and others among other peoples of the
same area.
Thus the peculiar Kayan custom of tatuing the thighs of women has a
close parallel in the tatuing of the thighs of men among all Burmese
and Shans; and the Kayans may well have adopted the practice from
them. Among the Shans there obtains the custom of placing the coffin on
upright timbers at some height above the ground (9). Among the Nagas,
and especially the Kuki Nagas,[202] who are said to be most nearly
allied to the Karens, beside a number of the culture elements which we
have noticed above as common to Karens and Kayans, other noteworthy
points of resemblance to the Kayans are the following: A system of
tabu or GENNA which may affect individuals or whole villages, and is
very similar to the MALAN of the Kayans; the practice of ornamenting
houses with heads of enemies, the motive of taking the head being to
provide a slave in Hades for a deceased chief; the use of human and
other hair in decorating weapons.[203]
Their method of attacking a village is like that of the Kayans,
namely, to surround it in the night and to rush it at dawn; they
obstruct the approach of an enemy to their village by planting in the
ground short pieces of bamboo sharpened and fire-hardened at both ends;
they use an oblong wooden shield or a rounded shield of plaited cane;
their blacksmiths use a bellows very like that of the Kayan smiths;
they husk their PADI in a solid wooden mortar with a big pestle
A LA Kayan; they floor their houses with similar massive planks;
they catch fish in nets and traps, and by poisoning the water; men
pierce the shell of the ear in various ways; omens are read from the
viscera of pigs, and the cries of some birds are unlucky; they worship
a Supreme Deity and a number of minor gods, E.G. gods of rain and of
harvest; they often sacrifice pigs and fowls to the gods, and omens
are always read from the slaughtered animals; those who die in battle
and in childbirth are assigned to special regions of the other world;
the women are tatued (on chest) to facilitate recognition in Hades;
in felling the jungle preparatory to burning it to make a PADI farm,
they always leave at least one tree standing for the accommodation
of the spirits of the place.
Other of the instruments, arts, and customs of the Kayans are found
widely spread in south-eastern Asia. Such are the small axe or adze
with lashed head; the musical instrument of gourd and bamboo pipes
with reeds; the bamboo guitar; the use of old beads and of hornbill
feathers for personal adornment; the making of fire by friction of
a strip of rattan across a block of wood.
II. Whether this people, of whom the Kayans, Karens, Chins, Kakhyens,
and Nagas, seem to be the principal surviving branches, came into
the Irrawadi basin and adjacent areas by migration from Central Asia
by way of the Brahmaputra valley, as Cross and McMahon (accepting
the tradition of the Karens) believe, or came, as Logan suggested,
eastward from Bengal, it seems certain that it has been divided into
fragments, driven away from the main rivers, and in the main pushed
southwards by successive swarms of migration from the north. This
pressure from the north seems to have driven some of the Karens down
into the Malay Peninsula, where they are still found; and it may
well be that, before the rise of the Malays as an aggressive people
under Arab leadership, the ancestors of the Kayans occupied parts of
the peninsula farther south than the Karens now extend, and possibly
also parts of Sumatra. If this was the case, it was inevitable that,
with the rise to dominance of the Mohammedan Malays in this region,
the Kayans must have been either driven out, exterminated, or converted
to Islam and absorbed. It seems probable that different communities
of them suffered these three different fates.
The supposition that the Kayans represent a part of such a population,
which was driven on by the pressure of Malays to seek a new country
in which to practise its extravagant system of PADI culture, is in
harmony with the probability as to the date of their immigration
to the southern rivers of Borneo; for the rise and expansion of the
Menangkabau Malays began in the middle of the twelfth century A.D.;
and the Kayans may well have entered Borneo some 700 years ago.
III. We have now to summarise the evidence in favour of the view that
the Kayans have imparted to the Kenyahs and many of the Klemantan
tribes the principal elements of the peculiar culture which they now
have in common.
We have shown that the culture of the Kenyah and Klemantan tribes
is in the main very similar to that of the Kayans, and that it
differs chiefly in lacking some of its more advanced features, in
having less sharply defined outlines, in its greater variability
from one community to another, and in the less strict observance of
custom. Thus the Kayans in general live in larger communities, each of
their villages generally consisting of several long houses; whereas
a single long house generally constitutes the whole of a Kenyah or
Klemantan village. The Kayans excel in iron-working, in PADI culture,
in boat-making, and in house-building. Their customs and beliefs
are more elaborated, more definite, more uniform, and more strictly
observed. Their social grades are more clearly marked. They hang
together more strongly, with a stronger tribal sentiment, and, while
the distinction between them and other tribes is everywhere clearly
marked and recognised both by themselves and others, the Klemantans
and Kenyahs everywhere shade off into one another and into Punans.
The process of conversion of Punans into settled communities that
assimilate more or less fully the Kayan culture is still going on. We
are acquainted with settled communities which still admit their
Punan origin; and these exhibit very various grades of assimilation
of the Kayan culture. Some, which in the lives of the older men were
still nomadic, still build very poor houses and boats, cultivate PADI
very imperfectly, and generally exhibit the Kayan culture in a very
imperfect state.
On the other hand, the Kenyahs have assimilated the Kayan culture more
perfectly than any other of the aborigines, and in some respects, such
as the building of houses, they perhaps equal the Kayans; but even they
have not learnt to cultivate PADI in so thorough a manner as to keep
themselves supplied with rice all through the year, as the Kayans do;
and, like the various Klemantan tribes,[204] they suffer almost every
year periods of scarcity during which they rely chiefly on cultivated
and wild sago and on tapioca. The Kayans, on the other hand, grow
sufficient PADI to last through the year, except in very bad seasons,
and they never collect or cultivate sago. The view that this relative
imperfection of the agriculture of the Kenyahs and Klemantans is due to
the recency of their adoption of the practice, is confirmed by the fact
that many of them still preserve the tradition of the time when they
cultivated no PADI. It seems that most of the present Kenyahs first
began to plant PADI not more than two, or at most three, centuries
ago. Some of the Kenyahs also preserve the tradition of a time when
they constructed their houses mainly of bamboo; this was probably
their practice for some few generations after they began to acquire
the Kayan culture. At the present day those Punans who have only
recently taken to the settled mode of life generally make large use
of the bamboo in building their small and relatively fragile houses.
The view that the Kayans have played this large civilising role is
supported by the fact that Kayan is the language most widely understood
in the interior, and that it is largely used for intercommunication,
even between members of widely separated Kenyah communities whose
dialects have diverged so widely that their own language no longer
forms a medium of communication between them; whereas the Kayans
themselves do not trouble to acquire familiarity with the Kenyah or
Klemantan languages.
If both Kenyahs and Klemantans represent sections of the aboriginal
population of nomadic hunters who have absorbed Kayan culture, it
remains to account for the existence of those peculiarities of the
Kenyahs that have led us to separate them from the tribes which we
have classed together as Klemantans. The peculiarities that distinguish
Kenyahs from Klemantans are chiefly personal characteristics, notably
the bodily build (relatively short limbs and massive trunks), the more
lively and energetic temperament, the more generous and expansive
and pugnacious disposition. These peculiarities may, we think, be
accounted for by the supposition that the aborigines from whom the
Kenyahs descend had long occupied the central highlands where most
of the Kenyah communities still dwell and which they all regard as
the homeland and headquarters of their race.
Of the Klemantan tribes some, E.G. the Aki, the Long Patas, and the
Long Akars, resemble more nearly the Kayans; others, E.G. the Muriks,
the Sebops, the Lirongs, the Uma Longs, the Pengs or Pinihings,
show more affinity with the Kenyahs. It seems probable that these
diversities have resulted from the assimilation of culture directly
from the Kayans by the one group and from the Kenyahs by the other. A
third group of Klemantan tribes such as the Long Kiputs, the Batu
Blah, and the Trings, scattered through the northern part of the
island, resemble more nearly the Muruts; and among these are found
communities whose culture marks them as descendants of nomads who
have assimilated the Murut culture in various degrees.
The Muruts
The Muruts differ somewhat as regards physical features from all the
other tribes, especially in having coarser but less Mongoloid features,
a longer skull, and a more lanky build of body and limbs. Their
intonation is nasal, and the colour of the skin slightly darker and
ruddier than that of the Klemantans.
Their culture differs so much as to lead us to suppose that it had
a somewhat different origin from that of the Kayans. They build long
houses; but these are comparatively flimsy structures, and they are
often situated at a distance from any navigable stream. Even those
Muruts who live on the river-banks make much less use of boats than
the other tribes, and all of them are great walkers. They have very
little skill in boat-making. Their most distinctive peculiarity is
their system of agriculture (see vol. i. p. 97), which involves
irrigation, the use of buffalo, the raising of two crops a year,
and the repeated use in successive years of the same land. Other
distinctive features are their peculiar long sword and short spear;
the absence of any axe and blow-pipe; the custom according to which
the women propose marriage to the men (Kalabits).
In the Philippine Islands a system of agriculture similar to that
of the Muruts is widely practised; and some of the tribes, though
their culture has been largely influenced by Spanish civilisation,
seem to be of the same stock as the Muruts; thus the Tagals of Borneo
are not improbably a section of the people known as Tagalas in the
Philippines, and the Bisayas of Borneo probably bear the same relation
to the Visayas of the Philippines.
It seems probable, therefore, that this type of culture has been
carried into the north of Borneo by immigrants from the Philippines,
whither it was introduced at a remote period, possibly from Annam, the
nearest part of the mainland; or possibly it came to Borneo directly
from Annam.[205] It is probable that many of the tribes which we have
classed with the Muruts, on account of their possession of the Murut
culture, are, like the Klemantans and Kenyahs, descendants of the
ancient Indonesian population who have adopted the culture of more
advanced immigrants. The descendants of the immigrants who introduced
this type of culture are, we think, the Muruts proper, who claim that
name and dwell chiefly in the Trusan, the Padas, the Sembakong, the
Kerayan rivers, and in the head of the Kinabatangan; also the Kalabits
in the northern part of the upper basin of the Baram. It is these
which display most decidedly the physical peculiarities noted above.
As examples of Klemantan tribes that have partially adopted the Murut
culture we would mention the LONG KIPUTS, the BATU BLAHS, the TRINGS,
and the ADANGS in the head of the Limbang River; to the same group
belong the KADAYANS in the neighbourhood of Bruni, who, from contact
with their Malay neighbours, have become in large part Mohammedans
of Malay culture.
The Ibans (Sea Dayaks)
The Ibans stand distinctly apart from all the other tribes, both by
reason of their physical and mental peculiarities and of the many
differences of their culture; we have little doubt that they are the
descendants of immigrants who came into the south-western corner of
Borneo at no distant date. We regard them as Proto-Malays, that is
to say, as of the stock from which the true Malays of Sumatra and the
Peninsula were differentiated by the influence of Arab culture. A large
number of the ancestors of the present Ibans were probably brought to
Borneo from Sumatra less than two hundred years ago. Some two centuries
ago, a number of Malay nobles were authorised by the Sultan of Bruni
to govern the five rivers of Sarawak proper, namely, the Samarahan,
the Sadong, the Batang Lupar, the Saribas, and the Klaka rivers. These
Malays were pirate leaders, and they were glad to enrol large numbers
of pagan fighting men among their followers; for the latter were glad
to do most of the hard work, claiming the heads of the pirates' victims
as their principal remuneration, while the Malays retained that part
of the booty which had a marketable value. These Malay leaders found,
no doubt, that their pagan relatives of Sumatra lent themselves
more readily to this service than the less warlike Klemantans of
Borneo, and therefore, as we suppose, they brought over considerable
numbers of them and settled them about the mouths of these rivers. The
co-operation between the piratical Malay Tuankus and the descendants of
their imported PROTEGES continued up to the time of the suppression of
piracy by the British and Dutch half a century ago. It was from this
association with the sea and with coast-pirates that the Ibans became
known as the Sea Dayaks by Sir James Brooke; and to this encouragement
of their head-hunting proclivity by the Malays is no doubt due their
peculiarly ruthless and bloodthirsty devotion to it as to a pastime,
rather than (as with the Kayans and other tribes) as to a ceremonial
duty occasionally imposed upon them by the death of a chief.
It seems to us probable that the greater part of the ancestors of
the Ibans entered Borneo in this way. But there is reason to think
that some of them had settled at an earlier date in this part of
Borneo and rather farther southward on the Kapuas River. The BUGAUS,
KANTUS, and DAUS, who dwell along the southern border of Sarawak,
and some other Iban tribes in the northern basin of the Kapuas River,
are probably descendants of these earlier immigrants of Proto-Malay
stock. In most respects they closely resemble the other Iban tribes,
but they are distinguished by some peculiarities of language and
accent; their manners are gentler, their bearing less swaggering;
they are less given to wandering, and they have little skill in the
making and handling of boats. These are recognised by themselves and
by other Ibans as belonging to the same people; but they are a little
looked down upon by Ibans of the other tribes as any home-staying
rural population is looked down upon by travelled cosmopolitans.
This conjectural history of the immigration of the Ibans explains the
peculiar fact that, although all the Ibans of all parts are easily
distinguishable from all the other peoples, and although they all
recognise one another as belonging to the same people, they have no
common name for the whole group. They commonly speak of KAMI MENOA
(I.E. "we of this country") when they refer to their people as a whole;
and the Kayan designation of them as IVAN (immigrant or wanderer) has
been adopted by large numbers of them in recent years and modified into
Iban, so that the expression KAMI IBAN is now frequently used by them.
The identification of the Iban with a Proto-Malay stock is justified
by their language and physical characteristics. The former seems to be
the language from which Malay has been formed under Arab influence and
culture. It employs many words which are no longer current in Malay,
but which, as is shown by Marsden's MALAY DICTIONARY, were in use
among Sumatran Malays in the eighteenth century.
Since the Mohammedan populations which now are called Malay are of
mixed origin, they present no very well-defined or uniform physical
type. But of all Malays those of Sumatra and of the Peninsula are
generally recognised as presenting the type in its greatest purity;
and it is this type which the Ibans most closely reproduce. The
near resemblance of facial type between the Malays and the Ibans is
apt to be obscured for the casual visitor by the fact that the Iban
puts little or no restraint upon his expressions and is constantly
chattering, laughing, and smiling; whereas the Malay is taught from
childhood to restrain his expressions and to preserve a severe and
grave demeanour in the presence of strangers. But in private the
Malay relaxes, and then the resemblance appears more clearly.
The principal features of the Iban's culture which distinguish it from
that of the other tribes may be enumerated here. The Iban closely
resembles the Kayan in his method of cultivating PADI, but he is
even more careful and skilful, and generally secures a surplus. His
house differs characteristically from those of the Kayan type, and
resembles the long houses still inhabited by some Sumatran Malays,
in being comparatively small, and in having a framework of many
light poles rather than of heavy hardwood timbers, and a floor of
split bamboo in place of huge planks. In methods of weaving and dyeing
cloth and in the character of the cloths produced;[206] in the wearing
of ornamental head-cloths; in the weaving of mats and baskets with
the PANDANUS leaf and a large rush known as BUMBAN rather than with
strips of split rattan; in their methods of trapping and netting fish;
in the character of the sword and axe and shield as formerly used;[207]
in the use of the fire-piston;[208] in musical instruments and methods;
in the custom of earth burial; in the visiting and making of offerings
at the graves of noted men in the hope of supernatural aid, -- in
all these respects the Iban culture differs from that of the Kayans,
and closely resembles that of the Malays.
The Iban culture presents also certain features not common to other
peoples of Borneo and not found among the Malays; and all or most
are such as must have been exterminated among the Malays on their
conversion to Islam, if they had formed part of their culture in
their pre-Islamic period. Such are the religious beliefs and customs
of the Ibans with the cult of the PETARA; the NGARONG; the rite with
the clay crocodile for getting rid of farm pests (vol. ii. p. 88);
the use in weaving of a number of designs of animal origin; the
adornment of the edge of the ear with many brass rings; the lack of
any strict avoidance of killing dogs.
Thirdly, of the features of Iban culture which are common to them and
to the other tribes of Borneo, many seem to have been borrowed by them
from their neighbours, and often in an incomplete or imperfect manner;
such are the system of omenreading, the ritual slaughter of fowls and
pigs, much of their dancing and tatuing, the PARANG ILANG and wooden
shield, the feathered war-coat of skin, the KELURI or small bag-pipe,
and the fashion of wearing their hair, -- all these seem to have been
borrowed from the Kayans; the woman's corset of brassbound hoops,
from the Malohs; the mat worn posteriorly for sitting upon, from
the Kenyahs.[209]
Besides the three great invasions of foreign blood and foreign culture,
those borne by the Kayans, the Muruts, and the Ibans respectively,
there have been numerous minor invasions on all sides. In the following
paragraphs we make mention of those that seem to have been of most
importance in modifying the population and the culture of Borneo.
In the south there are traces of Javanese culture with its Hindu
elements among many of the tribes, but especially among the Land Dayaks
who occupy the southern extremity of Sarawak. These cremate their
dead; they set apart a separate round house for the trophies of human
heads, and in this the bachelors are expected to pass the nights. The
Malawis of South-East Borneo seem to be similar in many respects to
the Land Dayaks of Sarawak. The Land Dayaks have a reputation in
Upper Sarawak for quicker intelligence and more adaptability than
the other tribes, and hence are in much request for services of the
most various kinds. It is an interesting question whether this may be
due to a dash of Hindu blood; the facial type and the more abundant
growth of hair on the face would support an affirmative answer.
The Malohs are a well-marked tribe found on the Kalis and Mandai
rivers, tributaries of the Kapuas River. Physically they are marked
by exceptionally long narrow heads (index about 76). They speak
a language very different from those of the central and northern
parts of the island, but speak also the Iban language with a peculiar
accent. The Malohs alone of all the peoples of Borneo eat the flesh of
the crocodile. The most distinctive feature of their culture is their
skill and industry in brass working. Malohs supply a large proportion
of all the brass-ware to be found in the interior. This addiction to
brass-working suggests that they represent an immigration from Java,
which has long enjoyed a great reputation for its brass-ware and an
extensive market throughout the islands.
On the east coast are many communities of Bugis, who are mostly
Mohammedans and seem to have come from Celebes, where they are a
numerous people.
In the north and extreme north-west the Dusuns seem to be of Murut
stock with an infusion of Chinese blood and culture. They use a
plough drawn by buffalo in the PADI fields, which they irrigate
systematically.
Round about the northern coasts are to be found many small bands
of Lanuns and Bajaus, living largely in boats. They are mostly
Mohammedans, and descend from the notorious piratical communities
whose headquarters were in the Sulu Islands and other islands off
the north-east coast.
In the foregoing pages we have said very little about the languages
spoken by the tribes of Borneo. Although one of us has a practical
command of the Kayan, Kenyah, Sea Dayak, and Malay languages,
and a tolerably intimate acquaintance with a number of the
Klemantan dialects, we do not venture upon the task of discussing
their systematic positions and relations to languages of other
areas. For this would be a task of extreme difficulty and complexity
which only an accomplished linguistic scholar could profitably
undertake. Nevertheless, we think it worth while to add a few words
regarding the bearing of the languages on the foregoing ethnological
discussion. It seems clear that in the main the differences and
affinities between the many languages and dialects spoken by the
pagan tribes bear out, so far as they are known to us, the principal
conclusions of our argument. The Sea Dayak or Iban tongue stands
distinctly apart from all the rest, and is indisputably very closely
allied to the Malay. The Kenyahs, Klemantans, and Punans speak a great
variety of tongues, which are, however, so closely similar, and the
extreme members of which are connected by so many intermediate forms,
that it would seem they may properly be regarded as but dialects of
one language. The Kayan language, on the other hand, stands apart from
both the Iban and the Klemantan languages, but is much nearer to the
latter than the former. The Kenyah dialects especially contain many
words or roots that appear also in the Kayan, and seem to be more
closely allied to it than is any of the Klemantan tongues. This may
well be due to the more intimate contact with the Kayans enjoyed by the
Kenyahs, who, as we have seen, have assimilated the Kayan culture more
completely than any other of the indigenous tribes, and who may well
have taken up many Kayan words together with other culture elements.
The Murut languages again seem to stand apart from the Iban, Kayan,
and Kenyah-Klemantan, as a distinct group whose vocabulary has little
in common with those others.[210]
In conclusion, we venture to make a suggestion which we admit to be
widely speculative and by which we wish only to draw attention to a
remote possibility which, if further evidence in its favour should
be discovered, would be one of great interest. We have throughout
maintained the view, now adopted by many others, of which Professor
Keane has been the principal exponent, namely, the view that the
Indonesian stock was largely, probably predominantly, of Caucasic
origin. In our chapter on animistic beliefs concerning animals and
plants, and in the chapter on religion, we have shown that the Kayans
believe in a multiplicity of anthropomorphic deities which, with Lake
Tenangan at the head of a galaxy of subordinate gods and goddesses
presiding over special departments of nature, strangely resembles
the group of divine beings who, in the imagination of the fathers
of European culture, dwelt in Olympus. And we have shown that the
system of divination practised by the Kayans (the taking of omens
from the flight and cries of birds, and the system of augury by the
entrails of sacrificial victims) strangely resembles, even in many
details, the corresponding system practised by the early Romans. Our
suggestion is, then, that these two systems may have had a common
root; that, while the Aryans carried the system westward into Europe,
the Indonesians, or some Caucasic people which has been merged in the
Indonesian stock, carried it eastward; and that the Kayans, with their
strongly conservative tendencies, their serious religious temperament,
and strong tribal organisation, have, of all the Indonesians, preserved
most faithfully this ancient religious system and have imparted it in
a more or less partial manner to the tribes to whom they have given
so much else of culture, custom, and belief.
It is perhaps not without significance in this connection that the
Karens, whom we regard as the nearest relatives of the Kayans, were
found to worship a Supreme Being, and have proved peculiarly apt
pupils of the Christian missionaries who have long laboured among them.
By way of crowning the indiscretion of the foregoing paragraphs,
we point out that there are certain faint indications of linguistic
support for this speculative suggestion. BALI, which, as we have
explained, is used by Kayans and Kenyahs to denote whatever is
sacred or is connected with religious practices, is undoubtedly a
word of Sanskrit derivation.[211] FLAKI, the name of the bird of
most importance in augury, bears a suggestive resemblance to the
German FALKE and the Latin FALCO. The Kayan word for omen is AMAN,
the resemblance of which to the Latin word is striking. Are these
resemblances merely accidental? If more of the words connected with
the religious beliefs and practices could be shown to exhibit equally
close resemblances, we should be justified in saying -- No.
CHAPTER 22
Government
In an earlier chapter we have sketched the history of government in
Borneo from the earliest times of which any record remains, up to the
time at which the whole island was brought under European control. In
this chapter we propose to describe the way in which the European
governments have extended their spheres of influence and have secured
the co-operation of the natives in the maintenance of peace and order
and freedom.
For some years after Mr. James Brooke became Rajah of Sarawak (1841),
his rule was confined to the territory then known as Sarawak. This
area, still known as Sarawak proper, is some 7000 square miles in
extent and comprises the basins of the following rivers: the Sarawak,
the Samarahan, the Sadong, and the Lundu. The Batang Lupar and Saribas
rivers, which enter the sea to the north of this area, were infested
by pirate bands under the leadership of Malay Serifs who, though
they professed allegiance to the Sultan of Bruni, were but little
controlled by him. The depredations of these unruly neighbours led Sir
James Brooke to undertake several expeditions against them. In the year
1849, Captain Sir Harry Keppel of H.M.S. DIDO lent his aid (not for the
first time), and the combined forces finally swept out those hornets'
nests and put an end to piracy in those regions. With the approval of
the Sultan of Bruni, Rajah Brooke established stations in the lower
waters of the Saribas and Skarang rivers, and a little later at Kanowit
on the Rejang River. This was the first of a series of similar steps
by which the area of the Raj has been successively extended, until
now it comprises about 60,000 square miles, more than eight times
its original extent. In each of these out-stations one or two English
officers were appointed to represent the Rajah's government. In each
station a small wooden fort was built, and in some cases the fort was
surrounded with a stockade. This served as residence for the officer,
or officers, and their small band of native police, generally some
ten or twelve Malays armed with rifles and a small cannon. The prime
duty of these officers, entitled Governors (or later, Residents), was
to protect the local population from the oppression and depredations
of the Serifs, and generally to discourage and punish bloodshed and
disorder. The general policy followed in all these new districts was
to elicit the co-operation of the local chiefs and headmen, and, when
the people had begun to appreciate the benefits of peace, including
the opening of the rivers to Malay and Chinese traders, to impose
a small poll-tax to defray the expenses of administration. The area
of control was then gradually extended farther into the interior by
securing the voluntary adhesion of communities and tribes settled in
the tributaries and higher waters of each river. This policy, steadily
pursued in one district after another, has invariably succeeded,
although the time required for complete pacification has, of course,
varied considerably; and it was only during the early years of this
century that the process seemed to reach its final stage among the
Sea Dayaks in the interiors of the Batang Lupar and Rejang districts.
The stability of the Rajah's government was seriously threatened in
1857 by the insurrection of Chinese gold-workers at Bau in Sarawak
proper. But this rebellion, in the course of which Sir James Brooke
narrowly escaped death at the hands of the rebels, was soon suppressed,
largely by the energy of the Tuan Muda (the present Rajah), who came
to the aid of Sir James with a strong force of Sea Dayaks and Malays.
The process of establishing order and good government in the new
territory was complicated by the intrigues of the Bruni nobles or
PANGIRANS and of the independent Malay chiefs, who, seeing their
power to oppress and misrule the coast districts seriously curtailed,
and indeed threatened with extinction, by the growing influence of
the Europeans in Borneo, conspired with others of similar status in
Dutch Borneo to rid the island of these unwelcome innovators. In the
year 1859 two English officers of the Sarawak government at Kanowit
on the lower Rejang (Messrs. Fox and Steele) were murdered by a gang
of Malanaus. There was good reason to believe that this incident,
together with several murders of Europeans in Dutch Borneo, was the
result of a loosely concerted action of the Malay chiefs, and that
the Kanowit murders were directly instigated by Serif Masahor and
Pangiran Dipa; the latter a Bruni noble who misruled Muka and the
surrounding area. Rajah Brooke visited the Sultan of Bruni and secured
his authorisation for the punishment of these and others concerned
in the murders; and in 1860 an expedition, led by his two nephews,
captured Muka and would have expelled the Serif and the Pangiran but
for the untimely interference of the British Consul at Bruni, who
seems to have been misinformed of the nature of the situation.[212]
In the following year the Rajah, visiting the Sultan at Bruni, found
him willing to cede Muka and the basins of the adjoining rivers,
the Oya, Tatau, and Bintulu, in return for a perpetual annual payment
of 16,000 dollars, an arrangement which was accepted and which still
holds good. Thus the intrigues of the Malay nobles, which for a time
had seriously threatened the stability of the Rajah's government,
resulted in the addition of an area of some 7000 square miles to the
Sarawak territory.
The basin of the Rejang, the largest river of Sarawak, was the next
region to be added to the Raj. Here Sir James Brooke's government
first came into contact with the Kayans (in the year 1863). The
reputation of the Kayans as a dominant tribe of warriors, whose
raids were feared even as far as Bruni, had rendered them proud
and self. confident- and unready to appreciate the benefits of the
Rajah's government. Their continued hostility rendered advisable a
demonstration of force. Accordingly in the year 1863 the Tuan Muda
(the present Rajah, H. H. Sir Charles Brooke) led an expedition of
some 10,000 or more native levies, consisting chiefly of Sea Dayaks and
Malays, up the Rejang as far as the mouth of the Baloi Peh, a spot some
250 miles from the mouth of the Rejang and in the edge of the Kayan
country. The Kayans could not withstand so large a force and retreated
farther up river after but little show of resistance. Several of their
long houses were destroyed, and a message demanding their submission to
the Rajah's government was sent by a captive to Oyong Hang, the most
influential of the Kayan chiefs. The messenger carried a cannon-ball
and the Sarawak flag, and was instructed to ask Oyang Hang which he
would choose; to which question the chief is said to have returned
the answer that he wanted neither. Although the expedition failed to
secure the submission of any large number of the Kayans and Kenyahs,
it established the Rajah's authority as far as it had penetrated;
for a number of Klemantan villages settled in the middle reaches of
the Rejang accepted the offer of peace, and a number of their chiefs
brought the Sarawak flag down river and celebrated the traditional
peace-making rites with the Rajah's representative. The Kayans have
never since attempted to raid the lower reaches of the river; but it
was not until the early eighties, during the Residency of the late
Mr. H. B. Low, that the bulk of the Kayans of the Rejang acknowledged
the Rajah's authority and began to co-operate in his administration,
a result achieved without any repetition of the large expedition of
1863. From that time (about 1885) the Baloi or Upper Rejang may be
regarded as having formed part of Sarawak.
In the year 1882 the northern boundary of Sarawak was again pushed
forward by the cession to the Rajah by the Sultan of Bruni of the
basin of the Baram, an area of some 10,000 square miles, on condition
of a perpetual annual payment of 6000 dollars. This was an area in
which, except along the coast, the Sultan's authority had never been
exercised, and which had been kept closed to trade and the depredations
of the Malays, by the fear of the Kayans. For the Kayans, who dominated
all the middle waters of the Baram, had in the past threatened even
Bruni. The Sultan was no doubt glad to see the Rajah undertake the task
of controlling his formidable neighbours, who, dwelling within striking
distance of his capital, were a perpetual menace to his power and even
to his personal safety. The Baram district has been brought completely
under the Rajah's rule without the introduction of any armed force from
outside; and as the process of establishing peace and order has there
followed a normal and undisturbed course, and is familiarly known to
us, we propose to describe it in some detail on a later page. Since
the date of the inclusion of the Baram, the Raj of Sarawak has been
again extended towards the north on three. occasions. The first of
these additions was the basin of the Trusan River. In this case the
Sultan offered to sell the territory for a lump sum, and his offer
was accepted by the Rajah, whose officers occupied it in the year
1885. In 1890, the people living on the Limbang River, whose basin
adjoins that of the Baram on its northern border, were in a state of
rebellion against the Sultan, and the region had for several years
been in a very disturbed state. The present Rajah therefore proposed
to annex the country in return for an annual payment. The British
Government was asked to approve this step and to fix the amount of the
sum to be paid to the Sultan. A favourable reply having been given
by the Foreign Office, and the annual sum of 6000 dollars having
been awarded as a fair return for the cession, the administration
of the country was peacefully entered upon by the Rajah's officers,
who where warmly welcomed by the greater part of the inhabitants.
The latest and presumably the final extension of the boundaries of
Sarawak was effected in 1905, when the basin of the small river Lawas
was bought from the British North Borneo Company.
In the opening year of this century a small part of Borneo still
remained under purely native control, namely, the town of Bruni and
an area about it of 1700 square miles, comprising the basins of the
small rivers Balait and Tutong. By agreement with the Sultan this
area was placed under the administration of a Resident representing
the British Government in the year 1906. Thus the European occupation
of Borneo was completed.
The history of the establishment of Dutch rule throughout the larger
part of Borneo has been similar to that of the acquisition of Sarawak
by its two English Rajahs. Dutch trading stations were established in
the south-west corner of Borneo as early as 1604. In the seventeenth
century stations were established in southern Borneo by both British
and Dutch traders; but the Dutch traders extended their influence more
rapidly than their rivals, and by the middle of the eighteenth century
had secured a practically exclusive influence in those parts. The
British held possession of all the Dutch East Indies during the
brief period (1811 -- 1816) which was terminated by the Congress of
Vienna. On the retirement of the British, the Dutch Government took
over all the rights acquired by the Dutch traders; and since that
time it has continued to consolidate its control and to extend the
area of its administration farther into the interior along the courses
of the great rivers. There were in the area that is now Dutch Borneo
several independent Malay Sultans, of which the principal had their
capitals at Pontianak, Banjermasin, and Kotei. In 1823 the Sultan
of Banjermasin ceded a large part of his territory to the Dutch
government; in 1844 the Sultan of Kotei accepted its protection;
and by similar steps by far the larger part of the island has been
marked out as the Dutch sphere of influence. The water parting from
which the principal rivers flow east and west has been agreed upon by
the Dutch and the Sarawak governments as the boundary between their
territories; and though the upper waters of the great rivers which
flow west and south through Dutch Borneo have up to the present
time hardly been explored, the authority of the Dutch Government
is well established over all the tribes of the coastal regions and,
especially in the south, extends far into the interior, but is still
little more than nominal in the head waters of the rivers. The system
of administration now practised by the Dutch closely resembles in most
essential respects that obtaining in Sarawak, and it has brought to the
natives of the greater part of Dutch Borneo the same great benefits,
peace, freedom, justice, and trade.
The northern extremity of Borneo, an area comprising some 31,000 square
miles and 200,000 inhabitants, is now administered by the British
North Borneo Company (chartered by the British Government in 1892),
which acquired it by purchase in successive instalments from the
Sultans of Bruni and Sulu. The Company has followed in the main an
administrative policy similar to that of Sarawak, and has appointed
as governors officers of large East Indian experience placed at
their disposal by the British Government. The Company has attempted
to achieve in a brief period a degree of commercial development
which in Sarawak and Dutch Borneo has been reached only gradually
in the course of several generations; and to this circumstance must
be attributed many of the difficulties which for a time caused it
"to get into the newspapers." But these difficulties have now been
overcome, and the whole territory placed in a condition of prosperity
and orderly progress.
[ERROR: unhandled &tb;]
It has been widely recognised that Sarawak provides a most notable
example of beneficent administration of the affairs of a population
in a lowly state of culture by representatives of our Western
civilisation. Among all such administrative systems that of Sarawak
has been distinguished not only by the rapid establishment of peace,
order, and a modest prosperity, with a minimum output of armed force,
but especially by reason of the careful way in which the interests
of the native population have constantly been made the prime object
of the government's solicitude. The story of the success of the two
white Rajahs of Sarawak has several times been told in whole or in
part. But we think it is worth while to try to give some intimate
glimpses of the working of the system as it affects the daily lives of
the pagan tribes, taking our illustrations in the main from incidents
in which one of us has been personally concerned.
From the very inception of his rule, Sir James Brooke laid down
and strictly adhered to the principle of associating the natives
with himself and his European assistants in the government of
the country, and of respecting and maintaining whatever was not
positively objectionable in the laws and customs of the people. And
this policy has been as faithfully followed by the present Rajah.[213]
The Raj of which Sir James Brooke became the absolute ruler in the
way described in Chapter II. was a country in which the supreme
authority had been exercised for many generations by Malay rulers,
and in which the only generally recognised system of law was the
Mohammedan law administered by them. The two white Rajahs, instead
of imposing any system of European-made laws upon the people, as in
their Position of benevolent despot they might have been tempted
to do, have accepted the Mohammedan law and custom in all matters
affecting the population of the Mohammedan religion; and they have
gradually introduced improvements when and where the defects and
injustices of the system revealed themselves. In the work both of
administration and legislation the Rajahs have always sought and
enjoyed the advice and co-operation of Malays. They have maintained
the principal ministries of State, and have continued the tenure of
those offices by the Malay nobles who occupied them at the time of
Sir James Brooke's accession to power; and, as these have died or
retired in the natural course, they have chosen leading Malays of
the aristocratic class to fill the vacancies. Three of these Malay
officers, namely, the Datu Bandar, Datu Imaum, and the Datu Hakim,
have been members of the Supreme Council since its institution in
1855. The first of these offices may be best defined by likening it
to that of a Lord Mayor; or better, perhaps, to that of the salaried
Burgomaster of a German city; its occupant is understood to be the
leading citizen of the Malay community of Kuching, the capital town
of Sarawak. The Datu Imaum is the religious head of the Mohammedan
community, and the Datu Hakim the principal of the Malay judges.
The Supreme Council consists of the three Malay officers named above
together with three or four of the principal European officers, and the
Rajah, who presides over its deliberations. It meets at least once a
month to consider all matters referred to it by lower tribunals. It
embodies the absolute authority of the Rajah; from its decrees
there is no appeal. It decides questions of justice, administration,
and legislation; and it continually enriches and improves the law
by creating precedents, which serve to guide the local courts, by
deliberately revising and repealing laws, and by adding new laws to
the Statute Book. It is the sole legislative authority. The presence of
the Malay members at the meetings of the Council is by no means a mere
formality; they take an active part in its deliberations and decisions.
Beside the Supreme Council there exists a larger body whose functions
are purely advisory. It is called the Council NEGRI or State Council,
and consists of the Rajah and the members of the Supreme Council,
the Residents in charge of the more important districts, and the
principal "Native Officers" and PENGHULUS, some seventy members in
all. This Council meets at Kuching once in every three years under
the presidency of the Rajah, who provides the members with suitable
lodgings and entertains them at dinner. At the meeting of this
council topics of general interest are discussed, and the Rajah makes
some general review of the state of public affairs and the progress
achieved since the previous meeting. But the principal purpose of the
institution is the bringing together, under conditions favourable for
friendly intercourse, of the leading men of the whole country. Each
new member is formally sworn in, taking an oath of loyalty to the Rajah
and his government. The native chiefs return from these meetings with
an enhanced sense of the importance and dignity of their office and
with clearer notions of the whole system of government and of their
places in it.
Though Mohammedan law remains as the basis of the law administered
among the Malays, notable improvements have been introduced,
E.G. the death penalty for incest and corporal punishment for conjugal
infidelity have been abolished; slaveholding, though not made illegal,
has been discouraged throughout the country by rendering it easy for
slaves to secure their freedom; and the power of the master over his
slave has been greatly restricted. A man is not allowed to marry a
second or third wife, unless he can prove himself able to provide for
each of the women and her offspring; wilful murder is always punished
by death or long imprisonment, not merely by imposition of a fine as
in former times.
The development of commerce and industries has, of course, given rise
to legal questions for which the Mohammedan law provides no answers;
and to meet these necessities, laws modelled on the Indian code and
on English law have been enacted.
The presence of a large Chinese community (now comprising some
50,000 persons) has always been a source of legal and administrative
difficulties. These difficulties have been met in the past by securing
the presence of leading Chinese merchants on the judicial bench,
as assessors familiar with the language, customs, and circumstances
of their countrymen, whenever the latter have been involved in legal
proceedings. In the present year a special court for the trial of
Chinese civil cases has been instituted, consisting of seven of the
leading Chinese merchants, of whom all, save the president, who is
nominated by the Rajah, are elected by the Chinese community.
The government of the pagan population, comprising as it does so many
tribes of diverse customs, languages, and circumstances, has presented
a more varied and in many respects a more difficult problem. But the
same principles have been everywhere applied in their case also. The
backbone of the administrative and judicial system has been constituted
by the small staff of English officers carefully chosen by the Rajah,
and increased from time to time as the extension of the boundaries of
Sarawak opened new fields for their activities. During recent years
this administrative staff has counted some fifty to sixty English
members. Of these about a dozen are quartered in Kuching, namely,
the Resident of the first division, his assistant, a second-class
Resident, and the heads of the principal departments, the post office,
police and prisons, the treasury, the department of lands and surveys,
public works, education, and the rangers.
The Sarawak rangers are a body of some 400 men trained to the use of
fire-arms and under military discipline. The majority are Sea Dayaks,
the remainder Malays and Sikhs. Two white officers, the commandant
and the gunnery instructor, are supported by native non-commissioned
officers. The force is recruited by voluntary enlistment, the men
joining in the first place for five years' service. This force supplies
the garrisons of the small forts, one or more of which are maintained
in each district; and from it a small body of riflemen has commonly
been drawn to form the nucleus of any expeditionary force required
for punitive operations.
The whole territory of Sarawak is divided into four divisions, each of
which is again divided into two or more districts. The first division
coincides with Sarawak proper; the second includes the Batang Lupar,
Saribas, and Kelaka districts; the third comprises the Rejang, Oya,
Muka, Bintulu, and Matu districts; the fourth consists of the Baram,
Limbang, Trusan, and Lawas. The first, third, and fourth divisions
are administered by divisional Residents, which three officers rank
next to the Rajah in the official hierarchy. Each district is under
the immediate charge of an officer. These district officers are
of two ranks, namely Residents of the second class, and Assistant
Residents. In each district, with the exception of the smallest, the
Resident is assisted in his multifarious duties by a second white
officer of the rank of cadet or extra-officer, and has under his
direction a squad of ten to twenty-five rangers under the charge of a
sergeant; a sergeant of police in charge of about twelve policemen,
who are generally drawn from the locality; several Malay or Chinese
clerks; and generally some two or three "native officers." The last
are Malays of the aristocratic class resident in the district; they
are appointed by the Rajah on the recommendation of the Resident and
receive a regular salary. Their duties are to assist the Resident in
his police-court work, to hold special courts for the settlement of
purely Malay cases of a domestic nature, and to take charge of the
station in the absence of the Resident and his assistant.
The prime duty of the Resident is to preserve order in his district
and to punish crimes of violence. But he is responsible also for
every detail of administration, including the collection of taxes
and customs duties, the settlement of disputes, and the hearing of
complaints of all kinds, the furnishing of reports to the central
government on all matters of moment, the development of trade and the
protection of traders, especially the inoffensive Chinese; and above
all, in the newer districts, it is his duty to gain the confidence
of the chiefs of the wilder tribes, and to lead them to accept the
Sarawak flag and the benefits of the Rajah's government, in return
for the small poll-tax required of them. It is well recognised by
the Rajah and his officers that the success of a Resident depends
primarily upon his acquiring intimate knowledge of the people and
establishing and maintaining good relations with them; and with this
end in view every Resident is expected to be familiar not only with
the Malay language, which is the official language of the country, as
well as in some measure a common medium of communication between the
chiefs of the various tribes, but also with one or more of the other
languages spoken in his district. The headquarters of the Resident
are usually the fort, or a small residency built not far from it in
the lower reaches of the chief river of his district. Here a Chinese
bazaar, I.E. a compact village of Chinese traders and shopkeepers, and
a Malay Kampong, generally spring up under the shelter of the fort;
and thus the station becomes the headquarters of trade as well as of
administration. To this centre the workers of jungle produce bring
their stuff, floating down river on rafts of rattans or in their
canoes; from it the Malay and Chinese traders or pedlars set out in
their boats for long journeys among the up-river people; and to it
come occasional parties of the up-river tribesmen, to consult with
the Resident, to seek redress for wrongs, to report the movements of
tribes in the adjacent territories, or to obtain permission to go on
the war-path in order to punish offences committed against them.
Since the river is the one great high road, and since the Resident
and his assistants are seated generally near the point where it leaves
the district, the coming and going of all visitors can hardly escape
their observation. And, since the station sees every few days the
arrival of visitors or the return of parties of its own people from
up river, the Resident can keep himself pretty well informed of the
state of the country, and all news of importance will reach him after
no long delay, if only he is always accessible and willing to turn
a sympathetic ear to all comers.
But the successful administration of one of the larger and wilder
districts, such as the Rejang or the Baram, requires that the Resident
shall not be content with the zealous discharge of his many duties
at his headquarters. He can only establish intimate relations of
reciprocal knowledge and confidence with the chiefs of the many
scattered communities of his district by making long journeys up river
several times a year. And situations not infrequently arise which
urgently demand his presence in some outlying part of his district
and which serve as the occasions of such journeys.
Before describing such a journey, something must be said of the
place in the scheme of government occupied by the chiefs and headmen
of the various communities. Each of the Malay Kampongs and other
similar villages of the Malanaus and other coastwise peoples is
under the immediate charge of one of its more influential elders,
who bears the title of TUAH KAMPONG. He is appointed by the Rajah on
the recommendation of the Resident and receives a small salary. His
duties are to settle the minor disputes of his village, to collect
the tax, to keep order, and to report all breaches of the peace to
the Resident. He has authority to call in the police and to order
the arrest of any villager; in cases of dispute between villages he
represents his village in the Resident's court, and, where his own
people are concerned, he may sit on the bench with the Resident to
hear and advise upon the case. The Sarawak flag is the badge of his
office, and his position and duties are defined in a document bearing
the Rajah's signature.
From among the more influential chiefs of the up-river communities
the Rajah appoints, on the recommendation of the Resident, a certain
number in each district to the office of PENGHULU. In a district of
Mixed population such as the Baram, one PENGHULU (sometimes two) is
usually appointed for each of the principal tribes of the district,
E.G. in the Baram are, or recently were, two Kayans, one Kenyah, one
Sebop, and one Barawan holding the office. The principal PENGHULUS
are made members of the Council of State, and they are expected to
attend its triennial meetings. The status of the PENGHULUS is similar
to that of the TUAH KAMPONG, and he also is given the Sarawak flag,
which he will display on his boat on official journeys, and a document
signed by the Rajah recording his appointment and the duties of his
office; but many of them derive a considerably greater importance than
their fellows from the numerical strength and the warlike character
of their followings. The PENGHULU has authority not only over his
own house or village, but also over the chiefs or headmen of other
communities of the same tribe and region. He is expected to keep the
Resident informed of any local incident requiring his attention,
and to be present in the Resident's court when any of his people
are tried for any serious offence; he has authority to try minor
cases, both civil and criminal, among his own people. Perhaps his
most important service is the following. When an up-river man has
been charged with a serious offence, the summons of the Resident's
court is forwarded to the PENGHULU of his tribe and district with the
instruction that he shall send the man down river to headquarters. It
is generally possible for the PENGHULU to call the man to him, and,
by explaining to him the situation and the order of the Resident,
to secure his peaceful surrender. But in case of refusal to come, or
of active resistance, the PENGHULU is expected to apply such force
as may be necessary for effecting the arrest and the conveyance to
headquarters. In this way in a well-governed district the arrest of
evildoers is effected with remarkable sureness and with far less
risk of violence, bloodshed, and the arousal of angry passions,
than if the Resident should send his police or rangers to do the
work. The PENGHULU is in a much better position than the Resident for
obtaining accurate information upon, and a full understanding of, the
circumstances of any such up-river incidents; and his help is thus
often of the greatest value to the Resident. If he judges that the
accused man is innocent, and especially if the charge against him has
been made by a Chinaman, a Malay, or a member of any other than his
own tribe, he will usually accompany the prisoner to headquarters,
in, order to see that no injustice is done him. Another important
function of the PENGHULU is the preliminary investigation of breaches
of the peace among his people (see vol. ii. p. 219).
The PENGHULU is responsible also for the collection of the door-tax
from the chief of each house or village of his people and for
its delivery to the Resident. He is allowed to exercise a certain
discretion in the matter of remission of taxes to elderly or infirm
householders. He is responsible also for the transmission to the
Resident of all sums in payment of fines of more than five dollars,
imposed by himself or by his subordinate chiefs. On the happily
infrequent occasions on which it becomes necessary to organise a
punitive expedition, the PENGHULUS are expected to help in the raising
of the required force, and to accompany the expedition as commanders of
their own group of warriors, acting under the orders of the Resident.
A PENGHULU is punished for neglect of his duties by suspension from his
office for a definite period, or in more serious cases by dismissal
and the appointment of another chief Since the dignity and prestige
of the office are high, this punishment is deeply felt.
Among the Kayans and Kenyahs and most of the Klemantans, the PENGHULUS
exercise a very effective authority, and, since with few exceptions the
chiefs chosen to fill the office have been loyal, zealous, and capable,
they have rendered great services to the government. Among the Sea
Dayaks the lack of authority of the chiefs, which is a characteristic
feature of their social system, has rendered it impossible to secure
for their PENGHULUS the same high standing and large influence; the
result of which has been the creation of an unduly large number of
these officers and the consequent further depreciation of the dignity
of the office.
The PENGHULU is the link between the native system of government as
it obtained before the coming of the white man, and that established
and maintained by the Rajah and his white officers. The former
consisted of the exercise of authority by the several chiefs, each
over the people of his own village only, except in so far as a chief
might acquire some special prestige and influence over others through
his own reputation for wisdom and that of his people for success in
war. Among the Kayans and Kenyahs especially, the principal chiefs have
long aimed at extending their influence by marrying their relatives
to those of other powerful chiefs. In this way chiefs of exceptional
capacity, aided by good fortune, have achieved in certain instances
a very extended influence. Such a chief was Laki Avit, a Kenyah,
who, some twenty years before the Rajah's officers first entered
upon the task of administering the Baram, was recognised throughout
all the interior of the district as the leading chief, a position
which could only have been achieved by the consistent pursuit of a
wise policy of conciliation and just dealing between. Kenyahs and
Kayans. But the order and peace maintained by the influence of such
a chief depended wholly on his continued vigour, and they seldom or
never survived his death by more than a few years. In the case of Laki
Avit, for example, the Bruni Malays, jealous and afraid of the allied
Kayans and Kenyahs, soon succeeded by means of murderous intrigues
in bringing back the more normal condition of suspicious hostility
and frequent warfare. Thus, although several chiefs had endeavoured
to establish peace throughout wide areas, no one of them had achieved
any enduring success. For this end the unifying influence of a central
authority and superior power was necessary, and this was supplied by
the Rajah. We may liken the whole system of society as now established
to a conical structure consisting of a common apex from which lines of
authority descend to the base, branching as they go at three principal
levels. If we imagine the upper part of this structure cut away at
a horizontal plane just above the lowest level of branching, we have
a diagrammatic representation of the state of affairs preceding the
Rajah's advent -- a large number of small cones each representing
a village unified by the subordination of its members to its chief,
but each one remaining isolated without any bond of union with its
neighbours. At the present time the base of the cone remains almost
unchanged, but the Rajah's government binds together all its isolated
groups to form one harmonious whole, by means of the hierarchy of
officers whose authority proceeds from the Rajah himself, the apex
of the system.
The establishment of the Rajah's government has thus involved no
breaking up of the old forms of society, no attempt to recast it
after any foreign model, but has merely supplied the elements that
were lacking to the system, if it was to enable men to live at peace,
to prosper and multiply, and to enjoy the fruits of their labours. But
though we describe the society of Sarawak as being now a completed
structure, the simile is inadequate and might mislead. The structure
is not that of a rigid building, but of a living organisation; and
its efficiency and permanence depend upon the unceasing activities of
all its parts, each conscious of the whole and of its own essential
role in the life of the whole, and each animated by a common spirit
of unswerving devotion to, and untiring effort in the cause of, the
whole. The Rajah's power rests upon the broad base of the people's
willing co-operation; he in turn is for them the symbol of the whole,
by the aid of which they are enabled to think of the state as their
common country and common object of devotion; and from him there
descends through his officers the spirit which animates the whole,
a spirit of reciprocal confidence, justice, goodwill, and devotion to
duty. The system is in fact the realisation of the ideal of monarchy
or personal government; its successful working depends above all on
the character and intellect of the man who stands at the head of the
state; and the steady progress of all better aspects of civilisation
in Sarawak, a progress which has evoked the warm praise of many
experienced and independent observers,[214] has been due to the fact
that the resolution, the tact and sympathy, the wisdom and high
ideals which enabled the first of its English Rajahs to establish
his authority, have been unfailingly displayed in no less degree by
his successor throughout his long reign.
It is obvious that this permeation of the whole system of government
by the spirit of its head can only be perpetuated by constant personal
intercourse between him and his officers and between the officers of
the various grades. This has been a main principle observed by the
Rajah. He has frequently visited the district stations, to spend a
few days in consultation with his white officers, and to renew his
personal acquaintance with the local chiefs, who spontaneously assemble
to await his arrival. Such visits to any station have seldom been
made at greater intervals than one year; and these annual meetings
at the district stations between the Rajah and his officers of all
grades have been of the utmost value in preserving the profound and
personal respect with which he is regarded throughout the land and
which is in due measure reflected to his representatives, both white
and native. The Rajah has also kept himself in close touch with the
Residents and the affairs even of the remotest districts by encouraging
the Residents to write to him personally and fully on all important
matters, and by writing with his own hand full and prompt replies.
The foregoing brief account of the system of government will have
accentuated its essentially personal character; and it will have
made clear the necessity for constant personal intercourse between
the officers of various grades, and for the long excursions of the
Residents into the interior parts of their districts, one of which
we propose to describe as an illustration of the intimate working
of the administrative system. For in the larger and wilder districts
the Resident's station may be separated from populous villages by a
tract of wild jungle country, the return journey over which cannot
be accomplished in less than a month or even more.
The journey we are about to describe, as illustrative of the
administrative labours of the Resident of one of the wilder districts,
was made in the Baram in the year 1898 by one of us (C. H.) in the
course of his official duties and in part only by the joint-author
of this book. A slight sketch of the political history and condition
of the Baram is required to render intelligible the objects of the
journey and the course of events. The Baram was added to Sarawak
territory, under the circumstances described above (vol. ii. p. 261),
in the year 1882. At that time it enjoyed the reputation of a wild
and dangerous region, owing to the strength of the Kayans, who,
dwelling in all the middle parts of the rivers, had made a number
of bold raids as far as the coast and even to the neighbourhood of
Bruni. The Sea Dayaks had obtained no footing in the river, and the
Klemantans, who dwelt in the lower reaches, had proved quite incapable
of withstanding their formidable neighbours. The latter had driven them
out of the more desirable parts of the river, had made many slaves,
and had appropriated many of the valuable caves in which they had
gathered the edible nests of the swift. But considerable numbers of the
Klemantans remained in the lower reaches and in some of the tributary
rivers. The upper waters of the Baram were occupied mainly by Kenyah
communities; and about the watershed in which the Baram, the Rejang,
and the Batang Kayan have their sources (a mountainous highland,
geographically the very centre of the island, known as Usun Apo), were
the Madangs, a powerful sub-tribe of the Kenyahs, whose reputation as
warriors was second to none. In 1883 a fort was built at Marudi (now
officially known as Claudetown), a spot on the river-bank some sixty
miles from the sea, the first spot at which in ascending the river a
high bank suitable for a settlement is encountered. Here Mr. Claude
de Crespigny, assisted by two junior officers, a squad of some thirty
rangers, and a few native police, began the task of introducing law and
order into these 10,000 square miles of dense jungles, rushing rivers,
and high mountains, the scene for unknown ages of the hard perpetual
struggle of savage man with nature, and of the fierce conflict of
man with man. At first the interior tribes remained aloof, and the
little outpost of civilisation was frequently threatened by them
with extermination. But after some few years the Kayans of the lower
villages became reconciled to the new state of affairs, recognised
the authority of the Rajah and of the Resident, and consented to pay
the small annual door-tax amounting to two dollars per family or door.
These were the Kayans of villages that were readily accessible
because seated on reaches of the river navigable by the Resident's
steam-launch, that is, not more than seventy miles above Claudetown. It
was soon realised that the people of the remoter parts were only to
be brought under the Rajah's government by means of friendly visits
of the Resident to their villages. This policy was actively pursued
by Mr. Charles Hose, who had become assistant to the Resident in 1884,
officer in charge in 1888, and Resident in 1890; some four or five long
journeys were made each year, each occupying several weeks. During
these journeys, which were necessarily made in the native boats,
the Resident would spend the nights, whenever possible, in the native
houses, sometimes whiling away several days in friendly intercourse
with his hosts, and thus acquiring much useful information as well
as more intimate understanding of their characters, languages, and
customs. In this way the area of government control was extended step
by step, until about the year 1891 practically all the inhabitants of
the Baram had accepted the Rajah's government and acknowledged it by
the payment of some tax, however small. The chiefs of the Klemantans
and their people were for the most part very glad to place themselves
under the protection of this new government; but the Kayans and
Kenyahs, not feeling themselves to be in need of any such protection,
were less ready to accept the Resident's proposals. Two considerations
mainly induced them to take this course: first, they desired peace,
or at any rate less warfare, and it was possible to convince them that
this result might be achieved by pointing to other districts such as
the Rejang, with whose affairs they had some acquaintance. Secondly,
they found that a Chinese bazaar had sprung up at Claudetown, and that,
as soon as they accepted the Rajah's government, they would obtain
greatly increased facilities for driving the highly profitable trade
in jungle produce; for, before they had come under the government,
the Chinese and Malay traders had hardly ventured to penetrate to
their remote villages with their cloths and lucifer matches, hardware,
steel bars, and other much-coveted goods.
Several of the most influential chiefs who had early showed themselves
staunch friends of the government were made PENGHULUS, and have long
continued by their example and influence energetically to support the
Resident, notably the Kayan, Tama Usong, and the Kenyah, Tama Bulan
(see Pls. 49, 27). The latter especially, though not one of the first
to come in, exercised his great influence consistently, wisely, and
energetically, in support of the Resident and in the establishment
of peace and order throughout the district and even beyond its
boundaries. But he was only one of several chiefs who have displayed a
high degree of enlightenment and moral qualities of a very high order.
The hostility of the Kalabits on the north-eastern border, who
persistently raided those villages of their fellow-tribesmen that had
come under the government, had necessitated an expedition against
them in 1893. And Sea Dayak parties of jungle workers had on more
than one occasion stirred up serious trouble. But, in spite of these
difficulties, by the year 1898 all the inhabitants of the district
were paying the regular door-tax, crimes of violence had been almost
abolished, trade was everywhere increasing, and peace was assured,
save for the threat to it from one quarter, namely, the Madangs of Usun
Apo and the neighbouring powerful settlements of Kenyahs across the
water-parting in the head-waters of the Batang Kayan. It had always
been a weakness of the Rajah's government that it could assure to
the Baram people no protection against attack from those regions,
the latter of which, though nominally Dutch territory, was not yet
controlled by the Dutch government. In the year 1897 a numerous band
of Madangs had migrated into the extreme head of the Baram from the
corresponding and closely adjoining part of the Rejang, largely owing
to the pressure put upon them by the ever roving and meddlesome Sea
Dayaks. Neither these Madangs nor the Kenyahs of the Batang Kayan
had entered into friendly relations with the Sarawak government, and
they had preserved a hostile attitude towards the Baram tribes. The
Resident therefore determined to visit the Madangs, and to invite
Kenyah chiefs from the Batang Kayan to meet him on the extreme edge
of the Sarawak territory, in order to open friendly intercourse
with them, and to persuade them if possible to attend a general
peace-meeting at Claudetown, at which the outstanding feuds between
them and the Baram folk might be ceremonially washed out in the blood
of pigs. For, if this attempt could be carried to a successful issue,
it would go far to assure the peace of the whole district, and would
add considerably to the volume of trade descending the Baram River:
An additional feature of the programme was that the Resident should
take with him on his visit a number of the Baram chiefs, and should in
the course of the journey make arrangements with the largest possible
number of chiefs for their attendance at the proposed peace-making.
Accordingly, on the 9th of October 1898, we started from Claudetown
in the Resident's launch with a retinue of half a dozen Sea Dayak
rangers and two policemen, and towing some half a dozen boats,
including one for our own use up-river. After spending a day in
visiting villages in the lower Tinjar, the largest tributary of the
Baram, we resumed the journey up-river and reached the village of
Long Tamala. There we were joined by the chiefs of the two houses Tama
Aping Nipa and Tama Aping Kuleh, and were most hospitably entertained
by the former. On the following morning we again steamed up-river,
having added to our train these two Kenyah chiefs, each with a boat's
crew of fighting men, they having agreed to make the whole journey
with us. After stopping at several villages at which the Resident's
services were in request for the settlement of disputed questions,
in the afternoon we reached Long Tajin, a big Kayan village, and
were welcomed by Juman, the chief, and his wife Sulau, a woman of
strikingly handsome and refined features and graceful aristocratic
manner (Pl. 31). She is the daughter of the late Aban Jau, who was
for many years the most powerful chief of the Tinjar Sebops. He had
long resisted the advances of the Resident, and had submitted to the
Rajah's government only after a long course of patient persuasion. He
had regarded himself as the up-river Rajah, and had never ceased to
regret the old state of affairs. "I'm an old man now," he told the
Resident, "but if I were as salt as I used to be, the Rajah would not
have taken possession of the Baram without a struggle." Another of
his many picturesque sayings seems worth recording: "Your Rajah may
govern the down-river people; they are inside the Sultan's fence and
he had the right to hand them over. But over us he had no authority;
we are the tigers of the jungle and have never been tamed." He had
frequently threatened to attack the fort; and when he had sent to the
Resident a message to that effect in the usual symbolic language,
the latter's only reply had been to go up to his house with two or
three men only, and to spend five days there as Aban Jau's guest,
and to persuade him to come down to Claudetown to meet the Rajah.
The evening was spent in discussing the prospects of the expedition
with Juman and other chiefs, some of whom took a gloomy view. The
following morning the steam-launch was sent downriver, and we took to
the boats and paddled a short stage to Bawang Takun, another large
Kayan village, where we stayed over-night to give the people time
to prepare their boats and the Resident the opportunity for some
judicial inquiries. There was heavy rain throughout the night,
and in the morning the river, which in this part of its course
runs between limestone cliffs, was rushing so rapidly that we
could only make progress by repeatedly crossing the river to seek
the slack-water side of each reach. Failing to reach any village,
we passed the night in rude shelters on the bank. On the following
day the river was still in flood, but we reached Long Lawa, a Kayan
village, and decided to wait there until the river should subside to
a more normal condition. Here a party of Kenyahs met us, sent by Tama
Bulan to conduct us to his house some two or three days' journey up
the Pata tributary. On the morning of the 16th the river had fallen
ten feet, and starting at daybreak we reached the mouth of the Pata,
and camped on a KERANGAN or pebble-bed beautifully situated among
the forest-clad slopes a little way up the Pata. In the course of the
day a boatful of Kayans from the Apoh had joined us. On the 17th we
had an exciting day working up the rapids and waterfalls of the Pata,
and reached Long Lutin, a very large Kayan village of many long houses,
most pleasantly situated and surrounded by hills clothed with the rich
green of the young PADI crop. Here we spent the night in the house of
the principal chief, Laki Lah, a quaint old bachelor, whom we greatly
astonished by eating plum-pudding with burning brandy upon it.
Another day's journey over a long series of rapids brought us to the
house of Tama Bulan, at that time the most influential chief of the
Baram. We found there a number of Kenyah chiefs from the upper reaches
of the Pata awaiting our arrival. Tama Bulan, who was strongly in
favour of carrying through the Resident's plan, eloquently supported it
during the hospitable procedures of the evening, assuring the assembled
chiefs that the journey would finally resolve the troubles of the
Baram. As usual there was no lack of enterprise and "go" among the
Kenyahs, and they were all keen to make the venture; while the Kayans
on the other hand were, as always, more cautious, more inclined to
dwell on the possibilities of failure, and slower to take up the plan
and make it their own. The Kenyahs had not yet completed the taking
of omens for the expedition, and the following days were devoted to
this process (see vol. ii. p. 52), Tama Bulan and his people taking
omens for the whole of the Kenyah contingent, while Juman went on to
prepare the people of the Akar. In the course of the day Tama Bulan
accompanied us on visits to several neighbouring Kenyah villages
situated a little farther up the river. In the evening we had another
convivial meeting with great flow of oratory and rice-spirit. On the
third day, favourable omens having been observed, sacrifices of pigs
and fowls were offered before the altar-posts of the war-god, and the
various rites needful to complete the preparation for a long journey
were performed (see Pl. 157). In the afternoon the Resident inspected
the site for a bungalow or block-house which the Kenyahs proposed to
make (and have since erected) for the use of the government's officers.
On October 23rd we left Tama Bulan's house with a party of about one
hundred all told, in several boats. We were joined at Long Lutin by
Laki Lah and a boatful of his Kayans, made a rapid passage to Long
Pata (the spot where the Pata joins the Baram), and resumed the
toilsome ascent of the main river to reach the Akar. That evening
we reached a Kenyah village at Long Lawan, and as usual we were
hospitably entertained with the fatted pig and brimming cups of
rice-spirit. The weather was now brilliantly fine and the river of
only normal swiftness, and we passed the night in a Kenyah house in
the Akar. Here we spent two days awaiting the arrival of a party
of Kayans from the upper Akar. The Kayans having arrived, another
general discussion of the plan of operations was held; and on the
third day the expedition returned to the Baram, and after surmounting
the difficulties presented by many rapids and a narrow gorge at Batu
Pita, entered the Silat on the 28th. The Silat is the uppermost of the
large tributaries of the Baram (Pl. 200). It descends from the Madang
country, winding round the foot of the Batu Tujoh, a limestone mountain
of 5000 feet. All this country is at a considerable height above
sea-level (1000 feet and more), and the climate is much cooler and more
bracing than that of the lower levels. It is a land of many streams
and hills. All the lower slopes have been cleared and cultivated by
the Kenyahs, so that it presents a more open and smiling aspect than
the lower country, where the clearings are but tiny islands in the
vast ocean of gloomy forest. The river itself is even more beautiful
than the other tributaries of the Baram, lovely as all these are in
their upper reaches. This was not the first exploration of the Silat,
for the Resident had twice before journeyed up its lower reaches;
but on this occasion it was necessary to penetrate to its very head,
in order to reach the villages of the principal Madang chiefs, Saba
Irang and Tama Usun Tasi. So for five days the expedition toiled up
the Silat, and during these days Juman, Laki Lah, and most of the
Kayans turned back, their confidence being shaken by the unfamiliar
aspect of the country, by the neighbourhood of the hitherto hostile
Madangs, and by the bad dream of one of their chiefs and the illness
of another. On the fifth day the diminished fleet of boats entered the
Lata, a tributary coming down from the Mudong Alan and Saat mountains,
from the slopes of which the water runs also to the Rejang River and
the Batang Kayan. Here the boats were left behind and the expedition
went forward on foot, making but slow progress in the rocky river-bed.
Near the mouth of the Lata the expedition was met by a large party of
Kenyahs -- men, women, and children -- the whole population of a Kenyah
village of the Batang Kayan, Lepu Agas by name, who had just arrived
with the intention of making their home in that neighbourhood. These
people had been the greatest enemies of Tama Bulan, and the feud had
only been healed in the previous year.
A curious custom, which seems at the present time to be peculiar to the
Kenyahs and rapidly dying out among them, was observed by the Lepu Aga
people on this occasion. As the Resident's party approached the spot
where they awaited its arrival, they sent out three men to establish
the first contact. It was the function of these three men to make
sure of the friendly intentions of the approaching party (Pls. 201,
202). They wore large wooden masks elaborately carved, and bearing
great lateral projections like horns or antlers, in addition to full
war dress.[215] They advanced down a long pebblebank, keeping step and
making grotesque movements with heads and arms, which seemed to imply
a mixture of caution and curiosity. After dodging about for some time,
they came near and inquired: "Who are you? Whence do you come? What
is your business?" Having obtained satisfactory assurances, they
retreated, stepping backwards with the same grotesque gestures, and
returned to report the results of their investigations to their chief.
Before friendly intercourse between the parties could begin it was
still necessary, in view of the recent feud between them, that
they should engage in a sham fight (JAWA). When this boisterous
ceremony had been accomplished, the Resident presented to the Lepu
Agas a number of presents, calculated to whet their appetite for the
products of civilised industry to be found in the Baram bazaar. Very
soon all suspicion and reserve were overcome, and all the men of the
Resident's party turned to with hearty goodwill to help build a house
for their former enemies. So well did they work that between sunrise
and sunset a house of forty doors was hewn out of the forest, solidly
constructed, and roofed; so that when night fell the new-comers were
able to move in and to invite their helpers to a convivial meeting
in its long gallery. The Resident made a speech in native fashion,
saying that his party had ventured to build a rude hut in order
to provide a night's shelter for their new friends, and hoped that
they would find it sufficient for the moment. Tama Bulan also spoke,
saying how now the old troubles were over, never to come again. Aban
Jalong, the old chief of the Batang Kayan people, was so touched by
these unwonted demonstrations of goodwill, that he wept and could
with difficulty find words in which to express the gratitude of
himself and his people. Through these people messages of goodwill and
invitations to the proposed peace-making at Claudetown were sent to
their former neighbours in the Batang Kayan, and these in due time
bore good fruit. For in the course of the next few years several
communities followed the example of the Lepu Agas, and moved over from
the Batang Kayan to the Baram. It may be of interest to add that the
Lepu Agas still inhabit the house built under these extraordinary
circumstances. After some few more days of travelling up-river, we
were met by a party of Madangs who had been sent down to meet the
Resident; while awaiting his arrival they had hewed out a small boat,
and in this, which served almost as much the purposes of a sledge as
of a boat, they hauled him over rocks and rapids and still pools until,
having outpaced the rest of the party, they brought him, on the eighth
day from leaving the Silat, to their village at the foot of Mudong
Alan. It was a large village comprising nine long houses disposed in
a circle and containing probably not less than 2000 persons. Here he
was received on the bank of the stream by a large body of Madangs
headed by Tama Usun Tasi, who at once offered him the hospitality
of his roof. The incidents of the visit have been described by the
Resident, and passages from his account may here be transcribed: --
My Kenyah friends had not arrived yet, but I thought it best to go
with him (Tama Usun Tasi) at once; afterwards I congratulated myself
on my decision, when I found that, according to custom, Tama Bulan
and his followers (being unable to enter the house until all cases
of blood-money between his people and the Madangs had been settled)
were obliged to camp near the river for one night. The Madangs
assisted in making huts for my followers, gave them several pigs,
and sent down their women laden with baskets full of rice; so no
want of hospitality marred our reception. In the evening I took a
walk round the village, followed by a crowd of women and children,
who appeared greatly pleased to find that the white man was able to
converse with them in the Kenyah tongue. Then, as the crowd increased,
I sat down on a log and produced a few pounds of tobacco, and the
whole party was soon chatting and laughing as if they had known me
for years. I have often noticed that the women of the Kenyah tribe
in the interior are far more genial and less shy than those of other
communities, and I believe that the surest sign of the good faith of
natives such as these is that the women and children come out to greet
one unattended by the men. The sounds of our merriment soon attracted
the attention of the men, and as they strolled over and joined us in
gradually increasing numbers, the possibility of any disturbance taking
place between these people and mine quickly vanished from my mind.
On the following morning several parties of Madangs from other villages
came in, numbering in all about 600, and exchanged presents of weapons
with my people. It was necessary that the gods should be consulted as
to whether the meeting was really in the interests of peace or not. So
a pig was caught and tied by the legs, and when all the Madangs were
assembled in Tama Usun Tasi's house, the pig was brought in and placed
in front of the chiefs. Then one of the head men from a neighbouring
village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles
of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if
to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme
being, "Bali Penyalong." Then, talking at a great rate and hardly
stopping for a moment to take breath, he asked that, if any one
had evil intentions, the truth might be revealed before the evilly
disposed one was allowed to enter the Madang houses, and that, if any
Madang, whether related to him or not, wished to disturb the peace
which was about to be made with the Baram people, his designs should
be revealed. The old man stood waving his hands as if to sweep within
the circle of his influence the whole of the assembled crowd, and then,
jumping into the air with great violence, brought both feet down on the
plank floor with a resounding thump; then, spinning round on one foot
with his arm extended, he quickly altered the tone of his voice to a
more gentle pitch, and, quivering with excitement, quietly sank down
into his place amid a dead silence. The speech was a stirring one,
and created an impression. Others spoke a few words to the pig, and
it was then taken to one side and stabbed in the throat with a spear,
after which the liver was taken out and examined. I should mention that
a pig intended to serve the same purpose was provided by the Madangs
for our people, who were still waiting to be invited to the house.
Having years before studied the beliefs of the natives with regard to
divination by pigs' livers, and knowing the great importance attached
to it, I was as anxious as any one to see the liver. I saw at a glance
that the omen was good, and seized the opportunity to make the most
of it. I quickly called the chiefs' attention to all the good points
before they had given their own opinion, and at once saw that their
interpretation was the same as my own, and that they were somewhat
surprised to find it so.
Thereupon two messengers were sent backwards and forwards to discuss
the number of people killed on either side from time to time,
and big gongs, shields, and weapons of all kinds changed hands
as blood-money. When all had been settled, notice was given to our
people that the Madangs were ready to receive them into their houses,
and the Baram people sent a message back that they were prepared to
accept the invitation. When Kayans and Kenyahs who have been at feud
desire to meet peaceably, it is necessary to go through a sort of
sham fight, called JAWA, so that both parties can, as it were, blow
off steam. As this ceremony is generally executed with much vigour by
fully armed parties, it often happens that some people are badly hurt;
and I was half afraid that such an accident might check the progress of
our negotiations. But the omens had been favourable, and the implicit
belief in such omens goes far to prevent bad feeling. About midday
Tama Bulan and his followers, in full war costume, announced their
intention of moving by bursting into the war-cry, a tremendous roar
which was immediately answered by the people in the houses. The noise
and excitement increased as the Baram people neared the house of Tama
Usun Tasi, and guns with blank charges were fired. On came the Baram
people, stamping, shouting, and waving their weapons in defiance, the
Madangs in the houses keeping up a continuous roar. When the Baram
people first attempted to enter the house, they were driven back,
and a tremendous clashing of shields and weapons took place; then the
Madangs retreated from the entrance in order to allow their visitors
to come in, stamping and making the most deafening noise. When the
Baram people had all entered, the Madangs once more rushed at them,
and for some two minutes a rough-and-tumble fight continued, in which
many hard blows were given. No one received a cut, however, except
one man who, running against a spear, was wounded in the thigh;
but the affair was quickly settled by the payment of a pig and a
small spear to the wounded person; so the ceremony may be said to
have ended without a mishap. When quiet had been restored, we all sat
down and rice-spirit was produced, healths drunk, and speeches made;
food was brought out and given to the visitors in the long verandah,
as, on first being received, visitors are not allowed to enter the
rooms; and the convivialities were prolonged far into the night.
In the evening of the following day the Madangs prepared a feast for
all present, and afterwards a great deal of rice-spirit was drunk
and some very good speeches made, former troubles and difficulties
being explained and discussed in the most open manner. Each chief
spoke in turn, and concluded his speech by offering drink to another
and singing a few phrases in his praise, the whole assembly joining
in a very impressive chorus after each phrase and ending up with a
tremendous roar as the bamboo cup was emptied.
The following day the Madangs collected a quantity of rubber for their
first payment of tribute to the government, namely, $2.00 per family,
and as we had no means of weighing it except by guesswork, it was
decided that Tama Bulan and two Madang headmen should act as assessors,
and decide whether the piece of rubber brought by each person was
sufficiently large to produce $2.00. It took these men the whole day
to receive it all, and much counting was done on the fingers and toes.
On taking our departure from the Madang country, most of the women
presented us with a small quantity of rice for food on our homeward
journey, but as each little lot was emptied into a large basket, the
giver took back a few grains so as not to offend the omen-birds, who
had bestowed on them a bounteous harvest, by giving the whole away to
strangers. Presents of considerable value were given on both sides,
and all parted the best of friends. The two principal Madang chiefs
accompanied us for a day's journey, their followers carrying the whole
of our baggage. On parting I promised to arrange a similar peace-making
at Claudetown, at which most of the Baram chiefs would be present.
We add an account of the peace-making previously published by one
of us.[216]
The peace-making that I am going to describe was organised in order to
bring together on neutral ground, and in presence of an overwhelming
force of the tribes loyal to the government, all those tribes whose
allegiance was still doubtful, and all those that were still actively
hostile to one another, and to induce them to swear to support the
government in keeping the peace, and to go through the formalities
necessary to put an end to old blood-feuds. At the same time the
Resident had suggested to the tribes that they should all compete
in a grand race of war canoes, as well as in other races on land
and water. For he wisely held that in order to suppress fighting
and head-hunting, hitherto the natural avenues to fame for restless
tribes and ambitious young men, it is necessary to replace them by
some other form of violent competition that may in some degree serve
as a vent for high spirits and superfluous energy; and he hoped
to establish an annual gathering for boat racing and other sports,
in which all the tribes should take part, a gathering on the lines
of the Olympic games in fact. The idea Was taken up eagerly by the
people, and months before the appointed day they were felling the
giants of the forest and carving out from them the great war canoes
that were to be put to this novel use, and reports were passing from
village to village of the many fathoms length of this or that canoe,
and the fineness of the timber and workmanship of another.
In order to make clear the course of events, I must explain that
two large rivers, the Baram and the Tinjar, meet about one hundred
miles from the sea to form the main Baram river. Between the peoples
living on the banks of these two rivers and their tributaries there
is a traditional hostility which just at this time had been raised to
a high pitch by the occurrence of a blood-feud between the Kenyahs,
a leading tribe of the Baram, and the Lirongs, an equally powerful
tribe of the Tinjar. In addition to these two groups we expected a
large party of Madangs, a famous tribe of fighting men of the central
highlands whose hand had hitherto been against every other tribe,
and a large number of Sea Dayaks, who, more than all the rest, are
always spoiling for a fight, and who are so passionately devoted
to head-hunting that often they do not scruple to pursue it in an
unsportsmanlike fashion. So it will be understood that the bringing
together in one place of large parties of fully armed warriors of all
these different groups was a distinctly interesting and speculative
experiment in peace-making.
The place of meeting was Marudi (Claudetown), the headquarters of the
government of the district. There the river, still nearly a hundred
miles from the sea, winds round the foot of a low flat-topped hill, on
which stand the small wooden fort and court-house and the Resident's
bungalow. Some days before that fixed for the great meeting by the
tokens we had sent out, parties of men began to arrive, floating down
in the long war canoes roofed with palm leaves for the journey. On the
appointed day some five thousand of the Baram people and the Madangs
were encamped very comfortably in leaf and mat shelters on the open
ground between our bungalow and the fort, while the Sea Dayaks had
taken up their quarters in the long row of Chinamen's shops that form
the Marudi bazaar, the commercial centre of the district. But as yet no
Tinjar folk had put in an appearance, and men began to wonder what had
kept them -- Were the tokens sent them at fault? Or had they received
friendly warnings of danger from some of the many sacred birds, without
whose favourable omens no journey can be undertaken? Or had they,
perhaps, taken the opportunity to ascend the Baram and sack and burn
the Kenyah houses now well nigh empty of defenders? We spent the time
in foot-racing, preliminary boat-racing, and in seeing the wonders
of the white man. For many of these people had not travelled so far
downriver before, and their delight in the piano was only equalled by
their admiration for that most wonderful of all things, the big boat
that goes up stream without paddles, the Resident's fast steam-launch.
At last one evening, while we were all looking on at a most exciting
practice-race between three of the canoes, the Lirongs, with the main
mass of the Tinjar people, came down the broad straight reach. It
was that most beautiful half-hour of the tropical day, between the
setting of the sun and the fall of darkness -- the great forest stood
black and formless, while the sky and the smooth river were luminous
with delicate green and golden light. The Lirongs were in full war
dress, with feathered coats of leopard skin and plumed caps plaited
of tough rattan, and very effective they were as they came swiftly
on over the shining water, sixty to seventy warriors in each canoe
raising their tremendous battle-cry, a deep-chested chorus of rising
and falling cadences. The mass of men on the bank and on the hill
took up the cry, answering shout for shout; and the forest across
the river echoed it, until the whole place was filled with a hoarse
roar. The Kenyahs ran hastily to their huts for their weapons, and by
the time they had grouped themselves on the crest of the hill, armed
with sword and shield and spear and deadly blowpipe, the Lirongs had
landed on the bank below and were rushing up the hill to the attack. A
few seconds more and they met with clash of sword and shield and a
great shouting, and in the semi-darkness a noisy battle raged. After
some minutes the Lirongs drew off and rushed back to their boats as
wildly as they had come; and, strange to say, no blood was flowing,
no heads were rolling on the ground, no ghastly wounds were gaping,
in fact no one seemed any the worse. For it seems that this attack
was merely a well understood formality, a put-up job, so to say. When
two tribes, between whom there is a blood-feud not formally settled,
meet together to make peace, it is the custom for the injured party,
that is the tribe which has last suffered a loss of heads, to make an
attack on the other party but using only the butt ends of their spears
and the blunt edges of their swords. This achieves two useful ends-it
lets off superabundant high spirits, which, if too much bottled up,
would be dangerous; and it "saves the face" of the injured party by
showing how properly wrathful and bellicose its feelings are. So when
this formality had been duly observed everybody seemed to feel that
matters were going on well; they all settled down quietly enough for
the night, the Resident taking the precaution to send the Lirongs to
camp below the fort; and the great peace-conference was announced to
be held the following morning.
Soon after daybreak the people began to assemble beneath the great
roof of palm-leaf mats that we had built for a conference hall. The
Baram chiefs sat on a low platform along one side of the hall, and
in their midst was Tama Bulan, the most famous of them all, a really
great man who has made his name and influence felt throughout a very
large part of Borneo. When all except the Tinjar men were assembled,
of course without arms, the latter, also unarmed, came up the hill
in a compact mass, to take their places in the hall. As they entered,
the sight of their old enemies, the chiefs of the Baram, all sitting
quietly together, was too much for their self-control; with one
accord they made a mad rush at them and attempted to drag them from
the platform. Fortunately we white men had placed ourselves with a
few of the more reliable Dayak fortmen between the two parties, and
partly by force and partly by eloquence we succeeded in beating off
the attack, which seemed to be made in the spirit of a school "rag"
rather than with bloody intent. But just as peace seemed restored,
a great shout went up from the Baram men, "Tama Bulan is wounded";
and sure enough there he stood with blood flowing freely over his
face. The sight of blood seemed to send them all mad together; the
Tinjar people turned as one man and tore furiously down the hill to
seize their weapons, while the Baram men ran to their huts and in a
few seconds were prancing madly to and fro on the crest of the hill,
thirsting for the onset of the bloody battle that now seemed a matter
of a few seconds only. At the same time the Dayaks were swarming out
of the bazaar seeking something to kill, like the typical Englishman,
though not knowing which side to take. The Resident hastened after
the Tinjars, threw himself before them, and appealed and threatened,
pointing to the two guns at the fort now trained upon them; and Tama
Bulan showed his true greatness by haranguing his people, saying his
wound was purely accidental and unintended, that it was a mere scratch,
and commanding them to stand their ground. Several of the older and
steadier chiefs followed his example and ran to and fro holding back
their men, exhorting them to be quiet.
The crisis passed, the sudden gust of passion slowly died away,
and peace was patched up with interchange of messages and presents
between the two camps. The great boat race was announced to take
place on the morrow, and the rest of the day was spent in making
ready the war canoes, stripping them of their leaf roofs and all
other superfluous gear.
At daybreak the racing-boats set off for the startingpost four miles
up river. The Resident had given strict orders that no spears or other
weapons were to be carried in the racing-boats, and as they started
up river we inspected the boats in turn, and in one or two cases
relieved them of a full complement of spears; and then we followed
them to the post in the steam-launch. There was a score of entries,
and since each boat carried from sixty to seventy men sitting two
abreast, more than a thousand men were taking part in the race. The
getting the boats into line across the broad river was a noisy and
exciting piece of work. We carried on the launch a large party of
elderly chiefs, most. of whom were obviously suffering from "the
needle," and during the working of the boats into line they hurled
commands at them in language that was terrific in both quality and
volume. At last something like a line was assumed, and on the sound
of the gun the twenty boats leaped through the water, almost lost
to sight in a cloud of spray as every one of those twelve hundred
men struck the water for all he was worth. There was no saving of
themselves; the rate of striking was about ninety to the minute, and
tended constantly to increase. Very soon two boats drew out in front,
and the rest of them, drawing together as they neared the first bend,
followed hotly after like a pack of hounds. This order was kept all
over the course. During the first burst our fast launch could not keep
up with the boats, but we drew up in time to see the finish. It was
a grand neck-and-neck race all through between the two leading boats,
and all of them rowed it out to the end. The winners were a crew of the
peaceful down-river folk, who have learnt the art of boat-making from
the Malays of the coast; and they owed their victory to their superior
skill in fashioning their boat, rather than to superior strength. When
they passed the post we had an anxious moment -- How would the losers
take their beating? Would the winners play the fool, openly exulting
and swaggering? If so, they would probably get their heads broken,
or perhaps lose them. But they behaved with modesty and discretion,
and we diverted attention from them by swinging the steamer round and
driving her through the main mass of the boats. Allowing as accurately
as possible for the rate of the current as compared with the rate of
the tide at Putney, we reckoned the pace of the winning boat to be
a little better than that of the 'Varsity eights in racing over the
full course.
The excitement of the crowds on the bank was great, but it was entirely
good-humoured -- they seemed to have forgotten their feuds in the
interest of the racing. So the Resident seized the opportunity to
summon every one to the conference hall once more. This time we settled
down comfortably enough and with great decorum, the chiefs all in one
group at one side of a central space, and the common people in serried
ranks all round about it. In the centre was a huge, gaily painted
effigy of a hornbill, one of the birds sacred to all the tribes,
and on it were hung thousands of cigarettes of home-grown tobacco
wrapped in dried banana leaf. Three enormous pigs were now brought
in and laid, bound as to their feet, before the chiefs, one for each
of the main divisions of the people, the Barams, the Tinjars, and
the hill-country folk. The greatest chiefs of each of these parties
then approached the pigs, and each in turn, standing beside the pig
assigned to his party, addressed the attentive multitude with great
flow of words and much violent and expressive action; for many of
these people are great orators. The purport of their speeches was
their desire for peace, their devotion to the Resident ("If harm come
to him, then may I fall too," said Tama Bulan), and their appreciation
of the trade and general intercourse and safety of life and property
brought them by the Rajah's government; and they hurled threats and
exhortations against unlicensed warfare and bloodshed.
As each chief ended his speech to the people he turned to the pig
at his feet, and, stooping over it, kept gently prodding it with
a smouldering fire-brand, while he addressed to it a prayer for
protection and guidance -- a prayer that the spirit of the pig,
soon to be set free by a skilful thrust of a spear into the beast's
heart, should carry up to the Supreme Being. The answer to these
prayers might then be read in the form and markings of the underside
of the livers. So the pigs were despatched, and their livers hastily
dragged forth and placed on platters before the group of chiefs. Then
was there much anxious peering over shoulders, and much shaking of
wise old heads, as the learned elders discussed the omens; until at
last the Resident was called upon to give his opinion, for he is an
acknowledged expert in augury. He was soon able to show that the only
true and rational reading of the livers was a guarantee of peace and
prosperity to all the tribes of the district; and the people, accepting
his learned interpretation, rejoiced with one accord. Then the Resident
made a telling speech, in which he dwelt upon the advantages of peace
and trade, and how it is good that a man should sleep without fear
that his house be burnt or his people slain; and he ended by seizing
the nearest chief by the hair of his head, as is their own fashion,
to show how, if a man break the peace, he shall lose his head.
This concluded the serious part of the conference, and it only
remained to smoke the cigarettes of good fellowship, taken from
the hornbill-effigy, and to drink long life and happiness to one
another. So great jars of "arack" were brought in and drinking
vessels, and each chief in turn, standing before some whilom enemy,
sang his praises in musical recitative before giving him the cup;
and after each phrase of the song the multitude joined in with a
long-drawn sonorous shout, which, while the drink flowed down, rose
to a mighty roar. This is a most effective way of drinking a man's
health, and combines the advantages of making a speech over him and
singing "For he's a jolly good fellow"; moreover, the drink goes to
the right party, as it does not with us. It should be adopted in this
country, I think. By many repetitions of this process we were soon
reduced to a state of boisterous conviviality; and many a hard-faced
old warrior, who but the day before had drawn his weapons against
his enemy, now sat with his arms lovingly thrown about that same
enemy. When this state of affairs was reached, our work seemed to be
accomplished, and we white men retired to lunch, leaving one chief in
the midst of a long-winded speech. As soon as the restraint of the
Resident's presence was removed, the orator began to utter remarks
of a nature to stir up the dying embers of resentment; at least so
it seemed to one wily old chief, a firm supporter of the government,
who bethought him to send one of his men to pull away the palm-leaf
mats from above the indiscreet orator, and so leave his verbosity
exposed to the rays of the mid-day sun. No sooner said than done,
and this was the beginning of the end; for others following suit made
a rush for the mats that would be so useful in making their camps
and boats more rain-proof. There was a mighty uproar that brought
us headlong to the scene, only to see the big hall melt away like
a snowflake as hundreds of hands seized upon the mats and bore them
away in triumph. So the great peace conference was brought to an end
amid much laughter and fun.
It only remained for the chiefs to pay in the taxes for the year --
the two dollars per family which it is their business to collect from
their people, and which is the only tax or tribute claimed by the
Rajah. This business was got through on the following morning; and
then we said many kind farewells, as the various parties set out one
after another in the great war canoes on their long up-stream journey;
some of them to battle for many days against the swiftly flowing river,
and after that again for many days to pole their boats through the
flashing rapids and over the lovely quiet reaches, where the rare
gleams of sunlight break through the overarching forest; until,
coming to their own upland country, where anxious wives and children
are waiting, they will spread even in the remotest highlands the news
of the white man's big boat that goes of itself against the stream,
of the great boat-race, and of how they came wellnigh to a fearful
slaughtering, and how they swore peace and goodwill to all men, and
how there should be now peace and prosperity through all the land,
for the great white man who had come to rule them had said it should
be so, and the gods had approved his words.
The foregoing account of the journey to the Madang country and
of the subsequent events would constitute the last chapter of any
history of the pacification of the Baram. Since the time of those
incidents, there has been no serious disturbance of the peace; and
there seems to be good reason to hope that, so long as the Rajah's
government continues to be conducted along the same lines, there
will be no recrudescence of savagery. The last case of fighting on
any considerable scale occurred in 1894, when Tama Bulan's people,
resenting the offensive conduct of bands of Sea Dayaks who had
penetrated to their neighbourhood in search of jungle-products,
turned out and took the heads of thirteen of the Dayaks. It was only
after prolonged negotiation that the Dayaks were persuaded to resign
their hopes of a bloody revenge and to accept a compensation of 3000
dollars, which was paid by the Kenyahs at the Rajah's order.
It has not always been possible to make peace prevail by wholly
peaceable procedures. The Baram was fortunate in that the Sea Dayaks
had not established themselves anywhere within its borders. In the
Rejang, on the other hand, large numbers of them were allowed to
settle, coming in from the Saribas and the Batang Lupar in the early
days of the Rajah's government. And since the Kayans and Kenyahs were
already in possession of the upper river and considered themselves
the dominant tribes and lords of the land, it was inevitable that
there should grow up a keen rivalry which could hardly fail to
lead occasionally to armed conflict. For the Sea Dayaks had been
accustomed to adopt a somewhat swaggering and domineering attitude
towards the Klemantan tribes, and could not easily learn to modify
it when they came in contact with the prouder and less submissive
Kayans and Kenyahs. This rivalry has been the source of most of the
troubles of the Rejang, where, since the big expedition of 1863, the
Rajah and his officers have on several occasions found it necessary
to subdue recalcitrant tribes or communities by leading armed forces
against them.
As an illustration of these sterner methods we add a brief account
of one such expedition led by one of us (C. H.) in the year 1904, in
his capacity of Divisional Resident of the several Rejang districts;
an expedition which, there is reason to hope, may prove to be the
last of the series. The purpose of this expedition was to reduce
to order a small community of Sea Dayaks that was established upon
Bukit Batu, an almost impregnable mountain which rises up almost
perpendicularly on all sides at the head of the Bali, one of the
eastern tributaries of the Rejang. This community had been formed in
the manner to which legend assigns the foundation of ancient Rome,
namely, by the gathering together in this strong place of various
outlaws and violent characters who for one reason or another had
quarrelled with and defied the government. The same spot had been
similarly occupied many years before; and though it had been forcibly
cleared of its defenders, its natural advantages had, in the course
of years, led to the growth of a new community of the same kind.
This band had raided the surrounding country, slaying and robbing
people of several tribes, and generally had been having a "gorgeous
time." They had repeatedly refused to yield even when threatened by
armed force. And when the Resident sent them a peremptory message,
commanding them to appear to surrender themselves at the nearest
government station within one month, they returned an impudent
answer, saying that they had so far accepted orders from no one,
and asking -- Who was he that they should obey him? Steps were at
once taken to enforce obedience. Since to storm the hill might well
cost many lives, it seemed preferable to try to lure its defenders
from their stronghold. The Resident, without giving the brigands
further warning, went up the Rejang with a single boat's crew to a
point about 150 miles above the mouth of the Bali, the tributary
that flows past Bukit Batu. At this point another tributary, the
Bukau, coming from near the opposite side of Bukit Batu, joins the
Rejang. Here he collected a force of some 200 Kayans and Klemantans,
and led them up to the head of the Bukau and then on foot through
the jungle to the neighbourhood of Bukit Batu. The route by which
the brigands usually passed to and from their fastness was at a spot
near the river, where rude ladders of wood and rattan had been fixed
to facilitate the ascent and descent of the precipitous foot of the
hill. Near this spot the force was divided into two parties, which
were stationed in the jungle at some little distance from the ladders,
right and left of the path to the river; and a party of ten active men
was detached, with instructions to hang about the foot of the ladders
and to retreat along the path to the river if they were attacked. On
the second day the Ibans on the mountain snapped at the bait. About
forty of them descended stealthily and then rushed upon the small
party, hoping to hunt down in the jungle all whom they could not
strike down on the spot, and thus to secure ten heads and enjoy the
frenzy of slaughter. The ten decoys fled swiftly down the path, and
the supporting parties, guided by the yells of the Ibans, closed in
from both sides and fell upon them. A few of the rebels were killed,
without any fatal casualties to the Resident's party. The rest fled
through the jungle and many of them were afterwards arrested. Those
who remained on the hill promptly drew up the ladders and hurled down
rocks. To have carried the hill by storm would still have been most
difficult and costly, and, as it proved, a needless feat. The Resident
therefore contented himself with destroying all the property of the
brigands that was within reach, including a number of valuable jars
and gongs which they had secreted in a cave at the foot of the hill,
and the fields of young PADI on which they were largely dependent
for their food-supply. For he well knew that this procedure would
render the spot hateful to the Ibans; for the scene of a disaster,
especially one where they have been worsted in fight, becomes an
object of superstitious dread. The Resident therefore led back
his party by the way they had come, dismissed them to their homes,
and returned down river to Sibu, after sending a command to those
remaining on the hill that they should present themselves forthwith
at Kapit. The order was obeyed; fines, pledges, and compensations to
relatives of their victims were paid in; and the principal men were
ordered to reside for a year in the neighbourhood of Sibu Fort and
afterwards to return to their native districts.
It should be added that these Ibans frankly acknowledged that the
Resident had been too clever for them, and that they bore him no
ill-will; and that some of them, accompanying him on later excursions,
proved themselves willing helpers and agreeable companions.
Other and larger expeditions of armed forces have in the past been
led against tribes or villages, generally on account of their having
refused to surrender to the government members guilty of taking heads
or of attacking other villages wantonly and without permission. In
all cases the government officers have relied almost exclusively
upon the services of bodies of natives under the immediate charge of
their own chiefs and armed only with their native weapons. In some
cases the offending parties have fled from their villages without
offering active resistance; and in these cases the government force
has usually been content to inflict punishment by burning down their
houses and taking what property was left in them.
It is perhaps too much to hope that no cases of taking heads or of
wanton attack on jungle parties or on weak villages will ever again
occur. But such incidents have become very infrequent and the offenders
have seldom escaped punishment; for, unlike our own population, many
thousands of whom live detached from all local bonds as isolated
floating units unknown to the government and to those among whom
they dwell, every man in Sarawak, with the partial exception of the
nomad jungle-dwellers, is a member of some local group which is held
responsible by the government for his good behaviour; thus in every
district every man is known, if not as an individual, at least as a
member of some community; and every stranger (or party of strangers)
is expected to be able to give a satisfying account of himself; and
any who wish to work in the jungle of any district other than their
own are required to have government permission. It is thus impossible
for any criminal to conceal himself for any length of time from the
government; and so sure is it of effecting arrest, when necessary,
that accused persons are frequently allowed to attend to their farms
and follow their ordinary occupations pending the time of their
trial. Even when a man accused of a serious offence flees across the
border to Dutch territory, he is generally apprehended by the Dutch
officers sooner or later and sent round to Kuching by sea.
The raising of the taxes from the people to defray the expenses of
government has raised no difficulties. The door-tax of two dollars[217]
per door (I.E. per family or household) is the only direct tax laid
on the tribes. When once the initial reluctance has been overcome,
this has been collected and regularly paid in by chiefs and PENGHULUS,
including the headmen of the nomad groups. In times of misfortune,
whether individual or collective, such as the loss of crops or of a
house by fire, the tax is remitted; and no tax is expected from men
over sixty years of age, from cripples or invalids, or from widows.
The Sea Dayaks alone pay a door-tax of one dollar only, it having been
understood from the early days, when they were the only fighting tribe
with which the Rajah was intimately acquainted, that they are liable
at any time to be called upon by the government to render assistance
in punitive expeditions or in other public works, such as procuring
timber for government buildings. But this holds good only for those
who remain in the districts in which they have long been settled.
The sum raised by direct taxation forms now but a small part of the
total revenue of the State of Sarawak; for the development of trade
and agriculture, especially the cultivation of pepper and sago and
rubber, and the growing capacity and facilities for the purchase of
imported goods by the people even of the remotest parts, enable the
government to raise a considerable revenue by indirect taxation in
the form of customs duties.
The minerals, worked in the main by the Borneo Company,[218]
principally gold, antimony, and mercury, have also been an important
source of revenue. The recent discovery of supplies of petroleum
promises to result in an important addition to the wealth of the
country.[219] But these various commercial and industrial developments
affect hardly at all the lives of the pagan tribes, So far as they
are concerned, the work of the government may be summed up by saying
that it has suppressed the chronic warfare which kept them all in a
state of armed hostility and uneasy distrust of one another; that it
has suppressed head-hunting and crimes of violence, has rendered life
and property secure, and has administered justice with a firm hand
and a strict regard to the customs and traditional sentiments of the
people; that it has wellnigh extinguished slavery; that it has opened
the whole country to trade, and, by thus improving the facilities for
sale of the jungle produce, has increased the purchasing power of the
people, while bringing within the reach of all of them the products of
civilised industry that they most value; and that while it has strictly
regulated the sale of those products, such as fire-arms and strong
liquor, which have proved detrimental to so many other peoples of the
lower culture, it has encouraged the people to cultivate a greater
variety of vegetable products, especially sago, coconuts, pepper, and
rubber, and to improve the methods of cultivation of PADI. Lastly,
the government has rendered possible the establishment of a number
of excellent mission schools in older stations, where considerable
numbers of children of the pagan tribes have been made Christians and
trained to fill subordinate posts in the administrative service, or
to return to leaven the native villages with a wider knowledge and a
better understanding of the principles which underlie the white man's
conduct and culture. The missionaries have exerted also among the Sea
Dayaks a strong influence making for peace and order; but they have
hardly yet come into contact with Kayans or Kenyahs. Mention must also
be made of the Malay schools which the government has instituted and
supported in the principal stations, and in which many young Malays
receive the elements of a useful education.
In all its undertakings the success of the government has only been
rendered possible by the high prestige that the white man everywhere
enjoys; and this in turn has been acquired and maintained, not so much
by his command of the mechanical resources of western civilisation,
as by the fact that, with very few exceptions, the white men with
whom the natives have had intercourse have been English gentlemen,
animated by the spirit and example of the two white Rajahs, and
keenly conscious of their individual and collective responsibility
as representatives of their race and country in a foreign land.[220]
We have dwelt at some length on the government of the Rajah of Sarawak
in its relation with the pagan tribes, and, if we dismiss in a few
words the administrative labours of the Dutch and of the British North
Borneo Company in their respective territories, it is not because we
regard those labours as of less interest and importance or as less
successful, but because in the main they have run on similar lines and
have achieved similar results to those of the government of Sarawak, of
which alone we have intimate knowledge. Dutch Borneo comprises roughly
two-thirds of the whole island, a very large territory which comprises
the basins of the largest rivers and hence, the rivers being the only
highways, the most inaccessible parts of the island. The Kapuas River,
for example, is estimated to be nearly 700 miles in length; and the
necessity of ascending these hundreds of miles of river-way, much of
it difficult and dangerous, has rendered the process of establishing
control over the tribes of the interior slow and laborious. For this
reason the process is not yet completed; although the Dutch have had
stations in Borneo since the early years of the seventeenth century,
when they expelled the Portuguese from Bruni and Sambas. But it was
not until 1785 that they came into possession of any considerable
territory, namely, the Sultanate of Banjermasin, and not till after the
return to them of their East Indian rights in 1816 that they extended
their territorial possessions to their present large proportions.
The Dutch settlement and possessions in Borneo were for many years
administered by traders and a trading company whose prime object was,
of course, profitable trade. The problems of native administration no
doubt seemed to them at first of minor importance and interest, and
they made many mistakes.[221] But, as with our own great company in
India, it became increasingly necessary, if only for the sake of trade,
to study the art and policy of administering the affairs of the native
population. This has now been done to good effect, and, stimulated
possibly by the example of wise paternal government afforded by the
Rajahs of Sarawak, the Dutch have established a system of Residents or
district officers who have successfully invoked the co-operation of
the native chiefs in a manner very similar to that practised in the
neighbouring state. And the Dutch officers have of late years shown
themselves willing and able effectively to co-operate with those of
Sarawak in all matters of common interest, especially in the settlement
of troubles on the boundary between their territories. The enlightened
interest of the Dutch Government in the welfare of the tribes of the
far interior and in the promotion of ethnographical knowledge has
been strikingly manifested in the opening years of this century by
the despatch of two successive expeditions, under the leadership of
Dr. Nieuwenhuis, to study the people, their customs and conditions,
and by its generous expenditure upon the publication of the handsome
volumes in which he has embodied his valuable reports.[222] On the
second journey this intrepid traveller penetrated to the head of the
Batang Kayan, and there made the acquaintance of the same Kenyahs
who had recently visited the Resident of the Baram. In this way the
spheres of Dutch and of British influence have been made to overlap
in these central highlands.
The Physical Characters of the Races and Peoples of Borneo
A. C. Haddon
Introduction
The following sketch of the races and peoples of Borneo is based
upon the observations of the Cambridge Expedition to Sarawak in 1899
and those of Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis in his expeditions to Netherlands
Borneo in 1894, 1896 -- 1897, and 1898 -- 1900 (QUER DURCH BORNEO,
Leiden, vol. i., 1904, vol. ii., 1907).
It is generally acknowledged that in Borneo, as in other islands of
the East Indian Archipelago, the Malays inhabit the coasts and the
aborigines the interior, though in some these reach the coast while
Malayised tribes have pushed inland up the rivers, a sharp distinction
between the two being frequently obliterated where they overlap. The
condition, however, is much more complicated as we can now distinguish
at least two main races among the aborigines.
We have no evidence as to who were the primitive inhabitants of
Borneo. One would expect to find Negritos in the interior, as these
black, woolly-haired pygmies inhabit the Andamans, parts of the
Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, the Philippines, New Guinea, and possibly
Melanesia. No authoritative evidence of their occurrence in Borneo
is forthcoming, and one can confidently assert that there are no
Negritos in Sarawak. Nor are there any traces of Melanesians. It is
generally admitted that, assuming the Australians to be mainly of
that race, a Pre-Dravidian element should occur in the Archipelago,
and the cousins Sarasin have noted this strain among the Toalas of
Celebes and Moszkowski among the Batins of Sumatra; in this connection
it is of interest that Nieuwenhuis discovered ten Ulu Ayars and two
Punans with straight hair and a "black or blue-black" skin colour;
Kohlbrugge,[223] who records this observation, offers no explanation.
Dr. E. T. Hamy in 1877 recognised a primitive element in the Malay
Archipelago, for which he adopted the term Indonesian, a name
previously invented by Logan for the non-Malay population of the
East Indian Archipelago. De Quatrefages and Hamy further established
this stock in their CRANIA ETHNICA (1882), and de Quatrefages in
his HISTOIRE GENERALE DES RACES HUMAINES (1889) boldly states that
these high- and narrow-headed peoples are "un des rameaux de la
branche blanche allophyle" (L.C. pp. 515, 521). Keane terms the
Indonesians "the pre-Malay Caucasic element in Oceania" (MAN PAST
AND PRESENT, 1899, p. 231). Various investigators[224] have studied
skulls obtained from this region which prove the wide extension of
dolichocephaly. Kohlbrugge (1898), who investigated the Teriggerese,
Indonesian mountaineers of Java, says: "Les Indonesiens sont
dolichocephales, les Malais brachycephales ou hyperbrachycephales. Le
sang indonesien se decele donc par la longueur de la tete: plus
celle-ci se rapproche du type dolichocephale, plus pur est le sang
indonesien." Volz confirms Hagen's observations of the existence
among the Battak of North Sumatra of two types, a dolichocephalic
Indonesian and a brachycephalic type.
The term Indonesian may now be regarded as definitely restricted to
a dolichocephalic, and the term Proto-Malay to a brachycephalic race,
of which the true Malays (Orang Malayu) are a specialised branch.
The next point to discuss is the presence of these two races in
Borneo. The Dutch Expedition found three distinct types in the interior
of Netherlands Borneo, the Ulu Ayars (Ulu Ajar)[225] or Ot Danum of the
upper Kapuas, the Bahau-Kenyahs (Bahau-Kenja) of the middle or upper
Mahakam (or Kotei) and the upper waters of the rivers to the north,
and the Punans, nomadic hunters living in the highlands about the
head-waters of the great rivers. The first of these may be classed
as predominantly Indonesian and the others as mainly Proto-Malay in
origin. According to Nieuwenhuis the Bahaus and Kenyahs both remember
that they came from Apo Kayan at the headwaters of the Kayan river;
they were formerly known as the Pari tribes. In all the tribes of this
group the social organisation is in the main similar, and this affinity
is borne out by their material culture, thus they may be regarded as
originally one people. Tribes calling themselves Bahau now live along
the Mahakam above Mujub and include one Kayan group; on the upper
Rejang are Bahau tribes under the name of Kayan, and a small section
has advanced into the Kapuas area and settled on the Mendalam which
again includes Kayans and kindred tribes. All the tribes still in Apo
Kayan call themselves Kenyah, as also those of the eastward flowing
Tawang, Berau and Kayan (or Bulungan) rivers and those of the upper
Limbang and Baram flowing northwards. The Kenyahs of Apo Kayan live
along the Iwan, a tributary of the Kayan river (or Bulungan); to the
north-east is another tributary called the Bahau which seems to have
been the original home of the Bahau people since the tribes of Borneo
habitually take their names from the rivers along which they live.[226]
Nieuwenhuis came to the conclusion that the three chief tribes
measured by him represented three main groups of the population of
Central Borneo, physically and culturally. Mr. E. B. Haddon drew
attention (MAN, 1905 No. 13, p. 22) to the close similarity of the
results published by Kohlbrugge (1903) with those published by me
(1901). I recognised five main groups of peoples in Sarawak: Punan,
Klemantan (or, as Dr. Hose and I then spelled it, Kalamantan),
Kenyah-Kayan, Iban or Sea Dayak, and Malay. The Ibans are not
referred to by either of the Dutch ethnologists, who, like myself,
merely alluded to the Malay element. Kohlbrugge and I included the
Bakatan or Beketan and the Ukit or Bukat in the Punan group, and
also bracketed together the Kayans and Kenyahs. In Sarawak there
are numerous and often small tribes which it is frequently very
difficult or quite impossible to differentiate from one another,
although the extremes of the series can be distinguished; we therefore
decided to comprehend them under the non-committal term of Klemantan
(p. 42). I showed that they were of mixed origin, and stated that,
"It is possible that the Kalamantans were originally a dolichocephalic
people who mixed first with the indigenous brachycephals (Punan group)
and later with the immigrant brachycephals (Kenyah-Kayan group)
or the Kalamantans may have been a mixed people when they first
arrived in Borneo and subsequently increased their complexity by
mixing with these two groups" (L.C. p. 352). I also made it clear
that I regarded the dolichocephalic element as of Indonesian stock
and the brachycephalic of Proto-Malayan origin. It was with great
satisfaction that I found Kohlbrugge had come to similar conclusions
and that the Ulu Ayars exhibit such strong traces of an Indonesian
origin, stronger perhaps than those of any tribe in Sarawak, with the
possible exception of the scarcely studied Muruts and allied tribes.
Kohlbrugge states (1903, p. 2) that he has shown for the interior
of Sumatra, Java, and Celebes that there are mesaticephalic
peoples distinct in other respects from the coast peoples, but not
dolichocephalic. He concludes that the (Ulu Ayar) Dayaks, being the
only dolichocephals, are the only pure Indonesians, and the rest
(Kayans and Punans) are more or less mixed with Malays. The mean
cephalic index of 130 Tenggerese of the interior of Java is 79.7,
but the Ulu Ayars constitute a uniform group which ranges from 7 1
to 81.4, of which 9 are 74 or under and 9 are between 74.1 and 76
inclusive, the median of 26 adult males being 74.7.[227] [Although
the median Kalabit index in the living subject is somewhat higher,
that of the skulls, as well as the cranial index of Muruts and Trings
(Table C), is very similar in this respect to that of the Ulu Ayars.]
According to Nieuwenhuis' statistics, as given by Kohlbrugge, there is
in the brachycephalic group (Kayans and Punans) a greater range (75 to
93.3, and 1 Kayan woman reaches 97) than in the Ulu Ayars; most fall
between 78 and 85, the medians of both being just over 81. There are 8
dolichocephals[228] out of his 43 Kayan men and 4 out of his 25 women,
but only I Punan out of 14. In his curve of the Kayan indices there is
a drop at 82 [a curve of my data shows a similar drop]. "I leave it an
open question," he says (p. 13), "whether this break indicates mixture
of a dolichocephalic and brachycephalic group; this can only be decided
by the study of more abundant material, and requires confirmation from
the geographical and ethnographical standpoint. At all events it may
be assumed A priori that if long-headed and broadheaded peoples occur
in the interior of Borneo, then mixed peoples will also be met with,
and the Kayans might be such." [An examination of my data will show
that there is practically no difference between the Kayans and Kenyahs
in this respect.]
A comparison is also possible between the bi-zygomatic breadths made
by Nieuwenhuis and ourselves. The figures are those of the minimum,
median, and maximum. KAYANS (43 [male], N) 126,
139, 153 ; (25 [female], N) 125, 132, 141; (21
[male], H) 132, 141, 150. PUNANS (14 [ERROR:
unhandled ♂], N) 132, 138, 145; (19 [male],
H) 130, 142, 154. ULU AYARS (26 [male], N) 12 5,
136, 145. LAND DAYAKS (42 [male], S) 122, 136, 145.
Kohlbrugge points out that there seems to be no ground for dividing the
"Indonesians" into a taller and shorter group since the differences
are slight. If this distinction were drawn, the Ulu Ayars (av. 1.571
m., med. 1.551 m.) would belong to the shorter group as would the
Enganese (av. 1.570 m.). His 34 Kayan men (av. 1.584 m., med. 1.582
m.) and 14 Punan men (av. 1.583 m., med. 1.569 m.) and the Gorontalese
(1.584 m.) are intermediate between these and the Tenggerese (1.604
m.) and Battak (1.605). I also find this distinction untenable, as
our Kayans (av. 1.559 m., med. 1.550 m.) and Punans (av. 1.555 m.,
med. 1.550 m.) are of the same stature or even possibly shorter than
his Ulu Ayars, whereas our 16 Kenyah men (av. 1.597 m., med. 1.608)
are taller than his Kayans. He adds that the shorter "Indonesians"
live in the plains, the taller in the mountains, but he cannot say for
certain whether a mountain climate affects stature as many believe. It
is to be regretted that Kohlbrugge extends in this instance the term
Indonesian to the Kayans and Punans. Taking our measurements I find
that the Kenyahs and the Muruts (av. 1.601 m., med. 1.590 m.) are
the tallest groups, then come the Iban (av. 1.590 m., med. 1.585 m.),
the Kayan and Punan medians come about half-way between the tallest
Klemantans (Long Pokun, med. 1.590 m.) and the shortest (Lerong,
med. 1.520 m). The above figures refer to men only, the women are
markedly shorter.
Kohlbrugge gives the following information with regard to body
measurements: the Kayan women are 14 cm. shorter than the men, usually
the difference is 10 -- 12 cm. The span is greater than the stature,
the proportion is 105.2 : 100 in Kayans, 1034: 100 in Ulu Ayars and
106.5 : 100 in Punans and Tenggerese. In youths it is rather higher
than in men. The difference between Tenggerese and Ulu Ayars is due
to the latter having shorter arms, especially the upper arms, and
the chest of the Bornean peoples is 2 cm. narrower. Other Indonesian
peoples have a longer upper arm than the Ulu Ayars, who also have
the tibia shorter in proportion to the femur. Kayan and Ulu Ayar men
have a comparatively shorter femur than the Punan. The latter thus
resemble the Tenggerese, the others have the same relative length
as many other peoples of the Archipelago; there is no difference
between the Malays and Indonesians in this respect. The Kayan women
have relatively a much longer femur than the men. The shorter tibia
makes the whole leg of the Bornean peoples shorter than in others --
except that the Punans make it up with a longer femur. Women and young
people have longer legs than men. The Punans have the fattest calves
approximating to the Tenggerese, the other Bornean tribes are more
like the Gorontalese. The chest girth of Ulu Ayars and Tenggerese is
almost the same, despite the difference in the breadth of the chest,
in which the Ulu Ayars resemble the inhabitants of Atchin measured by
Lubbers. The proportion of the length of the foot to the stature is
16 : 100 in Kayans of both sexes, 154 : 100 in Ulu Ayars, and 15.2 in
Punans. But the Kayan feet are shorter than those of the Gorontalese,
who have the longest feet in the Archipelago. The other Bornean
peoples are the same as Indonesians who resemble the Malays in this
respect. The pelvic breadth of the Kayan men and women is equal (26
cm.), though men have the wider chest; the Punan pelvis is narrower
than in the other two tribes; but in all three the pelvis is broader
than in the Tenggerese.
We must now turn to the evidence of the crania, of which only a very
brief account need be presented here. Owing to the fact that the
people are head-hunters the skulls obtained by a traveller in any
house are necessarily those of another community, group, or tribe
than that to which the occupants of the house belong. Consequently
it is necessary for a traveller to learn from the inhabitants the
provenience of each cranium, and every one in the house knows it. It
is useless for analytical purposes to deal with skulls of which
the tribe is not accurately known; the information that a skull was
obtained in a certain village or on a particular river is, as a rule,
of very little value.
In Table C I give particulars of three head indices of 83 crania, of
which the history is known in each case. Fifty-eight of these have
been presented by Dr. Hose to the University of Cambridge. I have
added to these 5 Murut, 1 Lepu Potong, 1 Kalabit, 1 Tring, 1 Bisaya,
and 1 Orang Bukit, which Dr. Hose presented to the Royal College of
Surgeons, London, 1 Ukit skull in the same museum, 3 Dusun in the
British Museum, and 5 Murut, 3 Maloh, and 3 Kayan, which I measured
in Sarawak. I have chosen the cranial length-breadth, length-height,
and breadth-height indices, as these are more directly comparable with
the corresponding cephalic indices of Table A. A detailed account of
these crania must await a more suitable occasion.
The dolichocephalic crania are, as a rule, distinctly akrocephalic,
that is, the length-height index is superior to the length-breadth
index, but this is not the case with the brachycephals. I find the
average length-height index in the living subject of a dozen inland
tribes is 72.5 for 131 males and 78.2 for 40 females. That is, so far
as our measurements go, the women are more akrocephalic than the men,
which is unusual.
The conclusions to be drawn from a somatological investigation are
necessarily limited. In my introductory remarks I stated that one could
distinguish two main races among the principal groups of the peoples of
Sarawak, a dolichocephalic and a brachycephalic, and that the former
might be termed Indonesian and the latter Proto-Malay; further, no
one group is probably of pure race, though it appears that some may be
predominantly Indonesian and others Proto-Malay. I do not for a moment
suggest that there was one migration of pure Indonesians and another
of pure Proto-Malays which flooded Borneo and by various minglings
produced the numerous tribes of that island, though I do suggest that
there have been throughout the whole Archipelago various movements
of peoples, some of which may have been relatively pure communities
of these two races. There can be little doubt that we must look to
the neighbouring regions of the mainland of Asia for their immediate
point of departure southwards, for we now know that two similar races
have inhabited this area from a remote antiquity. The light- (or
light-brown) skinned dolichocephals of south-east Asia, assuming for
the present that they are all of one race, have frequently been termed
Caucasians -- for the present I prefer to speak of them as Indonesians
-- and of these there are doubtless several strains. The light- (or
light-brown) skinned brachycephals are usually grouped as Southern
Mongols. In the south-east corner of Asia there are probably several
strains of these brachycephals which hitherto have been insufficiently
studied. Even when an Indonesian element has been recognised in
the population of the Archipelago there has been too persistent a
practice of terming the brachycephalic element "Malay." The true Malay,
Orang Malayu, is merely a specialised branch of a stock for which I
prefer the non-committal name of Proto-Malay, even "Southern-Mongol"
is preferable to "Malay." The Proto-Malay race has its roots on the
mainland. It has yet to be shown how far the brachycephals of this
region belong to what is here termed the Proto-Malay race or to what
extent other, and doubtless allied, stocks are implicated. If, as is
very probable, there have been migrations of differentiated peoples
from the mainland into the islands, the Bornean peoples may be of more
complex origin than the earlier generalisations might suggest. The
dissecting out and the tracing of the migrations of these peoples
is the work of ethnography, somatology can be of little assistance;
all that I have done is to provide a certain amount of material for
the use of students in the future. It must also be remembered that
the immigrants from the mainland may have had at one time infusions
of Negrito or Pre-Dravidian (Sakai) blood, not to speak of Tibetan,
Chinese, or other mixtures. Similarly when the first migrations from
the mainland took place the fairer-skinned immigrants probably found
an indigenous population of Negritos, Pre-Dravidians, and possibly
to some extent of Papuans in various parts of the Archipelago. We
know that many of the islands, including Borneo, have been subject to
direct migrations from India and China, and there has doubtless been
a certain amount of movement of peoples from island to island. The
racial history of this region is therefore extremely complex.
Dr. Hose has suggested the following classification[229] of the
peoples of Sarawak (exclusive of the Malays), which I have followed
in arranging the descriptions given below. For the sake of comparison
I have recast the data published by Kohlbrugge concerning the three
types studied by Nieuwenhuis; it is unfortunate that our several
results cannot be more closely correlated.
A Classification of the Peoples of Sarawak
1. Murut Group:
Murut, Pandaruan, Tagal, Dusun;
Kalabit, Lepu Potong;
Adang, Tring.
II. Klemantan Group:
1. South-western Group:
Land Dayaks;
[Certain tribes of Netherlands Borneo];
Maloh.
2. Central Group:
A. Baram sub-group: Bisaya, Tabun, Orang Bukit,
Kadayan, Pliet, Long Pata, Long Akar.
B. Barawan sub-group: Murik, Long Julan, Long Ulai,
Batu Blah, Long Kiput, Lelak, Barawan, Sakapan,
Kajaman.
C. Bakatan sub-group: Seping, Tanjong, Kanawit,
Bakatan, Lugat.
3. Sebop Group:
Malang, Tabalo, Long Pokun, Sebop, Lerong;
Milanau (including Narom and Miri).
III. Punan Group:
Punan, Ukit, Siduan, Sigalang.
IV. Kenyah Group:
Madang, Long Dallo, Apoh, Long Sinong, Long Lika Bulu,
Long Tikan.
V. Kayan Group.
VI. Iban Group: Iban (Sea Dayaks) and Sibuyau.
Descriptions of Peoples
General Remarks on the Methods of Taking Observations
The physical characters and measurements of each individual were noted
on a separate card, and the bulk of them have been embodied in the
following synopses. As my object has been to give a general impression
of each group, I have not burdened the descriptions with superfluous
scattered observations. The original records are available in Cambridge
for any desirous of consulting them. The statistics given refer to
the several recorded observations; where these fall short of the total
number it may be taken for granted that as a rule the remainder did not
depart markedly from the normal standard of the group in question --
the presence of salient characters would be noted, not their absence.
In Table A certain measurements and indices are given of the more
important groups in order to facilitate comparisons. Very small
groups and half-breeds have been omitted, the object being to
summarise the characters of the adults of the larger groups. The
median in most cases is practically identical with the average,
but where a difference occurs, the median more nearly represents the
central type. The indices are based on a calculation to two decimal
places; where the second decimal place is under five it is left out of
account, and where five or over the first decimal place is augmented
by one. This table should be compared with Table C.
In the other tables all the measurements and indices are given.
HEAD: LENGTH, from glabella to most prominent point of occiput;
BREADTH, maximum at right angles to above; BI-AURIC BREADTH, from base
of the tragus, pressing firmly; CIRCUMFERENCE, greatest circumference
immediately above the glabella; AURICULAR VERTICAL ARC, from base
of tragus over the vertex; AURICULAR RADII taken with a Cunningham's
radiometer from the ear-hole. FACE: TOTAL LENGTH, from nasion to chin;
UPPER LENGTH, from nasion to alveolus; BI-ZYGOMATIC BREADTH, from
greatest prominence of cheek arches, pressing firmly; INTER-OCULAR
WIDTH, between inner angles of the eyes; BI-GONIAL BREADTH, from the
angle of the lower jaw, pressing firmly. NOSE: LENGTH, from nasion
to angle with lip; BREADTH, between outer curvature of alae, without
pressure; BI-MALAR BREADTH, from the outer upper corner of the margin
of the orbit, pressing firmly (this was usually marked with a soft
pencil); NASO-MALAR LINE, between these points over the bridge of
the nose.
The term DOLICHOCEPHALIC is used to designate a cephalic index of
77.9 and under, and BRACHYCEPHALIC one of 78 and over. Heads with a
length-height index of 66.9 and under are PLATYCEPHALIC, those of 67 --
69.9 are MESOCEPHALIC, and those of 70 and over are HYPSICEPHALIC. The
breadth-height limits are 82.9, 83 -- 84.9, and 85. The term
CHAMAEPROSOPIC is used where the total facial index is 89.9 and under,
and LEPTOPROSOPIC where it is 90 and over, the corresponding limit for
the upper facial index is -49.9 and 50+. Owing to the character of the
nose it was not easy in most cases to ascertain the exact upper limit
of the length, and it is probably owing to this that the indices show
such marked platyrhiny. Unfortunately these indices cannot be compared
with those obtained by Nieuwenhuis, as he measured to the tip of the
nose and not to its angle with the lip as we did. The term LEPTORHINE
is used for noses with an index of 69.9 and under, MESORHINE for
70 -- 84.9, PLATYRHINE for 85 -- 99.9, and HYPER-PLATYRHINE for 100
and over. The profiles of the nose were compared with the figures in
NOTES AND QUERIES (1892). In speaking of the EYE, by fold is meant
the Mongolian fold which covers the caruncle. All the irises have a
brown colour, being either light, medium, or dark. The observations
on the EARS were made by means of MS. notes and diagrams drawn up
for me by Prof. A. Keith. He recommended that persons under fifteen
years of age or over sixty should not be noted, and that as there is
a very marked sexual difference, observations on men and women should
be kept quite separate. Variations in every race are, within certain
limits, so numerous that he suggested that at least a hundred of each
sex should be observed; although the numbers examined of the several
tribes is usually very small, their total number will probably be found
sufficient to give a fair idea of the more common types of ears. The
TYPES of ears suggested by Dr. Keith are (1) "European": this applies
only to the general shape; the folding, etc., varies enormously. (2)
"Negroid": this resembles the "Orang type" but differs in being
two-thirds of a circle; that is to say, the Negroid ear has a much
greater breadth relative to its height than the ears of Europeans. (3)
"Orang": this is the smallest and most degenerate form of ear, seen
in its most typical form in the orang utan; it is the common female
type. (4) "Chimpanzee": this is the largest and most primitive form
of ear, and is found in its typical condition in the chimpanzee;
it is commonly, but not always, set at a considerable angle to the
head. ANGLE: The ear may be appressed (0), or it may stand out from
the head at an angle of less than 30[degree] (1), between 30[degree]
and 60[degree] (2), or over 60[degree] (3). LOBULE: This is never
totally absent, but when it is 3 mm. or less from the middle of the
curved base of the anti-tragus it may be called approximately so
(0), when 3 -- 10 mm. it is small (1), 10 -- 15 mm. medium (2),
over 15 mm. long (3). The lobule may be free or adhere partially
or totally to the side of the face. DESCENDING HELIX: The degree of
folding varies; there may be none (0), under 2 mm. (1), between 2 and
4 mm. (2), between 4 and 6 mm. (3). DARWIN'S POINT: It may be absent
(0), or present as a distinct tip (1), as an infolded tip (2), as an
inrolled knob (3), or as a slight thickening of the infolded part
of the helix (4); the position is constant in the upper posterior
segment. TRAGUS: This may be absent (0), otherwise it varies in size
measured from base to apex, under 3 mm. (I), between 3 and 5 mm. (2),
or 5 to 7 mm. (3). Sometimes it has two apices. ANTI-TRAGUS: This
also may be absent (0), or if present the size from base to apex
measures as in the tragus under 3 mm. (1), between 3 and 5 mm. (2),
or 5 -- 7 mm. (3). ANTI-HELIX: It is bent into an angle slightly or
not at all (0), the angle does not reach the level of the helix (1),
the angle is a little within or a little beyond the level of the helix
(2), it is very prominent, distinctly beyond the level of the helix
(3). Its prominence is a human feature.
As regards the HAIR, in all cases where there were a number of
observations one or two of the oldest men had grizzled or even grey
hair. The hair of the head is usually worn long and often attains
a length of about two feet, but it is sometimes cut shorter and is
occasionally very short. It is usually fairly abundant, but in all
groups a few persons have scanty hair. The hair of the face is in
all groups either absent or very scanty; the same applies to the body
hair. The only scale of SKIN colours we had was that given in the NOTES
AND QUERIES ON ANTHROPOLOGY (2nd ed., 1892), but as this was obviously
inadequate for the purpose, Dr. Hose prepared a scale for our use
in the field, the shades of which have subsequently been as far as
possible equated with those of Prof. von Luschan's Hautfarben-Tafel
(Puhl and Wagner, Rixdorf); it is these numbers which appear in
brackets in the following descriptions, and I have also attempted
to describe them in English; the term cinamon is based on the colour
of the stick cinnamon of commerce. The colours were usually matched
from the inner aspect of the upper arm so as to avoid the darkening
caused by the burning of the sun. Besides the information recorded
on the cards, a number of additional data on skin colour collected
by Dr. Hose are included in the synopses. As regards STATURE the
subject is described as SHORT when he measures less than 1.625 m. (5
ft. 4 in.), MEDIUM 1.625 -- 1.724 m. (5 ft. 4 in. to 5 ft. 8 in.),
and TALL 1.725 m. and over; the subject had his eyes looking towards
the horizon.
With the exception of the observations by Mr. R. Shelford, mainly on
the Land Dayaks and Iban, which are duly noted, all the data on the
living were collected by Dr. W. McDougall and myself, either separately
or conjointly, and I have to thank him for permitting me to work up
the results. Our thanks are due to Dr. Hose, at whose invitation we
went to Sarawak, and without whose zeal, knowledge of the country,
and wonderful influence over the natives this work could not have
been accomplished. Mr. S. H. Ray also assisted us as amanuensis. Most
of the figures were tabulated for me by Miss Barbara Friere-Marreco
and the remainder by Miss Lilian Whitehouse, who also has greatly
assisted me in drawing up this memoir.
I. Murut Group
Seven KALABIT men and 3 women and 4 MURUT men were measured. No
descriptive details of the Muruts are available.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic indices show 7 to be dolichocephalic and 7
brachycephalic; the 3 women are slightly more dolichocephalic than
the men, for whom the median is 78.5. One Kalabit is platycephalic,
1 mesocephalic, and 8 hypsicephalic as regards length-height, and
all are hypsicephalic as regards breadth-height. Four Kalabits were
noted as having oval heads, in 1 the occiput was prominent, 1 ovoid,
and 1 woman ellipsoidal.
FACE: Five Kalabits have pentagonal faces, being rather broad in 3,
2 were long and rather narrow, the jaws are narrow in 2. They show
a marked tendency to prognathism, especially dental prognathism. The
Kalabits are chamaeprosopic as regards both the total facial and the
upper facial indices, with one exception in both respects. The forehead
has a slight tendency to be narrow and high. The cheek-bones are
moderately prominent in 5 men and 1 woman and not prominent in 2 men
and 1 woman. The lips are moderately full. The chin is rather small,
and retreating in 3. NOSE: One Murut is leptorhine, 2 Kalabit men are
mesorhine, 6 are platyrhine, and 5 hyper-platyrhine. The root is high
in 4 Kalabit men, narrow in 3, broad in 4 and 1 woman, and flat in 3
and 1 woman; the base is reflected in 3 of each sex, and straight in
2 men; the alae are small in 4 men and 3 women, moderate in 3 men,
and round in 1 of each sex; the nostrils are rounded in 5 men and
3 women, and wide in 2 men. EYES: The aperture is narrow in 1 man,
moderately open in 5 men and 1 woman, wide in 1 man and 2 women; it
is straight with no fold in 5 men, straight with slight fold in 1 man,
more or less oblique with slight fold in 1 man and 2 women, in 1 woman
it is straight and the fold is more developed in the right eye than
in the left; the colour is medium in 1 man, dark brown in 5 men and
3 women. EARS: Type European in 3 of each sex, Negroid in 1 man, and
intermediate in 2 men; angle prominent in 5 men and 3 women, slightly
prominent in 2 men; lobule always distended, in 2 men it is adherent;
descending helix infolded under 2 mm. in all but 1 man in whom it is
under 4 mm.; Darwin's point absent in 3 men and 1 woman, doubtful in
2 men, infolded in 1 man, inrolled in 2 women; tragus under 3 mm. in 2
men, 3 -- 5 mm. in the rest; anti-tragus absent in 4 men, and 1 woman,
under 3 mm. in 3 men and 2 women; anti-helix below level of helix in
2 of each sex, about at the same level in 5 men and 1 woman.
HAIR: It is straight to wavy in 1 of each sex, wavy in 3 men and 1
woman, wavy-curly in 1 man. The colour is rusty black in 7 men and
3 women. It is moderately abundant and long.
SKIN: Four are lightest cinamon (12), 1 light cinamon (14), 1 cinamon
(6), 2 pale fawn (pale 17), 2 dull fawn (17).
Stature: All but 1 Murut man are of short stature, 1 Kalabit man being
only 1.485 m. (4 ft. 10 1/2 in.), the 3 women are still shorter,
1 being 1.410 m. (4 ft. 7 1/2 in.), the median for the Kalabits is
1.565 (5 ft. 1 1/2 in.).
II. Klemantan Group
1. South-western Group
(A) Forty-two LAND DAYAK men were measured by Mr. Shelford.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic indices range fairly evenly from 73.5 to 86.9,
19 men being dolichocephalic; the median is 78.4.
FACE: One is noted as very broad and 2 as prognathous. All but 1 are
chamaeprosopic as regards the total facial index and all but 6 as
regards the upper facial. NOSE: Nineteen are mesorhine, 17 platyrhine,
and 6 hyper-platyrhine; 1 is noted as aquiline, 3 as straight but
flat, and 2 have a low bridge; 2 have broad alae, 1 having a very
concave nose, broader than long with an index of 116.2, and wide
nostrils, it is evidently abnormal. Byes: A fold is mentioned in 18,
of which 3 are slight and 2 pronounced, its absence is noted in 3;
5 have medium brown irises.
HAIR: It is noted as straight in 6 and wavy in 2; it is black in 8,
and 24 have abundant hair; the hair of the face is absent in 7 and
sparse in 8, 1 had a stubbly beard.
SKIN: The colour of the skin is darker than that of other inland
tribes, 19 being of a very dark warm cinamon (25) and 4 cinamon
(6). It is noted in 1 as much darker when uncovered.
STATURE: None are tall, 7 are medium, the rest short, 4 being under
1.5 m. (4 ft. 11 in.), the median is 1.577 m. (5 ft. 2 in.).
[Thirty-one male and 4 female Ulu Ayar Dayaks were measured by
Nieuwenhuis, of these 5 were boys under 17, and all 4 females were
girls of 17 and under. See vol. ii., p. 315, note 1.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic indices range fairly evenly between 71 and
81.4, all but 5 are dolichocephalic, the median being 74.7.
FACE: It is usually of medium breadth; 2 (I.E. 6 per cent) have
broad faces. The bi-zygomatic breadth ranges from 125 to 145 mm.,
the median being 136 mm. NOSE: The breadth-measurements range from 36
to 46 mm., the length-measurements being taken from root to tip are
therefore not comparable. Eighteen males and 3 females are noted as
having concave noses, 13 and 1 as having broad flat noses, none as
straight or narrow, I.E. 60 per cent of the Ulu Ayars have concave
("depressed," "sunken," or "hollow") noses. EYES: The Mongolian fold
does not occur. The colour is dark.
HAIR: All had straight hair except 1 man; it is generally rather
scanty. The colour is black.
SKIN: The colour is noted as black or blue-black in 10, brown and
yellow in 5, light brown in 20.
STATURE: None are tall, 3 are medium, and the rest short, 2 being
under 1.5 m. (4 ft. 11 in.); the median is 1.551 (5 ft. 1 in.).]
(B) Seven MALOH men were measured by us.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic index is essentially dolichocephalic,
3 being low brachycephals, the median 76.8. Two are mesocephalic
in the length-height index and none in the breadth-height, all the
remainder are hypsicephalic in both respects; 4 are pyriform, 2 oval,
and 1 ellipsoidal in shape.
FACE: Two are pentagonal, 2 rather broad, and 2 long; alveolar
prognathism is noted in 3, 1 of which has also general prognathism. Two
only are leptoprosopic in their total and upper facial indices. The
forehead is somewhat narrow and high, the cheek-bones more or
less prominent, the lips are usually moderately full, and the chin
fairly well developed. NOSE: One is mesorhine, 4 platyrhine, and 2
hyper-platyrhine; the profile is equally divided between straight
and concave; the base is reflected in 5, deflected in 2; the alae are
rather small and the nostrils wide and rounded. EARS: Type European in
5 (1 doubtful), Negroid in 2; angle prominent in 5, slightly prominent
in 2; lobule distended in all; descending helix infolded under 2
mm. in 5, 2 -- 4 mm. in 2; Darwin's point absent in 5, inrolled in 2
(1 doubtful); tragus 3 -- 5 mm. in 5 (2 doubtful), rather less in 2;
anti-tragus absent in 1, doubtful in 1, under 3 mm. in 5 anti-helix
below level of helix in 4, about at the same level in 3.
HAIR: The hair is distinctly wavy and long; it is rusty black in 5
and black in 2. There is a moderate amount on the face and none on
the body.
SKIN: SIX are dull fawn (17).
STATURE: ALL are short, 1 being 1.47 m. (4 ft. 9 3/4 in.); the median
is 1.585 m. (5 ft. 2 1/2 in.).
2. Central Group
BARAWAN SUB-GROUP -- This consists of 1 Murik man, 1 Long Ulai man and
1 woman, 8 Long Kiput men, 3 Lelak men, 12 Barawan men and 5 women,
2 Sakapan men, 1 Kajaman, and 4 mixed breeds (I.E. mixed with other
Klemantan blood).
HEAD-FORM: Of the longer series the Barawans are the more
dolichocephalic, 6 men and 3 women have an index below 78, 1 Long Kiput
man and only 4 others being dolichocephalic; the median of the whole
series, excluding women, is 79. Most of the men and all the women
are hypsicephalic; but 2 Barawans are platycephalic, and 1 Barawan
and 2 mixed breeds are mesocephalic in length-height; 1 Long Kiput is
platycephalic in length-height and breadth-height, 2 are mesocephalic
in both respects, and 1 in length-height only; 1 Lelak is platycephalic
in length-height and mesocephalic in breadth-height. The shape is noted
as oval in 5 men and 3 women, ovoid in 1 of each sex, round in 3 men.
FACE: Nine men and 3 women have a pentagonal face; it is oval in 1 man
and 2 women, rather long in 5 men, square in 2 men, broad in 1 of each
sex. All are chamaeprosopic in both respects except 1 Barawan man as
regards total facial index and 2 in the upper. The forehead is rounded
or prominent in 8 men and 6 women, upright in 4 men and 1 woman, more
or less sloping in 4 men, broad and low in 5 men, narrow in 4 men. The
cheek-bones are large in 6 men and 1 woman, more or less prominent
in 10 men and 3 women, moderate in 11 men and 2 women. The lips vary
in thickness, 10 being thin and 7 more or less thick. The chin is
fairly well developed except in 6 men. NOSE: One Lelak is leptorhine,
2 Long Kiputs) 3 Barawan men and 2 women and 2 Barawan mixed breeds
are mesorhine; 5 Long Kiputs, 2 Lelaks, 6 Barawan men and 1 woman and 1
mixed breed, 1 Long Ulai man and woman and 2 Sakapans are platyrhine;
1 Long Kiput, 3 Barawan men and 2 women, 1 Murik and 1 Kajaman are
hyper-platyrhine. The profile is straight in 10 men and 1 woman, more
or less concave in 13 men and 5 women, slightly aquiline in 4 men;
blunt tips were noted in 2 cases. The root is more or less depressed
in 12 men and 4 women, not depressed in 7 men, broad and high in 3,
high in 3, narrow in 3. The base is reflected or slightly so in 16
men and 4 women, straight in 9 and 1, slightly deflected in 1 woman;
the alae are small in 3 men and 4 women, moderate in 4 men, and wide
in 5; the nostrils are round in 7 men and 5 women, oval in 10 and 1,
and transversely oval in 2 men. EYES: Aperture is moderate in 11 men
and 2 women, small in 10 men, large in 1 man. It is straight with no
fold in 3 men and 2 women, straight with a slight fold in 1 woman,
slightly oblique with no fold in 8 men and 1 woman, slightly oblique
with slight fold in 8 men and 2 women, in 1 Barawan man it is slightly
oblique with a very marked fold, 11 Barawans have more or less oblique
eyes of which 7 have a fold, 4 are straight, 1 of which has a slight
fold. Four men have light brown irises, 2 of each sex dark brown,
the remainder are medium. EARS: Type European in 5 Long Kiputs,
2 Lelaks, 8 Barawans and 2 mixed breeds, 1 Kajaman; Negroid in 1
Barawan mixed breed; orang in 2 Barawans. Angle slightly prominent in
1 Long Kiput, 2 mixed breeds and 1 Kajaman, rather more so in 1 Long
Kiput, prominent in 1 Lelak, 5 Barawans. Lobule distended throughout,
perforated in 2 Barawans, adherent in 1 mixed breed. Descending helix
absent in 1 Long Kiput, infolded less than 2 mm. in 4 Long Kiputs,
1 Lelak, 11 Barawans and 2 mixed breeds, 1 Kajaman; 2 -- 4 mm. in 1
Lelak, 1 Barawan mixed breed. Darwin's point absent in all except
1 Barawan and 1 mixed breed where it is an infolded tip. Tragus
under 3 mm. in 4 Long Kiputs, 1 Lelak, 1 Barawan and 1 mixed breed,
slightly more in 1 Lelak, 1 Barawan; 3 -- 5 mm. in 1 Long Kiput,
9 Barawans and 2 mixed breeds, 1 Kajaman. Anti-tragus absent in 1
Long Kiput, 3 Barawans; under 3 mm. in 3 Long Kiputs, 2 Lelaks,
7 Barawans and 3 mixed breeds, 1 Kajaman; 3 -- 5 mm. in 1 Long
Kiput, 1 Barawan. Anti-helix below level of helix in 2 Long Kiputs,
5 Barawans and 1 mixed breed; about at same level in 3 Long Kiputs,
2 Lelak, 6 Barawans and 2 mixed breeds, 1 Kajaman. The 5 Barawan
women have ears of European type; angle slightly prominent in 2,
prominent in 3; lobule distended in all; descending helix infolded
less than 2 mm. in 4, 2 -- 4 mm. in 1; Darwin's point absent in all;
tragus 3 -- 5 mm. in all; anti-tragus absent in 2, under 3 mm. in 3;
anti-helix below level of helix in 2, about at same level in 3.
HAIR: Seven men and 2 women have straight hair, 17 and 3 wavy, and
2 men curly hair; the colour. is rusty black in 13 men and 3 women,
black in 12 and 3, brown in 1 man. It is generally abundant and long.
SKIN: Three are cinamon (6), 6 light cinamon (14), 15 lighter still
(12), 3 dull fawn (17), 3 pale fawn (pale 17), 4 pale pinkish buff
(11).
STATURE: Four men are of medium stature, 30 are short, of whom 2
men and all 6 women are below 1.5 m., 1 Barawan woman being only
1.395 m. (4 ft. 7 in.); the Barawans as a whole are shorter than
the others. The median for the whole series of men is 1.54 m. (5
ft. 1/2 in.).
3. Sebop Group
Sixteen MALANG men and 4 women were measured.
HEAD-FORM: The indices show 10 men and 3 women to be dolichocephalic,
6 men and 1 woman brachycephalic; the median is 76.9 for the men. All
are hypsicephalic, except 2 men in respect to length-height. The shape
is described as ovoid in 7 men, oval in 2, round oval in 1 of each sex,
and ellipsoidal in 4 men.
FACE: IT is pentagonal in 10 men and 3 women, ovoid in 1 woman, and
lozenge-shaped in 1 man; 6 men have long faces and 2 broad. Alveolar
prognathism is noted in 3 men, and superciliary ridges in 3. All are
chamaeprosopic except 1 of each sex in regard to the upper facial
index. The forehead is full in 9 men and 1 woman, broad in 3 men and 1
woman, narrow in 4 and 1, low in 4 and 2, high in 4. The cheek-bones
are more or less prominent in 12 men and 2 women, moderate in 2 men,
and not prominent in 2 of each sex. The lips are moderately thin. The
chin is rather small in 6 men; it is fairly well developed in 7 men and
4 women. NOSE: 2 men and 1 woman are mesorhine, the rest platyrhine,
2 men being hyper-platyrhine. The profile is straight in 8 men and 1
woman, more or less concave in 4 men and 3 women, slightly aquiline
in 2 men, high-bridged in 1, and slightly sinuous in 1; blunt tips
are noted in 4 men and 3 women. The root is moderately high in 10 men
and 1 woman, low in 6 and 3; it is narrow in 3 men and broad in 9 men
and 3 women. The base is reflected in 12 men and 4 women, straight in
3 men; the aloe are small in 11 men and 4 women, and moderate in the
remaining men; the nostrils are round in 9 men and 1 woman, wide in 4
and 1, long oval in 2 men and round oval in 1, narrow and elongated
in 1 woman, large in 1 man, they are nearly or quite horizontal in
3 men. EYES: The aperture is small or narrow in 7 men and 2 women,
moderately open in 5 men and 1 woman; it is straight with no fold in
8 men and 1 woman, straight with a slight fold in 4 men, slightly
oblique with no fold in 2 men and 1 woman, slightly oblique with
fold in 2 of each sex, the fold being slight in 1 man. The colour
of the iris is dark brown in 8 men and 4 women, medium in 7 men and
light in 1. EARS: Type European in 13 men and 4 women (1 doubtful),
approximately Negroid in 2 men, chimpanzee in 1 man; angle prominent
in 11 men and 3 women, rather less in 3 men, slightly prominent in
2 men; lobule distended in all but 1 man; descending helix absent in
2 women, infolded less than 2 mm. in 12 men and 1 woman (doubtful),
2 -- 4 mm. in 4 men and 1 woman; Darwin's point absent in 15 men and
3 women, doubtful in 1 man, infolded in 1 woman (?); tragus under 3
mm. in 2 men, 3 -- 5 mm. in 14 men and 4 women (1 doubtful), double in
3 men and 1 woman of these latter; anti-tragus absent in 6 men and 1
woman, trace in 2 men, under 3 mm. in 7 men and 2 women (1 doubtful),
3 -- 5 mm. in 1 of each sex; anti-helix below level of helix in 11 men
and 3 women (1 doubtful), about at the same level in 5 men and 1 woman.
HAIR: It is wavy in character; the colour is rusty black in 14 men and
4 women, black in 2 men. It is usually long and abundant on the head;
4 men have slight moustaches.
SKIN: Fourteen are lightest cinamon (12), 2 light cinamon (14), 9
pale fawn (pale 17), 2 light brown (near 17), 5 pale pinkish buff (11).
STATURE: One man is tall, the rest are short, 2 men and all the women
being under 1.5 m.; the median for the men is 1.535 m. (5 ft. 1/2 in.).
Eight LONG POKUN men and 10 women were measured.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic indices show 5 men and 4 women to be
dolichocephalic, 3 men and 6 women brachycephalic; the median for
the men is 76.9, for the women 79.4. One man is platycephalic, 3
men and 1 woman mesocephalic and the rest hypsicephalic as regards
length-height, all are hypsicephalic as regards breadth-height, in
each respect the women being markedly more hypsicephalic than the
men. The shape is noted as oval in 1 man and 9 women, round oval in
1 of each sex, ellipsoidal in 1 man and pyriform in 4 men.
FACE: In 5 men and 6 women it is more or less pentagonal, in 1 man
and 2 women lozenge-shaped. All are markedly chamaeprosopic both in
total facial and upper facial indices. The forehead is narrow in 3
men and 1 woman, broad in 2 and 1, small in 2 women, high or moderate
in 2 men and 6 women, fairly prominent in 1 and 2, low in 3 men. The
cheek-bones are moderately prominent in 8 of each sex, very prominent
in 1 woman, and not prominent in 1 woman. The lips are moderately thin
in most cases, but are rather thick in 2 men and 1 woman. The chin
is small in 3 men and 6 women (noted as not retreating in 2 women),
but is fairly well formed. NOSE: Four men and 5 women are mesorhine,
the rest platyrhine, 1 of each sex having an index of 100. The profile
is straight in 7 men and 4 women (the tip being blunt in 4 men and 2
women, and depressed in 3 men), concave in 4 women, "Chinese" in 1 man
and 2 women. The root is broad in 4 men and 9 women (flat in 4 of the
women), low in 3 men and 2 women, moderately high in 4 of each sex,
moderately narrow in 2 men; the base is more or less reflected in 8
men and 6 women, very much reflected in 1 woman, and nearly straight
in 3; the alae are small in 6 men and 8 women, moderate in 1 of each
sex and wide in 1 of each sex; the nostrils are round in 3 men and
7 women, more or less widely open in 6 men and 5 women and small in
3 women. EYES: The aperture is moderately open in 6 men and 7 women,
wide in 1 of each sex and rather narrow in 1 man and 2 women; it is
straight with no fold in 4 men and 6 women, straight with fold more
or less developed in 2 men and 1 woman, slightly oblique with no fold
in 2 men, slightly oblique with slight fold in 2 women, and oblique
with a trace of fold in 1 woman. The colour is light brown in 1 man,
medium in 6 men and 7 women, dark in 1 and 3. EAR: Type European in 7
men (2 doubtful) and 3 women, intermediate between European and Negroid
in 1 man; angle prominent in 6 men and 1 woman; lobule distended, right
adherent in 1 woman; descending helix infolded less than 2 mm. in 7
men and 1 woman, 2 -- 4 mm. in 1 of each sex; Darwin's point absent
in 2 men and 1 woman, doubtful in 2 men, distinct tip in one man;
tragus under 3 mm. in 3 of each sex, being double in 1 man and 3 women,
slightly larger in 2 men, being double in 1, 3 -- 5 mm. in 3 men and
7 women, being double in 4 women; anti-tragus absent in 2 men and 5
women (1 doubtful), trace in 2 men and 1 woman, under 3 mm. in 4 men
and 1 woman; anti-helix below level of helix in 6 men and 1 woman,
about at the same level in 2 men (1 doubtful) and 1 woman.
HAIR: It is straight in 1 man, straight to wavy in 1 man and 5 women,
wavy in 5 and 3, wavy to curly in 1 man. The colour is rusty black
in 7 of each sex and dark brown in 3 women. It is long and fairly
abundant on the head; 2 men have beards, one only on the right side.
SKIN: Seven are lightest cinamon (12), 1 with a trace of green,
5 are dull fawn (17), 2 pale fawn (pale 17), 3 pale pinkish buff (11).
STATURE: TWO men are of medium height, the rest short, the median
being 1.59 m. (5 ft. 21 in.); only 2 women are over 1.5 m. and 2 are
under 1.4 m. (4 ft. 7 in.), the median being 1.47 m. (4 ft. 10 in.).
Five SEBOP men were measured.
HEAD-FORM: All but 1 are dolichocephalic, the median, being 75.3)
1 is platycephalic in regard to length-height, and 1 mesocephalic,
the rest are hypsicephalic in both respects. The shape is pyriform
in 2, oval to roundish in the remainder.
FACE: It is pentagonal in 4, and narrow with rather prominent
brow-ridge in 1. All are chamaeprosopic in both respects. The forehead
is full in 2 and low in 2. The cheek-bones are more or less prominent
in 4, 1 is not prominent. The lips are thin in 3 and moderate in 2. The
chin is fairly well developed. NOSE: Three are mesorhine, 1 platyrhine,
and 1 hyper-platyrhine. The profile is concave in 2, straight in 1, and
intermediate in 2; a blunt tip is noted in 1. The root is narrow and
moderately high in 2, moderately broad in 2, moderately high in 1, and
2 are fairly broad and flat. The base is reflected in 3 and straight
in 2; the alae are small in 3, moderately large and rounded in 1,
and wide and horizontal in 1. EYES: The aperture is fairly open in 4,
rather narrow in 1; it is straight with no fold in 3, and slightly
oblique with a slight fold in 2. The colour is medium brown. EARS:
Type European in 2, European to Negroid in 1; angle prominent in 2;
lobule distended in 1, trace in 1, 3 -- 10 mm. in 2, 10 -- 15 mm. in
1; descending helix infolded less than 2 mm. in 2, 2 -- 4 mm. in 3;
Darwin's point absent in 2; tragus under 3 mm. in 1, rather larger
in 1, 3 -- 5 mm. in 3; anti-tragus under 3 mm. in 4, 3 -- 5 mm. in 1;
anti-helix below level of helix in 2, about at the same level in 3.
HAIR: It is wavy in 3, straight to wavy in 1, curly in 1; the colour
is rusty black in 4, dark brown in 1. It is fairly long and moderately
abundant on the head; 1 man has a small moustache at angles of mouth,
and 1 has a fairly good moustache and beard.
SKIN: Two are lightest cinamon (12), 1 light brown (near 17).
STATURE: All are short, 1 being under 1.5 m.; the median is 1.54
m. (5 ft. 1/2 in.).
Ten LERONG men and 5 women were measured.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic indices show 4 men and 1 woman to be
dolichocephalic, 6 men and 4 women brachycephalic, the median being
78.5 for the men and 81 for the women. Three men are mesocephalic as
regards length-height, otherwise both sexes are hypsicephalic both in
length-height and breadth-height, the women being more so than the
men. The shape is noted as ovoid in 5 men, pyriform in 3 men, oval
in 3 of each sex, and round oval in 2 women (1 with vertical occiput).
FACE: It is more or less pentagonal in 8 men and 1 woman, oval or ovoid
in 4 women, broad in 1 woman, and long in 2 men; alveolar prognathism
is noted in 1 of each sex and sunken temples and cheeks in 1 man. All
are chamaeprosopic as regards both total facial and upper facial
indices, one man only being an exception in both respects. The forehead
is good in 3 of each sex, fair in 3 men, rather narrow in 2 men and
1 woman. The cheek-bones are prominent in 8 men and 2 women, not
prominent in 2 and 3. The lips are moderately thin in 4, men but tend
to be thick in 2 men and 4 women. The chin is usually well developed,
but is small in 2 women. NOSE: Three men and 1 woman are mesorhine,
the rest platyrhine, 1 woman being hyper-platyrhine. The profile is
straight in 4 men and 1 woman, straight to slightly sinuous in two
men, "Chinese" in 1 woman, concave in 4 men and 3 women; blunt tips
are noted in 6 cases and depressed tips in 3; the root is moderately
high in 7 men, narrow in 2, more or less broad in 4 men and 1 woman,
rather low in 2 and 1, broad and flat in 4 women. The base is more or
less reflected in 6 men and 4 women, straight in 4 men; the alae are
small in 4 of each sex, moderate in 4 men, wide in 1 of each sex; the
nostrils are rounded in 5 of each sex, and more or less widely open in
6 men, distended in 1 man. EYES: The aperture is moderately wide in 9
men and 4 women, and rather narrow in 1 woman; it is straight with no
fold in 4 men and 1 woman, straight with slight fold in 2 women (in one
case trace of fold in right eye only), slightly oblique with trace of
fold in 2 men and 1 woman and with fairly developed fold in 1 woman,
slightly oblique with no fold in 1 of each sex, quite oblique with
slight fold in 1 man. The colour is medium brown in 8 men and 5 women
and dark brown in 1 man. EARS: Type European in 9 men and 4 women (3
doubtful), Negroid in one man; angle prominent in 8 men (1 doubtful),
slightly prominent in 1 man; lobule distended in all but 1 man in
whom it is medium; descending helix infolded less than 2 mm. in 9 men
and 1 woman (doubtful), 2 -- 4 mm. in 1 man; Darwin's point absent
in 6 men, inrolled knob in 1 man; tragus under 3 mm. in 4 men, being
double in 3, slightly larger in 1 of each sex being double in both,
3 -- 5 mm. in 6 men and 4 women being double in 1 man; anti-tragus
absent in 3 men and 4 women, under 3 mm. in 8 men; anti-helix below
level of helix in 5 men, about at the same level in 5 men and 1 woman.
HAIR: It is straight in 2 women, straight to wavy in 6 men and 3
women, wavy in 3 men. The colour is rusty black in 7 men and 3 women,
light rusty black in 1 man, dark brown in 1 man and 2 women. It is
nearly always abundant on the head, and is rather long, especially
in the women.
SKIN: Eight are lightest cinamon (12), 1 light cinamon (14), 2 cinamon
(6), 4 pale fawn (pale 17).
Stature: One man is of medium height, the rest are short, 2 being
under 1.5 m., the median is 1.52 (4 ft. 11 3/4 in.). Four women are
under 1.5 m., one being only 1.39 m. (4 ft. 61 in.).
Seven MILANAU men, consisting of 6 Narom and 1 Miri, were measured.
HEAD-FORM: All are brachycephalic, but it should be remembered that
deformation of the head is practised by these people (vol. i., p. 48),
and it is probable that the cephalic index is very rarely normal,
consequently the head indices may be neglected. Three are flat behind
and broad in the parietal region, of whom 2 are narrow in front and
1 broad, 3 are more or less ovoid.
FACE: It is pentagonal in 4, the angle of the jaws is prominent in
1; the Miri man has an oval face pointed below, with small jaws and
alveolar prognathism. All are chamaeprosopic in regard both to total
facial and upper facial indices. The forehead is low and broad in
1, high and broad in 1, low in 1, high in 2, and rather sloping in
1. The cheek-bones are prominent in 3 and moderately large in 4. The
lips are moderately thin as a rule, in 1 they are fairly large. The
chin is rather small in 4, and fairly well formed in 3. NOSE: Four
men are mesorhine and 3 platyrhine, the highest index being 89.1. The
profile is straight in 4, with blunt tip in 2, slightly concave in 2,
and sinuous with blunt tip in 1; the root is high in 1, narrow and
moderately high in 2, broad and moderately high in 3; the base is
straight in 5, reflected in 1, and slightly concave in 1; the alae are
moderate in 3, and small in 1; the nostrils are rounded in 1, broad
in 1, moderately oval in 1. EYES: The aperture is moderately wide;
it is straight with no fold in 1, slightly oblique with no fold in 3,
more or less oblique with slight fold in 3. The colour of the iris is
medium brown in 4 and light in 2. EARS: Type European in 2, European to
Negroid in 1, European to chimpanzee in 1, chimpanzee in 1, orang in
1; angle prominent in 6, slightly prominent in 1; lobule absent in 1,
trace in 3, being adherent in 1, small in 2, medium in 1; descending
helix infolded less than 2 mm. in 6, 2 -- 4 mm. in 1; Darwin's point
absent in all; tragus under 3 mm. in 1, slightly larger in 15 3 --
5 mm. in 5, being double in 2; anti-tragus under 3 mm. in 5, 3 -- 5
mm. in 2; anti-helix below level of helix in 3, slightly below in 1,
about at the same level in 2, distinctly beyond in 1.
HAIR: One man had curly hair 1 wavy, 1 straight to wavy, and 1
straight, but the character was difficult to determine as in all
cases but one the hair was cut, being more or less closely cropped
in 2 men. The colour is noted as black in 6, and rusty black in 1,
and as fairly abundant on the head in 3; several had hair on the
face, 2 had small moustaches, 2 had moustaches and short beards,
1 had small beard and moustache and thick eyebrows.
SKIN: Three axe cinamon (6), 1 light cinamon (14), 1 lightest cinamon
(12), and 1 pale fawn (pale 17).
STATURE: One is of medium height, the rest are short but none are
under 1.5 m.; the median is 1.562 m. (5 ft. 1 1/2 in.).
III. Punan Group
Eighteen PUNAN men and four women were measured by us and one man by
Mr. Shelford.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic indices show 3 men to be dolichocephalic, the
rest of the men and all the women are brachycephalic, the median being
80.9 for the men and 81.2 for the women. Two men are platycephalic
both in length-height and breadth-height, 1 is platycephalic in
length-height but mesocephalic in breadth-height, 1 is platycephalic in
length-height but hypsicephalic in breadth-height, 1 is mesocephalic
in length-height but platycephalic in breadth-height, 1 of each sex
is mesocephalic in both respects, 1 of each sex is mesocephalic
in length-height but hypsicephalic in breadth-height, 1 woman is
hypsicephalic in length-height and platycephalic in breadth-height,
the rest are hypsicephalic in both respects. The shape is usually
ovoid in the men, 2 are noted as pyriform; 3 women have round heads.
FACE: The shape varies; it is oval in 4 men and 2 women, but owing to
the general moderate prominence of the cheek-bones and the smallness
of the chin, it becomes pentagonal (3 men) or even lozenge-shaped
or triangular (2 men); 1 woman has a broad face and 1 man a somewhat
square, while 2 men have long faces. Alveolar prognathism is noted in
1 case and superciliary ridges in 2. All are chamaeprosopic except 2
men, 1 being leptoprosopic in regard to both total facial and upper
facial indices, the other as to upper facial only. The forehead is
upright in 3 of each sex, full in 5 men and 1 woman. The cheek-bones
are prominent in 9 men, moderate in 6 men and 2 women, broad in
1 of each sex. The lips are moderately thin except in 2 men and 1
woman. The chin is usually fairly well formed; though small it is
not retreating in 5 men. NOSE: Eight men are mesorhine, 7 men and 3
women platyrhine, 4 men and 1 woman hyper-platyrhine. The profile
is straight in 10 men and 1 woman, slightly concave in 6 and 1;
the root is more or less depressed in 9 men and 2 women, fairly high
and narrow in 4 men; the base is slightly reflected in 9 men and 4
women, straight in 7 men, and slightly deflected in 2 men; the alae,
are usually moderately developed, rather thin in 4; the nostrils are
oval in 13 or rounded in 4. EYES: The aperture is moderate in 11 men
and 1 woman, small in 5 and 2; it is straight with no fold in 5 men,
slightly oblique with no fold in 3 men, slightly oblique with a slight
fold in 6 men and 3 women and with a more developed fold in 1 woman,
moderately oblique with moderate fold in 3 men and with slight fold
in 1 man. The colour is light brown in 2 men, medium in 8, dark in
6 and 1 woman. EAR: Type European in 8, European to Negroid in 4;
angle prominent in 6, more so in 2; lobule distended in 9, absent in
1, adherent in 2, being small in 1; descending helix absent in 3,
infolded less than 2 mm. in 6, rather more in 1, 2 -- 4 mm. in 2;
Darwin's point a distinct tip in 2, doubtful in 1, absent in the rest;
tragus under 3 mm. in 5, being double in 1, rather larger in 1, 3 --
5 mm. in 7, being double in 1; anti-tragus absent in 2, trace in 1,
under 3 mm. in 10; anti-helix below level of helix in 5, about at
the same level in 8.
HAIR: It is straight in 6 men and 3 women, straight to wavy in 2 men,
wavy in 8 men and 1 woman, wavy to curly in 1 man. The colour is
rusty black in 12 men and 1 woman, black in 5 men, and dark brown in
1 man. It is usually fairly long and abundant on the head, but in 6
men it is noted as thin; 7 have a slight amount of hair on the face
and 1 a moderate amount on the legs.
SKIN: Fifteen are light cinamon (14), 15 lightest cinamon (12),
11 pale fawn (pale 17), and 6 dull fawn or light brown (17).
STATURE: Two are of medium height, the rest short, 4 men being under
1.5 m.; the median is 1.55 m. (5 ft. 1 in.).
Three UKIT men were measured by Mr. Shelford. They are more
brachycephalic than the Punan, their median index being 83.3, but are
slightly less chamaeprosopic, 2 being leptoprosopic in regard to the
upper facial index. All 3 are mesorhine.
The Mongolian fold is very slight in 2. All have straight black
hair. One is tall, measuring 1.735 m. (5 ft. 8 1/4 in.), the other
2 are short.
[Fourteen PUNAN men were measured by Nieuwenhuis.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic indices range evenly between 77.5 and 86.1,
the median being 81.3; all except 1 are brachycephalic.
FACE: It is broad in 5 and medium in the rest. The bi-zygomatic breadth
ranges from 132 to 145 mm., which is rather narrower than the range
obtained by us, 130 -- 154 mm. NOSE: the breadth varies between 37 and
43 mm., whereas in the Punans measured by us the range was between 34
and 44 mm. The shape is noted as concave in 4, broad and flat in 10,
I.E. 29 percent have "depressed," "sunken," or "hollow" noses. EYES:
the Mongolian fold does not occur. The iris is dark.
HAIR: It is uniformly straight and tends to be scanty. The colour
is black.
SKIN: The colour is light brown in 10, brown and yellow in 2, black
or blue-black in 2.
STATURE: None are tall, 4 are of medium height, the rest are short
1 being under 1.5 m.; the median is 1.569 m. (5 ft. 1 3/4 in.).]
IV. Kenyah Group
Twenty-six KENYAH men and 6 women were measured, consisting of 6
MADANG men, 9 Long Dallo men and 2 women, 9 Apoh men, 4 Long Sinong
women, and two other men. All these may be taken as pure Kenyahs,
and the following data are based thereon.
HEAD-FORM: THE cephalic indices of the three groups given on Table
A range from dolichocephaly to brachycephaly, and it is interesting
to note that the Madangs, with a median of 78.1, have distinctly the
narrowest heads, intermediate are the Long Dallo men, median 80.5,
while the Apoh men, with a median of 84, have distinctly the broadest
heads. The head in all is markedly hypsicephalic both as regards the
length-height and the breadth-height indices. The shape is described
as round in 8 men, oval in 2, ovoid in 3, square in 1, pyriform in 3,
and long in 2. The 4 Long Sinong women are distinctly brachycephalic,
the mean being 83.2, but the average is 85.1, owing to one having an
index 93.8. They also are very hypsicephalic.
FACE: Six men are recorded as having pentagonal faces, 3 broad and 3
long; alveolar prognathism is noted in 2. All are chamaeprosopic as
regards the total facial index, and all except 1 Madang and 2 Long
Dallo men as regards the upper facial index. The forehead is upright
in 10 men, 1 is noted as bulging and 1 as sloping. The cheek-bones are
moderate in 12 men, prominent in 6 men (1 very marked) and 2 women,
and broad in 1 of each sex. The lips are, as a rule, moderately full,
but are thin in 3. The chin is fairly well developed. NOSE: One man is
leptorhine, 6 are mesorhine, 13 platyrhine, 6 hyper-platyrhine. The 2
Long Dallo women are mesorhine, the 4 Long Sinong women are strongly
platyrhine. The profile is straight in 14 men, a few others varied. The
base is slightly reflected in 14 men, straight in 2; the alae are broad
in 5 men, small in 2, and the septum is disclosed in 2; the nostrils
are wide in 8 men, elongated in 1. EYES: The aperture is moderate in
10 men, wide in 6 men and 3 women, narrow in 7 men; it is straight with
no fold in 6 men and 1 woman and with a slight fold in 5 men, slightly
oblique with no fold in 5, and with a slight fold in 4 and 2 women,
oblique with no fold in 1. The colour is light in 2 men and 1 woman,
medium in 15 men and 1 woman, and dark in 7 men and 4 women. EARS: Data
were obtained only for the Madang. Type European in 3 (2 doubtful),
Negroid 1 (?); angle prominent 2 (?); lobule distended in 4, of medium
size in 1 (?); descending helix infolded less than 2 mm. in 2, rather
more in 1; tragus 3 -- 5 mm. in 5, being double in 1, 5 -- 7 mm. in 1;
anti-tragus absent in 1, trace in 1, under 3 mm. in 3, 3 -- 5 mm. in 1;
anti-helix below level of helix in 2, about at the same level in 1.
HAIR: It is straight in 7 men and 1 woman, wavy in 14 men and 2 women,
curly in 2 men. The colour is dark brown in 3 men, rusty black in 15
men and 5 women, black in 5 men and 1 woman. It is usually long and
moderately abundant on the head; face hair was observed in 2 men,
and a small amount on the body in 5.
SKIN: The average skin colour is various shades of cinamon; 11 are
cinamon (6), 16 are light cinamon (14), 14 are lightest cinamon (12),
9 pale fawn (pale 17), 3 dull fawn or light brown (17), 6 pale pinkish
buff (11).
STATURE: 7 men (3 Madangs, 3 Long Dallos, 1 Long Tikan) are of medium
height; the rest are short; the median is 1.61 m. (5 ft. 31 in.). The
stature of the 6 women ranges from 1.42 m. (4 ft. 8 in.) to 1.57
m. (5 ft. 1 3/4 in.).
V. Kayan Group
Twenty-one KAYAN men and 1 woman were measured.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic index forms a gradual series with a median
of 79.8, all except 5 being brachycephalic. The head is distinctly
hypsicephalic, only 5 being mesocephalic as regards length-height. Five
were noted as oval, 2 ovoid, 1 square ovoid, 3 round.
FACE: The form varies, 3 being more or less pentagonal, 2 squarish,
2 round, and 5 oval. All are chamaeprosopic except 1 man in the total
facial and upper facial indices, and 1 of each sex in the upper
facial index. The forehead is upright in 6, and rounded and full
in 6. The cheek-bones are moderate in 14, and prominent in 3. The
lips are moderately full, being noted as thick in 2 men. The chin is
fairly well developed, with 3 exceptions. NOSE: Ten are mesorhine and
the remainder platyrhine, of whom 5 are hyper-platyrhine, 2 of these
latter are boys (aged 15); the excessive platyrhiny is due mainly to
the shortness of the nose in the three adults. The profile is straight
in 16 and moderately concave in 3; the root is slightly depressed in
11 and high in 6; the base is reflected in 11 and straight in 4; the
nostrils are transversely oval in 2, oval in 5, and round in 5. EYES:
The aperture is narrow in 12 and medium in 4; it Is straight with
no fold in 8 and with a slight fold in 2, slightly oblique with no
fold in 2 and with a slight fold in 6; 1 man with a straight eye and
no fold is noted as having a lash fold which is the character of a
Mongolian upper eyelid. The colour is light in 6, medium in 10, and
dark in 3. EARS: Type European in 2, European to Negroid in 3, orang
in 3; angle slightly prominent in 2; lobule distended in 5, perforated
in 2; descending helix absent in 1, infolded less than 2 mm. in 8;
Darwin's point absent; tragus under 3 mm. in 5, 3 -- 5 mm. in 4;
anti-tragus under 3 mm. in 8, 3 -- 5 mm. in 1; anti-helix below level
of helix in 4, about at the same level in 4, distinctly beyond in 1.
HAIR: It is straight in 6, wavy in 12, wavy to curly in 1, and curly
in 1 (Pl. 22); the colour is rusty black in 12, black in 6, and dark
brown in 1.
SKIN: The average skin colour is a light cinamon (14) or pale fawn
(pale 17).
STATURE: All but 3 of the men are of short stature, the median being
1.550 m. (5 ft. 1 in.).
[Forty-eight male and 30 female KAYANS were measured by Nieuwenhuis,
also 1 Mahakam Kayan of each sex. Of these 5 were boys under 16 and
5 girls under 16, who will be omitted from the description where it
is possible to distinguish them.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic index of the men forms a gradual series from
75 to 85.4 with 6 higher indices; 8 are dolichocephalic, the median
of the whole series of adult men being 81.1; that of the women ranges
from 75 to 93.2, with a slight weakening in the series about where the
median 82.5 occurs; one index, 97, falls considerably outside; 4 are
dolichocephalic. The Mahakam man has an index of 78.3, the woman 74. 1.
FACE: One Kayan had a long face, 14 per cent (including children)
had broad faces, the rest were medium. In our and his Kayans the
bi-zygomatic breadth ranges from 132 to 150 mm., except that two of
his are narrower, 126 and 129 mm. NOSE: Breadth-measurements agree
with ours. Two males and 1 female are noted as having concave noses,
35 and 20 as broad and flat, 9 and 8 as straight, 1 of each sex
as narrow and straight. These characterisations are of course not
mutually exclusive. No convex noses were observed; 4 per cent are
concave ("depressed," "sunken," or "hollow"). EYES: The Mongolian
fold does not occur. The iris is always dark.
HAIR: 28 per cent of the males and 17 per cent of the females had
wavy hair, 1 man had curly hair, the rest straight. As a rule it is
rather scanty, but 30 per cent of the Kayans had a moderate amount. The
colour is black.
SKIN: The colour is brown or yellow.
STATURE: Two men are tall, 6 medium and the rest short, 6 being
below 1.5 m., of whom 2 are under 18 years old; the median is 1.572
(5 ft. 2 in.). The women over 23 average 14 cm. shorter than the men;
this is a large difference, as it is usually 10 -- 12 cm., as in our
Sarawak figures.]
VI. Iban (or Sea Dayaks) Group
Fifty-six IBAN men were measured by us.
HEAD-FORM: The cephalic index forms a gradual series, the median
being 83, and therefore shows brachycephaly. The head is usually
hypsicephalic, but 1 is platycephalic as regards breadth-height,
2 are mesocephalic both in length-height and breadth-height, 5 are
mesocephalic in length-height and 3 in breadth-height. Thirteen are
noted as round, 7 as ovoid, 4 as oval, several had broad parietal
and narrow frontal regions producing a pyriform norma verticalis.
FACE: The form is noted as pentagonal in 10, oval in 5, broad oval
in 4, the narrowness of the jaw producing the pentagonal shape. The
majority are chaniaeprosopic, but 1 is leptoprosopic in total facial
and upper facial indices, and 7 are leptoprosopic in upper facial
index. The forehead is generally full or slightly bulging, but may be
straight and vertical; 3 are noted as being sloped. The cheek-bones
are prominent in 20, and moderately so in 24. The lips are moderately
full. The chin is small and moderately prominent. NOSE: Sixteen are
mesorhine, 21 platyrhine, and 19 hyper-platyrhine. The profile is
concave in 23, straight in 18 and nearly so in 4; the root is more
or less high in 19, more or less depressed in 20, in most cases it is
broad or moderately so; the base is straight in 24, reflected in 25,
deflected in 3; the alae are wide in 8, moderate in 6, small in 9;
the nostrils are oval in 10, transversely oval in 8, round in 13,
wide in 9. EYES: The aperture is narrow in 13, medium in 18, wide
in 3; it is straight with no fold in 10 and with a slight fold in
11, slightly oblique with no fold in 10 and with a moderate fold in
21. The majority are normal as regards the eyelashes, but 3 have a
distinct Mongolian character and 5 have it slightly. The colour is
intermediate in 25, dark in 22, light in 5, 4 cases were noted with
a bluish margin to the iris. EARS: Type European in 31, European to
Negroid in 2, Negroid in 2, orang flattened above in 1; angle slightly
prominent in 22, rather more so in 1, prominent in 8, more so in 1,
very prominent in 1; lobule distended in 10 and perforated in 5,
very small in 1, small in 13, being adherent in 4, rather small in
1, medium in 10, 1 being adherent, 2 perforated, and 1 doubtful;
descending helix absent in 2, infolded less than 2 mm. in 23, 2 --
4 mm. in 13; Darwin's point an infolded tip in 1, an inrolled knob
in 2, absent in the rest; tragus under 3 mm. in 11, being double
in 1, slightly larger in 1, 3 -- 5 mm. in 25, being double in 3,
5 -- 7 mm. in 1; anti-tragus absent in 4, under 3 mm. in 24, 3 --
5 mm. in 8, 5 -- 7 mm. in 1; anti-helix below level of helix in 23,
about at the same level in 15.
HAIR: It is straight in 16, wavy in 26, curly in 2, 1 being described
as crisp. The colour is rusty black in 26, black in 17, and dark
brown in 1. Eight men had a slight amount of hair on the face; the
body hair is absent or very scanty, but one had a quantity on his legs.
SKIN: Five are dark warm cinamon, 27 cinamon (6), 5 light cinamon
(14), 11 dull fawn (17), 11 light brown (near 17), 5 various shades of
a light greenish sepia (light 3 1), 3 a still lighter greenish sepia.
STATURE: One man is tall, 11 are of medium stature, and the remainder
short, 2 being under 1.5 In.; the median is 1.585 m. (5 ft. 2 1/2 in.).
Thirteen SIBUYAU men were measured by Mr. Shelford and 1 by us.
HEAD-FORM: All but two are brachycephalic, the median being
83. Mr. Shelford did not measure the radii and so the height indices
cannot be given.
FACE: All are chamaeprosopic with regard to the total facial index
and all except 3 in the upper facial index.
NOSE: Two are leptorhine, 7 mesorhine, and 5 platyrhine.
STATURE: All the men are short, 3 being under 1.5 m.; the median is
1.535 m. (5 ft. 1 in.).
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Plates
Young Kayan Chief with middle-class Companion
Bruni, the pile-built Capital of the Sultans of Bruni
A Jungle Path near Marudi, Baram District
A Limestone Hill at Panga in Upper Sarawak
Old Beads Worn By Kayans
A. LUKUT SEKALA. -- Value formerly one healthy adult male slave
present value, from [pound sterling] 10 to [pound sterling] 15.
B. LABANG PAGANG. -- Value 5s. to 15s. Used chiefly at marriage
ceremony. Kayan value in brass-ware, one gong.
C. JEKOK0K. -- Value 15s. to 25s.; or in brass-ware, a small tawak.
D. KELAM WIT. -- Value 15s. to 30s.; or in brass-ware, a tawak which
measures from the base of the boss to the outer edge a span between
the first finger and the thumb. Also much used in marriage ceremony.
E. KELAM BUANG. -- Value about 15s.; much sought after and worn on
a girdle by Kayan girls. The bear bead.
F. KELAM BUANG BUTIT TELAWA. -- The name means the bear bead with
spider's belly. Value about 15s.
G. KAJA OBING. -- Value 15s. to 25s.
H. KELAM SONG. -- Value from [pound sterling]4 to [pound sterling]6;
or one adult female slave.
L KELAM. -- Kenyah. Value about 15s.
J. LUKUT. -- Kenyah. Value about 10s., or a gong; value about ten to
fifteen ingans of PADI, or about 7 bushels.
K. LUKUT MURIK. -- A bead used by the Murik tribe. Value about 10s.
L. INO KALABIT. -- A Kalabit necklace. Value about [pound sterling]5;
or an adult buffalo.
M. A single blue bead from the necklace "L."
The yellow beads in the necklace are known as LABANG, and the blue
ones as BUNAU. The beads in the necklace are all very old ones. The
beads A to H are chiefly, though not exclusively, found among Kayans;
I and J among Kenyahs; K among Muriks (Klemantans); and the necklace
L among Kalabits (Murut).
NOTES
[1] -- Published in the JOURNAL OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE,
vol. xxxi.
[2] -- Within Borneo the distribution of the MAIAS seems to be largely
determined by his incapacity to cross a river, there being several
instances in which he occurs on the one but not on the other bank of
a river.
[3] -- See especially the recently published HISTORY OF SARAWAK
UNDER ITS TWO WHITE RAJAHS, by S. Baring-Gould and C. A. Bampfylde,
London, 1910.
[4] -- Crawfurd, DESCRIPTIVE DICTIONARY, p. 140.
[5] -- Despite Crawfurd's opinion this is now an accepted
fact. Raffles's HISTORY OF JAVA contains much interesting information
on the point, and there is a remarkable statement which has not
obtained the attention that it deserves, showing that the Chinese
recognised the similarity between the Java and Soli (Nagpur)
alphabets. -- Groeneveldt, NOTES ON MALAY ARCHIPELAGO AND MALACCA;
Trubner's ESSAYS RELATING TO INDO-CHINA, vol. i. p. 166.
[6] -- There is a Bruni still alive whose hands have been cut off
for theft.
[7] -- This account is taken from Groeneveldt (LOC. CIT.) who,
however, supposes Poli to be on the north coast of Sumatra. In this
he follows "all Chinese geographers," adding "that its neighbourhood
to the Nicobar Islands is a sufficient proof that they are right." But
Rakshas, which may have been "for a long time the name of the Nicobar
Islands, probably on account of the wildness and bad reputation
of their inhabitants," is merely Rakshasa, a term applied by the
Hindu colonists in Java and the Malay Peninsula to any wild people,
so that the statement that to the east of Poli is situated the land
of the Rakshas is hardly sufficient support for even "all Chinese
geographers." Trusting to "modern Chinese geographers," Groeneveldt
makes Kaling, where an eight-foot gnomon casts a shadow of 2.4
feet at noon on the summer solstice, to be Java, that is to say,
to be nearly 5[degree] south of the equator. Having unwittingly
demonstrated how untrustworthy are the modern geographers, he must
excuse others if they prefer the original authority, who states that
Poli is south-EAST of Camboja, the land of the Rakshas EAST of Poli,
to "all" geographers who state on the contrary that Poli is south-WEST
of Camboja, the Rakshas' country WEST of Poli. The name Poli appears
to be a more accurate form of Polo, the name by which Bruni is said
to have been known to the Chinese in early times.
[8] -- Rajah Charles Brooke, TEN YEARS IN SARAWAK, quoted in Ling
Roth's valuable work, THE NATIVES OF SARAWAK AND BRITISH NORTH BORNEO,
vol. ii. p. 279.
[9] -- E. H. Parker, CHINA, p. 33.
[10] -- Groeneveldt, LOC. CIT.
[11] -- Marsden, HISTORY OF SUMATRA, p. 383.
[12] -- Than camphor, tortoiseshell, ivory, and sandal woods.
[13] -- There is some doubt as to the date of the foundation of
Majapahit.
[14] -- According to a Malay manuscript of some antiquity lent to
us by the late Tuanku Mudah, one of the kings (BATARA) of Majapahit
had a beautiful daughter, Radin Galo Chindra Kirana. This lady was
much admired by Laiang Sitir and Laiang Kemitir, the two sons of one
Pati Legindir. On the death of the king, Pati Legindir ruled the land
and the beautiful princess became his ward. He, to satisfy the rival
claims of his two sons, promised that whoever should kill the raja
of Balambangan (an island off the north coast of Borneo), known by
the nickname of Manok Jingga, should marry the princess. Now at the
court there happened to be Damar Olan, one of the sons of Raja Matarem,
who had disguised his high descent and induced Pati Legindir to adopt
him as his son. This young man found favour in the princess's eyes,
and she tried to persuade her guardian to let her marry him. Pati
Legindir, however, declared that he would keep to his arrangement,
and roughly told the lover to bring Manok Jingga's head before thinking
of marrying the princess. So Damar Olan set out with two followers on
the dangerous mission, which he carried out with complete success. On
his return he met his two rivals, who induced him to part with the
head of the royal victim, and then buried him alive in a deep trap
previously prepared. Pati Legindir, suspecting nothing, ordered his
ward to marry Laiang Sitir, who brought the trophy to the palace; but
the princess had learned of the treachery from one of the spectators,
and asked for a week's delay. Before it was too late, Damar Olan, who
had managed to find a way out of what nearly proved a grave, reached
the court and told his tale, now no longer concealing his rank. He
married the princess and afterwards was entrusted by Pati Legindir
with all the affairs of state. Having obtained supreme power, Damar
Olan sent his treacherous rivals to southern Borneo, with a retinue
of criminals mutilated in their ear-lobes and elsewhere as a penalty
for incest. These transported convicts, the ancestors of the Kayans,
landed near Sikudana and spread into the country between the Kapuas
and Banjermasin. It is interesting to see how this tale agrees with
other traditions. The Kayans state that they came across the sea at no
distant date. Javan history relates that Majapahit was ruled during
the minority of Angka Wijaya by his elder sister, the princess Babu
Kanya Kanchana Wungu. A neighbouring prince, known as Manok Jengga,
took advantage of this arrangement by seizing large portions of the
young king's domains. One, Daram Wulan, however, son of a Buddhist
devotee, overthrew him and was rewarded by the hand of the princess
regent. When Angka Wijaya came of age he entrusted the care of a
large part of his kingdom to his sister and brother-in-law.
[15] -- SEJARAH MALAYA, edited by Shellabear, Singapore, 1896, p. 106.
[16] -- Whose descendants are the Malanaus.
[17] -- Cf. Low, JOURNAL STRAITS BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY,
vol. v. p. 1, from whose article we have obtained much interesting
material.
[18] -- This is said to have been accomplished by Alak ber Tata's
brother, Awang Jerambok, the story of whose dealings with the Muruts
is well known both to Brunis and Muruts. He set out one day for
the head of the river Manjilin, but lost his way after crossing the
mountains. After wandering for three days he came upon a Murut village,
whose inhabitants wished to kill him. He naturally told them not to
do so, and they desisted. After some time, which he spent with these
rude folk, then not so far advanced into the interior, he so far won
their affections that they followed him to Bruni, where they were
entertained by the sovereign and generously treated. These Muruts
then induced their friends to submit.
[19] -- Founded after the capture of Malacca by the Portuguese,
1512 A.D. (Crawfurd, DESCRIPTIVE DICTIONARY). Sultan Abdul Krahar,
great-great-grandson of Sultan Mohammed's younger brother, died about
1575 A.D. From this fact and the statement that Mohammed stopped the
Majapahit tribute, we may infer that the latter sat on the throne of
Bruni in the middle of the fifteenth century; if this inference is
correct, the story of his visit to Johore must be unfounded.
[20] -- Some say he was never converted, others that he was summoned
to Johore expressly to be initiated into Islam.
[21] -- He is also alleged to have seized the lady in a drunken
freak. It is stated that the Sultan was so much enraged at this that
he proposed to make war on Bruni. His minister, however, suggested
that enquiries should be made into the strength of that kingdom before
commencing operations. He was accordingly sent to Bruni, where he was
so well received that he married and remained there, with a number
of followers. Word was sent to Johore that the princess was treated
as queen and was quite happy with her husband. This appeased the
Sultan's wrath. An old friend of ours belonging to the Burong Pingai
section of Bruni, that is to say, the old commercial class, says that
his people are all descended from this Pengiran Bandahara of Johore,
and that the name Burong Pingai is derived from the circumstance that
their ancestor bad a pigeon of remarkable tameness.
[22] -- Cf. with Dalrymple's account of the origin of the Sulu
Sultanate, JOURNAL INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, iii. 545 and 564. See also
Lady Brassey's LAST VOYAGE, p. 165.
[23] -- He puts the longitude 30[degree] too far east; but in his day,
of course, there were no chronometers.
[24] -- Cited in full by Crawfurd, DESCRIPTIVE DICTIONARY OF THE
INDIAN ISLANDS. Article, "Brunai."
[25] -- Much of the following information is extracted from an article
by J. R. Logan on European intercourse with Borneo, JOURNAL INDIAN
ARCHIPELAGO, vol. ii. p. 505.
[26] -- The article in the JOURNAL INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO says 1702.
[27] -- Crawfurd, DESCRIPTIVE DICTIONARY, p. 37.
[28] -- 1811 to 1815.
[29] -- It seems not unreasonable to conjecture that the uniformly
high physical standard of the Punans and their seemingly exceptional
immunity from disease are due to their exposed mode of life, and to the
consequently severe selection exercised upon them by their environment.
[30] -- The Sea Dayak is exceptional in this respect; he wears a coat
of coloured cotton fibre woven in various patterns by the women.
[31] -- See Chap. XII.
[32] -- The turban is a head-dress which is copied from the Malays
and is rapidly spreading inland.
[33] -- This toy cross-bow is found among Kayans. Both it and the
arrow used are very crudely made.
[34] -- The war dress and accoutrements will be more fully described
in Chap. X.
[35] -- Accidental tearing of the lobe inevitably occurs occasionally;
and if this is attributed to the carelessness of any other person a
brass TAWAK or gong must be paid in compensation. Repair of a torn
lobe is sometimes effected by overlapping the raw ends and keeping
them tied in this position for some weeks.
[36] -- Some of the copper coins of Sarawak are perforated at the
centre.
[37] -- By the Kayans the heads are suspended in a single long row
from thelower edge of a long plank, each being attached by a rattan
passed through a hole in the vertex. Many of the Klemantans hang them
in a similar way to a circular framework, and the Sea Dayaks suspend
them in a conical basket hung by its apex from the rafters.
[38] -- The sub-tribes are the following: -- Uma Pliau, Uma Poh, Uma
Semuka, Uma Paku, and Uma Bawang, chiefly in the basin of the Baram;
in the Rejang basin -- the Uma Naving, Uma Lesong, Uma Daro; in the
Bintulu basin -- the Uma Juman; in the Batang Kayan -- the Uma Lekan;
in the Kapuas -- the Uma Ging; the Uma Belun, the Uma Blubo scattered
in several river-basins; and one other group in the Madalam river,
and one in the Koti.
[39] -- All the Kenyahs of the Baram are known as Kenyah Bauh. On
the watershed between the Batang Kayan and the Baram are the Lepu
Payah and the Madang. In the Batang Kayan basin are the Lepu Tau,
the Uma Kulit, Uma Lim, Uma Baka, Uma Jalan, Lepu Tepu. In the Koti
basin are the Peng or Pnihing; in the Rejang the Uma Klap. These are
the principal branches of the pure Kenyahs; each of them comprises a
number of scattered villages, the people of each of which have adopted
some local name. In addition to these there is a number of groups,
such as the Uma Pawa and the Murik in the Baram, and the Lepu Tokong
and the Uma Long in the Batang Kayan, the people of which seem to us to
be intermediate as regards all important characters between the Kenyahs
and the Klemantans. (For discussion of these relations see Chap. XXI.)
[40] -- For the marriage ceremony see Chap. XVIII.
[41] -- We take this opportunity of contradicting in the most emphatic
manner a very misleading statement which of all the many misleading
statements about the peoples of Borneo that are in circulation is
perhaps the most frequently repeated in print. The statement makes
its most recent reappearance in Professor Keane's book THE WORLD'S
PEOPLES (published in 1908). There it is written of the "Borneans"
that "No girl will look at a wooer before he has laid a head or two
at her feet." To us it seems obvious that this state of affairs could
only obtain among a hydra-headed race. The statement is not true of any
one tribe, and as regards most of the "Borneans" has no foundation in
fact. Applied to the Sea Dayaks alone has the statement an element of
truth. Among them to have taken a head does commonly enhance a wooer's
chances of success, and many Sea Dayak girls and their mothers will
taunt a suitor with having taken no head, but few of them will make
the taking of a head an essential condition of the bestowal of their
favour or of marriage. A mother will remark to a youth who is hanging
about her daughter, BISI DALAM, BISI DELUAR BULI DI TANYA ANAK AKU
(When you have the wherewithal to adorn both the interior and the
exterior of a room (I.E. jars within the room and heads without in
the gallery) you can then ask for my child).
[42] -- For the naming ceremony see Chap. XVIII.
[43] -- It is not rare to find that a child does not know the original
names of his parents, and even husbands may be found to have forgotten
the original names of their wives.
[44] -- We append to this chapter a table showing the names and
degrees of kinship of all the inhabitants of one Kenyah long house. At
the suggestion of Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, who has found this method
of great value in disentangling the complicated kinship systems
of some Melanesian and Papuan and other peoples, we have collected
similar information regarding Kayan, Sea Dayak, Klemantan, and Murut
villages. But in no case does the table discover any trace of any
elaborate kinship system.
[45] -- They are skilled woodmen, and know how to cut a tree so as
to ensure its falling in any desired manner; the final strokes cut
away the ends of the narrow portion of the stem remaining between
the upper and lower notches.
[46] -- See Chap. X.
[47] -- See Chap. XVII.
[48] -- The same connection of ideas is illustrated by the practice of
sterile women who desire children sleeping upon the freshly gathered
ears in the huts in the fields.
[49] -- See Chap. XVIII.
[50] -- See Chap. V.
[51] -- See Chap. XVII.
[52] -- See Chap. XV.
[53] -- There are said to be two other less common species of wild pig,
but probably there is only one other.
[54] -- A good account, taken mainly from Skertchly, of many traps may
be found in Mr. Ling Roth's well-known work, THE NATIVES OF SARAWAK
AND BRITISH NORTH BORNEO, London, 1896; and also in McPherson's work
on FOWLING.
[55] -- A stick of this kind is used in many rites. It is prepared by
whittling shavings from a stick and leaving them attached at one end;
so that a series of the shavings projects along one side of the stick.
[56] -- A similar practice prevails in the Malay Peninsula.
[57] -- On one occasion on which a race between twenty-two of these
war-boats was rowed at Marudi on the Baram river, we timed the
winning-boat over the down-stream course of four and half miles. The
time was twenty-two minutes thirteen seconds.
[58] -- There is no reason to suppose that the Kayan augurs have not
complete faith in the significance of the omens, and in the reality
of the protection afforded by the favourable omen-birds, which they
speak of as upholding them. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt
that the strong faith of the people in the omen-birds, and the awe
inspired by them, is very favourable to the maintenance of discipline
and obedience to the chiefs, and that this fact is appreciated by the
chiefs. The cult of the omen-birds, which hampers the undertakings of
these peoples at almost every turn, and which might seem to be wholly
foolish and detrimental, thus brings two great practical advantages:
namely, it inspires confidence, and it promotes discipline and a strong
sense of collective unity and responsibility. It is not improbable,
then, that the advantages of this seemingly senseless cult outweigh
its drawbacks, which in the shape of endless delays and changes of
plans are by no means small.
[59] -- So far as we know this is the only way in which the bow
and arrow is used in Borneo, although the principle of the bow is
frequently applied in making traps. It is perhaps worthy of remark
that the dense character of the jungle is probably more favourable
to use of the blow-pipe than to that of the bow and arrow.
[60] -- It is probable that the observation of this practice by
Europeans has given rise to the frequently published statements
that the tribes of the interior are cannibals. We affirm with some
confidence that none of the peoples of Borneo ever consume human
flesh as food. It is true that Kayans, Kenyahs, and Klemantans will
occasionally consume on the spot a tiny piece of the flesh of a
slain enemy for the purpose of curing disorders, especially chronic
cough and dysentery; and that Ibans, men or women, during the mad
rejoicings over captured heads will occasionally bite a head, or
even bite a piece of flesh from it. A third practice involving the
consumption of human flesh was formerly observed among the Jingkangs
(Klemantans of Dutch Borneo); when a son was seriously ill and the
efforts of the medicine-men proved ineffective, an infant sister of
the patient was killed and a small piece of the flesh given to the
patient to eat. It would, we think, be grossly unfair to describe
any of these peoples as cannibals on account of these practices.
[61] -- At one such feast eighty-five pigs and fifty-six fowls were
slaughtered.
[62] -- See footnote, vol. i., p. 76.
[63] -- The Malays of Bruni and the other coast settlements have, of
course, used iron, and perhaps to some small extent forged it, since
the time when they adopted Arab civilisation; but they have not at any
time practised the smelting of iron ore. Between three and five hundred
years ago the principal currency of the people of Bruni consisted
of small oblong flattened pieces of iron known as SAPANGGAL (about 2
[ERROR: unhandled ×] 1 [ERROR: unhandled ×] 1/4 inches)
bearing the Sultan's stamp. This iron was probably obtained from
Chinese and other foreign traders, and was worked up into implements.
[64] -- The convenience of thus floating the timber is one reason for
the general tendency shown by Kayans to migrate gradually down river.
[65] -- This is an example of a very common type of practice which
implies the belief that the attributes of any object will attach
themselves to any whole into which the object may be incorporated as
a part; thus a hunter who has shot dead a pig or deer with a single
bullet will cut out the bullet to melt it down with other lead, and
will make a fresh batch of bullets or slugs from the mixture, believing
that the lucky bullet will leaven the whole lump, or impart to all
of it something of that to which its success was due. Compare also
the similar practice in regard to the seed grain (vol. i., p. 112).
[66] -- The pair of centre columns and the main columns supporting the
roof back and front should have been drawn thicker than the accessory
columns supporting the floor, and the width of the roof-plates is
much greater than is indicated in the diagrams.
[67] -- Some Kayans habitually speak of most of the dog-patterns by
the term USANG ORANG (which means the prawn's head). This indicates
possibly some gradual substitution of designs of the one origin for
those of the other.
[68] -- "Materials for a Study of Tatu in Borneo," by Charles Hose
and R. Shelford, J.R.A.I. vol. xxxvi. Here also we have to thank
the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute for permission to
republish part of this paper, and to reproduce the plates and figures
accompanying it. The reference figures of this section refer to the
bibliographical list at the end of this chapter.
[69] -- Since these pages were printed we have had to mourn the loss
of our friend and fellow-worker, cut off in the early summer of a
life strenuously devoted to scientific research.
[70] -- Nieuwenhuis also notes (9, p. 451) that men in the course
of their travels amongst other tribes permit themselves to be tatued
with the patterns in vogue with their hosts.
[71] -- These figures refer to the bibliography printed at the end
of this chapter, vol. i., p. 280.
[72] -- The Sea Dayaks often employ for the same reason a carpal bone
of the mouse-deer (TRAGULUS).
[73] -- See also Haddon (4, Fig. 2), and Nieuwenhuis (8, Pls. XXV. and
XXVI.); the designs figured in the latter work are not very easy to
interpret, the lower of the two rosette figures looks as if it was
derived from four heads of dogs fused together. See also Ling Roth
(7, p. 85).
[74] -- In ancient days when a great Kayan or Klemantan chief built
a new house, the first post of it was driven through the body of
a slave; this sacrifice to a tutelary deity is no longer offered,
but a human figure is frequently carved on the post of a house and
may be a relic of the old custom; the figure is called TEGULUN. Sea
Dayak anthropomorphs are termed ENGKRAMBA and appear in cloths and
bead-work designs, also in carvings on boundary marks, witch-doctor's
baskets, etc.
[75] -- We apply the term SERIAL to those designs in which the units
of the pattern are repeated, or in which the units follow each other
in serial order; the UDOH ASU on a Kayan man's thigh is an ISOLATED
design, but the design on his hands is a SERIAL design.
[76] -- Cf. Ling Roth (7, p. 34) and Nieuwenhuis (9, Pl. 32).
[77] -- The Sea Dayak word TELINGAI or KELINGAI has the same meaning.
[78] -- The prices in the Baram river are much higher than in the
Mendalam, where a gong can only be demanded by an artist of twenty
years' experience; less experienced artists have to be content with
beads and cloth (9, p. 452).
[79] -- The wooden block is carefully cut square, and the design
occupies the whole of one surface; this is characteristic of the
blocks of female designs, whereas designs for male tatu are carved
on very roughly shaped blocks and do not always occupy the whole of
one surface. Since the female designs have to be serially repeated it
is important that the blocks should be of the exact required size,
otherwise the projecting parts of the uncarved wood would render
the exact juxtaposition of the serially repeated impressions very
difficult, whilst the isolated male designs can be impressed on the
skin in a more or less haphazard way.
[80] -- The drawing is taken from a rubbing of a model carved by an
Uma Lekan; this will account for the asymmetry noticeable every here
and there throughout the design. A print from an actual tatu-block is
shown in Pl. 139, Fig. 7; this would be repeated serially in rows down
the front and sides of the thigh, so that absolute uniformity would be
attained; the carver of the model, which was about one-sixth life size,
has not been able to keep the elements of his design quite uniform.
[81] -- For other examples of modified ASU designs employed by Kenyah
tribes, see E. B. Haddon (4, pp. 117, 118).
[82] -- By this name we denote those Kenyah tribes which stand
nearest to the Klemantans and furthest from the Kayans in respect of
customs. Cf. Chap. XXI.
[83] -- The names of the designs are given in Kayan.
[84] -- The same author states that "a sometime headman of Senendan
had two square tattoo marks on his back. This was because he ran away
in a fight, and showed his back to the enemy." This explanation seems
to us most improbable.
[85] -- As an instance of a quite opposite effect produced by a mark
on the forehead, we may note here, that some Madangs who had crossed
over from the Baram to the Rejang on a visit, appeared each with a
cross marked in charcoal on his forehead; they supposed that by this
means they were disguised beyond all recognition by evil spirits. The
belief that such a trivial alteration of appearance is sufficient
disguise is probably held by most tribes; Tama Bulan, a Kenyah chief,
when on a visit to Kuching, discarded the leopard's teeth, which when
at home he wore through the upper part of his ears, and the reason
that he alleged was the same as that given by the Madang. These people
believe not only that evil spirits may do them harm whilst they are on
their travels, but also that, being encountered far from their homes,
the spirits will take advantage of their absence to work some harm
to their wives, children, or property.
[86] -- Dr. Schmeltz has kindly furnished us with an advance sheet
of his forthcoming catalogue of the Borneo collection in the Leyden
Museum; he catalogues these drawings as tatu marks, but in a footnote
records our opinion of them made by letter. Dr. Nieuwenhuis apparently
adheres to the belief that they really are tatu marks.
[87] -- Mr. E. B. Haddon (4, p. 124) writes: "The tattoo design used by
the Kayans and Kenyahs ... has been copied and adopted by the Ibans in
the same way as the Kalamantans have done, the main difference being,
that the Ibans call the design a scorpion. FOR THIS REASON THE PATTERN
TENDS TO BECOME MORE AND MORE LIKE THE SCORPION ... ." The italics are
ours. Is not this "putting the cart before the horse"? It is only when
the design resembles a scorpion that the term SCORPION is applied to
it; all other modifications, even though tending towards the scorpion,
are called DOG; PRAWN, or CRAB.
[88] -- The following statement, which was written by us of the Kenyahs
in a former publication, holds good also of the Kayans: "They may
be said to attribute a soul or spirit to almost every natural agent
and to all living things, and they pay especial regard those that
seem most capable of affecting their welfare for good or ill. They
feel themselves to be surrounded on every hand y spiritual powers,
which appear to them to be concentrated in those objects to which their
attention is directed by practical needs; adopting a mode of expression
familiar to psychologists, we may say that they have differentiated
from a 'continuum' of spiritual powers a number of spiritual agents
with very various degrees of definiteness. Of these the less important
are very vaguely conceived, but are regarded as being able to bring
harm to men, who must therefore avoid giving offence to them, and must
propitiate them if they should by ill-change have been offended. The
more important, assuming individualised and anthromorphic forms and
definite functions, receive proper names, are in some cases represented
by rude images, and become the recipients of prayer and sacrifice"
(JOURN. OF ANTHROP. INSTITUTE, vol. xxxi. p. 174).
[89] -- If the dead man possessed no sufficiently presentable
garments, these may be supplied by friends. This last act of respect
and friendship has not infrequently been permitted to one of us.
[90] -- See vol. ii. p. 29.
[91] -- See vol. ii. p. 61.
[92] -- See vol. ii., p. 137.
[93] -- For the views of an individual Kayan on Laki Tenangan, see
vol. ii., p. 74.
[94] -- See vol. ii., p. 53.
[95] -- See Chap. X.
[96] -- The idea of giving up a valued possession to the god or
spirit in order to appease or propitiate him seems to underlie
a curious rite formerly practised by the JINGKANGS, a Klemantan
sub-tribe living on the great Kapuas river. These people, like most
of the peoples of Borneo, value their male children more highly than
their female children. If a boy seems to be at the point of death,
and if all other efforts to restore him have proved unavailing, the
relatives would kill an infant sister of the boy, and would cause the
boy to eat a small bit of the roasted flesh. The intention seems to
be to appease some malevolent spirit that is causing the sickness;
and the eating of the flesh seems to be considered necessary in order
to connect the sacrifice clearly with the sick child.
[97] -- Cf. vol. ii., p. 75, for the statement of a Kayan on this
question.
[98] -- See vol. ii., p. 138.
[99] -- See vol. ii., p. 29, for usage of this word.
[100] -- This relation is illustrated by the fact that among the
charms and objects of virtue which the Kenyahs hang beside the heads
in the galleries of their houses, or over the fireplaces in their
rooms, are to be found in many houses one or two specimens of stone
axe-heads. The original use of these objects is not known to the
great majority of their possessors, who regard them as teeth dropped
from the jaw of the thunder-god, BALINGO. It is generally claimed
that some ancestor found these stones and added them to the family
treasures. A man who possesses such "teeth," carries them with him
when he goes to war. The Madang chief TAMA KAJAN ODOH, mentioned in
the following note as claiming descent from Balingo, possessed the
unusual number of ten such teeth. The credit of having first obtained
specimens of these stones from the houses belongs to Dr. A. C. Haddon,
who discovered a specimen in a Klemantan house of the Baram basin
in the year 1899. The existence of such Stones in native houses in
Dutch Borneo had been reported by Schwaner many years before that date.
[101] -- When questioned as to this claim, he gave us at once without
hesitation the names in order of the ancestors of nineteen generations
through whom he traces his descent from Balingo. It is perhaps
worth while to transcribe the list as taken down from his lips in
ascending order: -- KAJAN, TAMA KAJAN ODOH, SIGO, APOI, BAUM ([ERROR:
unhandled ♀]), ODOH SINAN ([female]), ALONG,
APOI, LAKING, LAKING GILING, GILING SINJAN, SINJAN PUTOH, PUTOH ATI,
ATI AIAI JALONG, BALARI, UMBONG DOH ([female]),
KUSUN PATU BALINGO. This succession of names, it will be noticed,
is consistent with the custom, common to the Kenyahs and Kayans,
of naming the father after his eldest child.
[102] -- There are four words used by the Kayans to express the notion
of the forbidden act, MALAN, LALI, PARIT, and TULAH. All these are
used as adjectives qualifying actions rather than things; but they
are not strictly synonymous terms. MALAN and PARIT seem to be true
Kayan words; LALI and TULAH to have been taken from the Malay, and to
be used generally by Kayans in speaking with Kenyahs or men of other
tribes to whom these words are more familiar than the Kayan terms.
MALAN applies rather to acts involving risks to the whole community,
PARIT to those involving risk to the individual committing the
forbidden act: thus, during harvest it is MALAN for any stranger to
enter the house, and the whole house or village is said to be MALAN;
but it is PARIT for a child to touch one of the images. Again, it is
not MALAN for the proper persons to touch the dried heads on certain
occasions, but it is always in some degree PARIT for the individual,
and for this reason the task is generally assigned to an elderly
man. LALI and TULAH seem to be the LINGUA FRANCA equivalents of MALAN
and of PARIT respectively.
[103] -- "The Relations between Men and Animals in Sarawak,"
J. ANTH. INST. vol. xxxi.
[104] -- We are not aware that the "bull-roarer" is put to any other
uses than this by any of the tribes.
[105] -- See Chap. XIII.
[106] -- Vol. ii., p. 120.
[107] -- The word BALI is used on a great variety of occasions,
generally as a form of address, being prefixed to the proper name
or designation of the being addressed or spoken of. The being thus
addressed is always one having special powers of the sort that
we should call supernatural, and the prefix serves to mark this
possession of power. It may be said to be an adjectival equivalent
of the MANA of the Melanesians or of the WAKANDA or ORENDA of North
American tribes, words which seem to connote all power other than
the Purely mechanical. It seems not improbable that the word BALI has
entered the Kayan language from a Sanskrit source; for in Sanskrit it
was prefixed to the names of priests and heroes. The word is even more
extensively used by the Kenyahs, who prefix it to the names of several
of their gods; and the Klemantans use the word VALI in the same way.
[108] -- This procedure seems to be one of the many varieties of
"crystal gazing" that are practised among many peoples; and it
seems probable that the DAYONG, in some cases at least, experiences
hallucinatory visions of the scenes that he so vividly describes as
he gazes on the polished metal. The sword so used becomes the property
of the DAYANG.
[109] -- These beads seem to be designed for use by the ghost in
paying for its passage across the river of death.
[110] -- Among some of the peoples it is customary to beat a big gong
while this operation is in progress, or, in the case of a woman, a
drum, in order to announce to the inhabitants of the other world the
coming of the recently deceased. The beating of gongs is in general
use for signalling from house to house.
[111] -- Small articles specially valued by the deceased are enclosed
in the coffin; thus, OYANG LUHAT, a Kayan PENGHULU (see Chap. XXII.),
who bled slowly to death from an accidentally inflicted wound, gave
strict instructions as he lay dying that his certificate of office
bearing the Rajah's signature and his Sarawak flag, the public badge
of his office, should be put in his coffin with his body; and there
can be no reasonable doubt that he hoped to display them, or rather
their ghostly replicas, in the other world. As a clear instance of
such belief it seems worth while to mention the following case. One
of us had given some coloured prints to a Kayan boy, an only son to
whom his parents were much attached. On a subsequent visit he was
told by the bereaved mother that the child had been very fond of the
pictures, and that she had put them in his coffin because she knew
that he would like to look at them in the other world.
[112] -- Among Klemantans it is usual to spoil all articles hung upon
a tomb; and they give the reason that in the other world everything
is the opposite of what it is here: the spoilt shall be perfect, the
new and unspoilt shall be old and damaged, and so on. It is probable
that the real or original motive for this practice is the desire to
avoid placing temptations to theft in the way of strangers.
[113] -- Among some of the Klemantan tribes the opposite practice of
shaving the whole scalp is observed in mourning.
[114] -- In some of the remoter forts of the Sarawak government old
heads that have been confiscated are kept, and are occasionally lent
for the purpose of enabling a village to go out of mourning without
shedding human blood.
[115] -- When pressed in private after a ceremony of this kind,
a certain DAYONG admitted to us that perhaps, if we should look
into the house, we should see the food apparently untouched; but he
maintained that nevertheless all the strength or essence of the food
would have been consumed, the husks merely being left.
[116] -- Apparently it is not that the DAYONG claims to be "possessed"
by the soul of the dead man; for from time to time he inclines his ear
again to the soul-house to catch the faint voice of the ghost. We know
of no cases in which it is claimed that the body of a living man is
"possessed" by a departed soul.
[117] -- Cases occur among the Kayans, though but rarely. The method
most employed is to stab a knife into the throat.
[118] -- In one such case the body was laid out in the gallery of the
house and preparations for the funeral were far advanced, when one of
us (C. H.) arrived. On glancing at the alleged corpse he suspected that
life was not extinct, and succeeded, by the application of ammonia
to the nostrils, in restoring the entranced Kayan to animation,
and shortly to a normal condition of health.
[119] -- The man mentioned in the foregoing footnote had given to a
DAYONG (no doubt in response to leading questions) a circumstantial
account of adventures of this kind, before we had an opportunity of
questioning him after an interval of some ten days. He then admitted
that he could remember nothing clearly.
[120] -- The cry of this species is peculiar; it terminates with an
interrupted series of cries that sound like mocking laughter.
[121] -- See below, vol. ii. p. 130.
[122] -- The incident was reported by Dr. Hose to the British Consul
at Bruni, who entered an effective warning against repetitions of
such acts.
[123] -- A dangerous madman is generally kept shut up in a large
strong cage in the gallery of the house.
[124] -- It is believed that the tatuing on the woman's hands and
forearms illuminates for the ghost dark places traversed on the
journey to the other world.
[125] -- Coco-nuts are commonly opened by two blows with a sword
struck upon opposite sides, and it seems probable that the method of
splitting the jar was suggested by this practice.
[126] -- In this chapter we have departed from our rule of describing
first and most fully the facts and beliefs of the Kayan people, because
before planning this book we had paid special attention to this topic,
and had obtained fuller information in regard to the Kenyahs than to
other peoples, and had published this in the form of a paper in the
JOURNAL OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE ("The Relations between
Men and Animals in Sarawak," J. ANTH. INSTIT. vol. xxxi.). This
paper, modified and corrected in detail, forms the substance of this
chapter. We wish to epxress our thanks to the Council of the Royal
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for permission
to make use of this paper.
[127] -- We find that the practices of these people in connection with
omens or auspices so closely resemble those of the early Romans that
it seems worth while to draw attention to these resemblances, and we
therefore quote in footnotes some passages from Dr. Smith's DICTIONARY
OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES, referring to the practice of the Romans:
"In the most ancient times no transaction, whether private or public,
was performed without consulting the auspices, and hence arose the
distinction of AUSPICIA PRIVATA and AUSPICIA PUBLICA."
[128] -- See Chap. XXII.
[129] -- "No one but a patrician could take the auspices."
[130] -- "Romulus is represented to have been the best of augurs,
and from him all succeeding augurs received the chief mark of their
office."
[131] -- "Hence devices were adopted so that no ill-omened sound
should be heard, such as blowing a trumpet during the sacrifice."
[132] -- "The person who has to take them (the auspices) first marked
out with a wand ... a division of the heavens called 'templum,'
... within which he intended to make his observations."
[133] -- "It was from Jupiter mainly that the future was learnt,
and the birds were regarded as his messengers."
[134] -- "The Roman auspices were essentially of a practical nature;
they gave no information respecting the course of future events, they
did not inform men what was to happen, but simply taught them whether
they were to do or not to do the matter purposed; they assigned no
reason for the decision of Jupiter, they simply announced -- Yes
or No."
[135] -- "It was only a few birds which could give auguries among
the Romans. They were divided into two classes: Oscines, those which
gave auguries by singing or their voice; and Alites, those which
gave auguries by their flight." "There were considerable varieties
of omen according to the note of the Oscines or the place from which
they uttered the note; and similarly among the Alites, according to
the nature of their flight."
[136] -- "They endeavoured to learn the future, especially in war,
by consulting the entrails of victims."
[137] -- This phrase as commonly used implies the exchange of
greetings.
[138] -- See Chap. XII.
[139] -- Of the Romans it is said: "When a fox, a wolf, a serpent,
a horse, a dog, or any other kind of quadruped, ran across a person's
path or appeared in an unusual place, it formed an augury."
[140] -- JOURN. OF STRAITS ASIATIC SOCIETY, Nos. 8, 10, and 14.
[141] -- See Chap. XXII.
[142] -- See Chap. XVII.
[143] -- In the paper from which the greater part of this chapter is
extracted this word was spelt NYARONG. It is now clear to us that it
should be spelt as above, with the initial NG, a common initial sound
in the Sea Dayak language. The most literal translation of the word
is, the thing that is secret, or simply, the secret, or my secret.
[144] -- Almost every Iban possesses and constantly carries with
him a bundle of such objects; they are regarded as charms and are
called PENGAROH; but few probably claim to enjoy the protection of
a secret helper.
[145] -- INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY, and elsewhere.
[146] -- Now that the sacrifice of human victims is forbidden, Kenyahs
and Klemantans sometimes carve a human figure upon the first of the
main piles of a new house to be put into the ground.
[147] -- See vol. ii., p. 4.
[148] -- Quoted in Mr. Frazer's TOTEMISM, 1st ed., 1887, p. 8.
[149] -- Aban Jau possessed a large curiously shaped pig's tusk which
he wore on his person in the belief that any firearm fired at it would
not go off. It is probable that his belief in this charm was connected
with his belief in the dream-pig. The belief was very genuine, until
in a moment of excessive confidence he hanged the tusk upon a tree and
invited one of us to fire at it. The tusk was shattered. Aban Jau said
nothing; but presumably a process of disintegration began in his mind;
for after some hours he remarked that his charm had lost its power.
[150] -- Dr. Boas is of the opinion that the totems of the Indians
of British Columbia have been developed from the personal MANITOU,
the guardian animals acquired by youths in dreams. Miss A. C. Fletcher
is led to a similar conclusion by a study of the totems of the Omaha
tribe of Indians (IMPORT OF THE TOTEM, Salem, Mass., 1897). The facts
described above in connection with the NGARONG of the Ibans and similar
allied institutions among other tribes of Sarawak would seem, then,
to support the views of these authors as to the origin of totemism.
[151] -- Sixteen different methods, most of which combine the notion
of soul-catching with that of exorcism, are enumerated and described
by Mr. E. H. Gomes in his recent work, SEVENTEEN YEARS AMONGST THE
DAYAKS OF BORNEO.
[152] -- In a recent note in the JOURNAL OF THE SARAWAK MUSEUM,
Jan. 1911, Mr. W. Howell states that the power of TAU TEPANG is
supposed to be transmitted in certain families from generation to
generation; that the head of a TAU TEPANG man leaves his body at
night and goes about doing harm, especially to the crops; that the
power is passed on to a child of a TAU TEPANG family by the mother,
who touches the cut edge of the child's tongue with her spittle.
[153] -- Cf. BAWANG DAHA, the lake of blood of the Kayan Hades,
vol. ii., p. 40.
[154] -- The people are naturally reticent about this rite. The
facts were brought to our knowledge by a case which is instructive
in several ways. A Sebop had murdered a Chinese trader and taken
his head. He was ordered to surrender himself for trial at the fort
within the space of one month, and informed that he would be taken
alive or dead if he failed to present himself. He refused and took
to the jungle. Upon which one of the up-country chiefs (Tama Bulan)
was commissioned to arrest him. The murderer was found in the jungle
and called on to surrender, but refused, and died fighting. At this
his brother was enraged against the chief and made the TEGULUN against
him; and being at a distance from his victim, the man was at no pains
to keep the matter secret, and it came to the ears of the chief. He,
although the most enlightened native in the country, felt uneasy
under this terrific malediction and complained to the Resident,
who insisted on a public taking back or taking off of the curse.
[155] -- A free translation runs: --
"O holy DAYONG; thou who lovest mankind,
Bring back thy servant from Leman,
The region between the lands of life and death,
O holy DAYONG."
[156] -- See vol. ii., p. 11.
[157] -- Although breach of custom and of LALI by any individual may
bring misfortune on the whole household, the offending individual is
regarded as specially liable to wasting sickness with diarrhoea and
spitting of blood.
[158] -- We have a wooden image of this being. It is rudely
anthropomorphic, and is covered with fish-like scales. Its sex is
indeterminate. He is supposed to ascend the river from the sea,
kneeling on the back of a sting-ray.
[159] -- The sword handle is sometimes made of hard wood, but
generally of deer's horn, very elaborately carved (see Pl. 129). It
seems possible that this elaborate carving which, in spite of many
minor variations, is of only two fundamental types, is or was at one
time connected with this myth. But we have not been able to get any
statement to this effect.
[160] -- The creeper is here regarded as the male partner.
[161] -- Cf. an Iban story given in Perham's "Sea-Dayak Gods,"
J.S.B.R.A. SOC. ix. 236.
[162] -- This greeting of the passer-by and the charging him with
some commission is very characteristic of the Ibans.
[163] -- A form of trial by ordeal occasionally practised by Ibans
and other tribes.
[164] -- This refers to the difference of colour between the carapace
and the plastron.
[165] -- Refers to the flat under surface contrasting with the
rounded back.
[166] -- See vol. i. p. 139.
[167] -- This is the only mention of rain-making that has come to
our notice among any of the Borneans.
[168] -- This notion of an atmosphere or "odour" of virtue attaching
to material objects pervades the thought and practice of Kayans. As
another illustration of it, we may remark that a Kayan will wear for
a long time, and will often refuse to wash, a garment which has been
worn and afterwards given to him by a European whom he respects.
[169] -- We give the original and translation of one such lullaby: --
"Megiong ujong bayoh
Mansip anak yap -- cheep, cheep.
Lematei telayap,
Telayap abing,
Lematei Laki Laying oban,
Lematei Laki Punan oban."
The translation runs: --
"The branches of the bayoh tree are swaying
With the sound of little chicks-cheep, cheep,
The lizards are dead,
There are no lizards any more,
Gray-haired Laki Laying is dead,
The old jungle man is dead."
The reference to the Punan in this lullaby may be explained by saying
that the children are frightened sometimes by being told that the
jungle man will take them.
[170] -- The PENGHULU is the leading chief of a district;
cf. Chap. XXII.
[171] -- Even when in tatuing blood is drawn, as almost inevitably
occurs, beads are given the tatuer to indemnify her and make it clear
that the deed was not intended.
[172] -- It came into use, no doubt, through the hospitable offering
of cigarettes by the women of the household.
[173] -- The omen birds are not consulted in the hope of obtaining
favourable omens; but rather special events are regarded as of evil
omen; such are any outbreak of fire in the house, any fatal accident
to any member of the house, the repeated crying of the muntjac
(the barking deer) about the house. In one instance known to us the
attractive daughter of a Kenyah chief had three times been compelled
by series of bad omens to break off the betrothals.
[174] -- Some few communities of Punans live in the large caves of
the limestone mountains; it seems possible that this is a survival of
a very ancient custom that preceded the making of shelters, however
rude; but we know of no facts which can be regarded as supporting this
view, save that we have found human bones of uncertain age in several
caves. Some of these caves have undoubtedly been used as burial-places,
possibly during epidemics of cholera or smallpox.
[175] -- See Chap. XXI.
[176] -- Perhaps the most commonly used is a double-ended spatula. With
this the head of the family stirs the boiled sago, and then conveys
it to his own mouth on one end and to his wife's mouth on the other.
[177] -- Formerly, they say, they cooked in green bamboos; and this
is still done occasionally. They also occasionally boil their sago
in the large cups of the pitcher-plant (NEPENTHES).
[178] -- This occurrence of incest between couples brought up
in the same household is, of course, difficult to reconcile with
Prof. Westermarck's well-known theory of the ground of the almost
universal feeling against incest, namely that it depends upon
sexual aversion or indifference engendered by close proximity during
childhood. But medical men who have experience of slum practice in
European towns can supply similar evidence in large quantity. And the
medical psychologists of the school of Freud could cite much evidence
against this theory.
We cannot refrain from throwing out here a speculative suggestion
towards the explanation of the feeling against incest which seems
to find support in certain of the facts of this area. It seems to
us that the feeling with which incest is regarded is an example
of a feeling or sentiment engendered in each generation by law
and tradition, rather than a spontaneous reaction of individuals,
based on some special instinct or innate tendency. The occurrence
of incest between brothers and sisters, and the strong feeling of
the Sea Dayaks against incest between nephew and aunt (who often are
members of distinct communities), are facts which seem to us fatal to
Prof. Westermarck's theory, as well as to point strongly to the view
that the sentiment has a purely conventional or customary source. Now,
if we accept some such view of the constitution of primitive society as
has been suggested by Messrs. Atkinson and Lang (PRIMAL LAW), namely,
that the social group consisted of a single patriarch and a group of
wives and daughters, over all of whom he exercised unrestricted power
or rights; we shall see that the first step towards the constitution of
a higher form of society must have been the strict limitation of his
rights over certain of the women, in order that younger males might
be incorporated in the society and enjoy the undisputed possession
of them. The patriarch, having accepted this limitation of his rights
over his daughters for the sake of the greater security and strength
of the band given by the inclusion of a certain number of young males,
would enforce all the more strictly upon them his prohibition against
any tampering with the females of the senior generation. Thus very
strict prohibitions and severe penalties against the consorting of the
patriarch with the younger generation of females, I.E. his daughters,
and against intercourse between the young males admitted to membership
of the group and the wives of the patriarch, would be the essential
conditions of advance of social organisation. The enforcement of these
penalties would engender a traditional sentiment against such unions,
and these would be the unions primitively regarded as incestuous. The
persistence of the tendency of the patriarch's jealousy to drive his
sons out of the family group as they attained puberty would render
the extension of this sentiment to brother-and-sister unions easy
and almost inevitable. For the young male admitted to the group would
be one who came with a price in his hand to offer in return for the
bride he sought. Such a price could only be exacted by the patriarch
on the condition that he maintained an absolute prohibition on sexual
relations between his offspring so long as the young sons remained
under his roof.
It is not impossible that a trace of the primitive state of society
imagined by Messrs. Atkinson and Lang survives in the fact that a
Kayan chief may, if he is so inclined, temporarily possess himself
of the wife of any of his men without raising the strong resentment
and incurring the penalties which would attend adultery on the part
of any other man of the house; but the law against incest with his
daughters, whether natural or adopted, would be enforced against him
by the co-operation of the chiefs of neighbouring houses and villages.
[179] -- A limestone cliff whose foot is washed by the Baram river
and which contains a number of caves (known as Batu Gading, or the
ivory rock) is said by a Kayan legend to have been formed by a Kayan
house being turned into Stone owing to incestuous conduct within it.
[180] -- This would not be always true of similar cases among Sea
Dayaks.
[181] -- See vol. ii. p. 296 for a striking example of self-control
displayed by this great man under most trying circumstances.
[182] -- Only one evil effect of the success of these efforts for the
spread of peace has come under our notice, namely, a tendency in some
communities to economise labour by building flimsy houses in place
of the massive and roomy structures which were fortresses as well
as dwelling-places.
[183] -- The desire of the people inhabiting a branch of the river
to shut themselves off from all intercourse with the areas in which
an epidemic disease is raging, is sometimes disregarded by Malay or
Chinese traders; such disregard has sometimes led to trouble.
This desire for seclusion as a safeguard against epidemics is by no
means peculiar to the tribes of the interior of Borneo, but seems to
be shared by many savage and barbarous peoples. It is one that ought
to be strictly respected by all travellers; and we have no doubt that
the disregard of this desire by European explorers, ignorant, no doubt,
of its existence or of the practical and rational grounds on which it
is based, has been the cause in many cases of their hostile reception
by native tribes and potentates, and has led to bloodshed and punitive
expeditions which might have been wholly avoided if the explorers had
been equipped with some general knowledge of, and some respect for,
the principles of conduct of savage peoples.
[184] -- In view of the valuable properties now attributed to spermin
in some scientific quarters, it would be rash to assert that this
treatment can have no therapeutic value. It is of interest to note
that prolonged working of camphor in the jungle is said to produce
impotence and that, in order to avoid this, the workers make frequent
breaks and will not prolong a camphor-gathering expedition beyond a
limited period. For impotence is regarded by a young Kayan as a very
great calamity.
[185] -- It seems possible that the Punans acquire some degree of
immunity to the effects of the IPOH poison through constantly handling
it and applying it in the ways mentioned above. The only evidence in
support of this that we can offer is the fact that the Punans handle
their poisoned darts much more recklessly than the other peoples.
[186] -- There is current among the Klemantans a larger number of
such myths than among the Kayans.
[187] -- The second occurred during the residence of one of us
(C. H.) in the Baram, and the alarm of the people was largely prevented
by the issue to all the chiefs of TEBUKU (tallies) foretelling the
date of its incidence. Nevertheless one woman, at least, was so much
frightened by the spectacle that she ran into her house and dropped
down dead.
[188] -- See vol. ii. p. 272.
[189] -- The horn of the small and rare Bornean rhinoceros is the
most highly valued of the various substances out of which the sword
hilts are carved.
[190] -- Although it is impossible to form any estimate of the numbers
of such imported slaves of negroid type, it is, we assert, a fact
that some have been imported. We have trustworthy information of the
possession of two Abyssinian slaves in recent times by a Malay noble.
[191] -- In the course of measuring and observing the physical
characters of some 350 individuals of the various tribes, we recorded
in each case the eye characters. Of a group of 80 subjects made
up of Kenyahs, Klemantans, and Punans (who in this respect do not
differ appreciably from one another), we noted a moderately marked
Mongolian fold in 14 subjects, the rest having in equal numbers
either no fold or but a slight trace of it. As regards obliquity of
the aperture, in rather more than half it was recorded as slight,
in one quarter as lacking, and in the rest as moderate. As regards
the size of palpebral apertures, half were noted as medium, and
about one quarter as small, and the remaining quarter as large. In
the main, obliquity and smallness of aperture go with the presence
of the Mongolian fold. The most common form of eye in this group may
therefore be described as very slightly oblique, moderately large,
and having a slight trace of the Mongolian fold.
[192] -- THE RACES OF MAN, p. 486, London, 1900.
[193] -- OP. CIT. p. 392.
[194] -- MAN, PAST AND PRESENT, London, 1899, pp. 562 and 143.
[195] -- Prof. A. H. Keane (MAN, PAST AND PRESENT, p. 206), after
citing the statements of various observers to the effect that persons
of almost purely Caucasic or European type are not infrequently
encountered among several of the tribes of Upper Burma, Tonking,
and Assam, notably the Shans, and the allied peoples known as Chins,
Karens, Kyens, and Kakhyens, writes: "Thus is again confirmed by the
latest investigations, and by the conclusions of some of the leading
members of the French school of anthropology, the view first advanced
by me in 1879, that peoples of the Caucasic (here called 'Aryan')
division had already spread to the utmost confines of south-east Asia
in remote prehistoric times, and had in this region even preceded the
first waves of Mongolic migration radiating from their cradleland on
the Tibetian plateau." While we accept this view, so ably maintained
by Keane, it is only fair to point out that J. R. Logan, in a paper
published in 1850, had maintained that a Gangetic people (by WHICH
HE meant a people formed in the Gangetic plain by the blending of
Caucasic and Mongoloid stocks) bad wandered at a remote epoch into
the area that is now Burma, following the shore of the Indo-Malayan
sea; and that he recognised the Karens and Kakhyens as the modern
representatives of this people of partially Caucasic origin ("The
Ethnology of Eastern Asia," THE JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO,
vol. iv. p. 481, 1850).
[196] -- Nieuwenhuis publishes a photograph of such carvings found
in the Mahakan or Upper Kotei river. They included fragments of
a cylindrical column and what seems to be a caparisoned kneeling
elephant. QUER DURCH BORNEO, vol. ii. p. 116.
[197] -- "The Ethnology of Eastern Asia," JOURN. OF INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO,
vol. iv. p. 478.
[198] -- We have not been able to find any full and satisfactory
description of the Karens, but we have brought together whatever
statements about them and the tribes most nearly related to them seem
significant for our purpose from the
following sources. The figures in brackets in the text refer to
this list.
(1) J. R. Logan, "The Ethnology of Eastern Asia," LOC. CIT.
(2) Lieut.-Col. James Low on "The Karean Tribes of Martaban and Javai,"
JOURN. OF INDIAN ARCH., vol. iv.
(3) A. R. McMahon, THE KARENS OF THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE, London, 1876.
(4) E. B. Cross, "The Karens," JOURN. OF THE AMER. ORIENTAL SOC., 1854.
(5) T. Mason, "The Karens," JOURN. OF THE ASIATIC SOC., 1866, part ii.
(6) D. M. Smeaton, THE LOYAL KARENS OF BURMA, London, 1887.
(7) J. Anderson, FROM MANDALAY TO MOMIEN.
(8) Lieut.-Col. Waddell, "Tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley," JOURN. OF
THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOC., 1900.
(9) A. R. Colquhoun, AMONG THE SHANS, London, 1885.
(10) T. C. Hodson, NAGA TRIBES OF MANIPUR, London, 1911.
(11) T.C. Hodson, "The Assam Hills, " a paper read before the
Geographical Society of Liverpool in 1905.
(12) Sir J. G. Scott, BURMA.
(13) A. H. Keane, MAN, PAST AND PRESENT, London, 1899.
(14) J. Deniker, THE RACES OF MAN, London, 1900.
[199] -- The cross-bow is used as a toy by Kayan boys only.
[200] -- Cp. the Kayan APO LEGGAN, vol. ii. p. 40.
[201] -- This, however, is a statement which perhaps might loosely
be made of the Kayans. Cp. vol. ii. p. 34.
[202] -- [The Kuki's are normally not considered Nagas. They live
in the same area, but are far more recent immigrants from Burma,
and differ considerably from the Nagas. -- J.H.]
[203] -- It is worthy of note that the Kayans have long used and
highly prize for the decoration of their swords the hair of the
Tibetan goat dyed a dark red, and have continued to obtain this hair
at a great price from Malay and Chinese traders. The wild tribes of
the Chin hills, said to be closely akin to the Kukis, adorn their
shields with tassels of goat's hair dyed red (see THE CHIN HILLS,
by B. S. Carey and H. N. Tuck, Rangoon, 1896). According to the same
authorities, these Chins are inveterate head-hunters. They read omens
in the livers of pigs and other beasts, and in the cries of birds;
they wear a loincloth like the Kayan Bah; they scare pests from
their PADI fields by means of an apparatus like that used by Kayans
(vol. i. p. 102); they floor their houses with huge planks hewn out
with an adze very similar to the Kayan adze.
[204] -- Some communities of Malanaus never plant rice, but rely for
their principal food supply upon the numerous sago-palms which they
have planted round about their villages. It is doubtful whether these
have ever cultivated PADI on any considerable scale.
[205] -- Deniker (RACES OF MAN, p. 392) describes, under the name
MOIS, an aboriginal tribe of Annam in terms which show that they
present many points of similarity with the Muruts.
[206] -- The Malay does not, like the Iban, make use of the various
animal designs, but confines himself to simple geometrical patterns
-- but this difference is probably a result of the adoption of the
Moslem religion.
[207] -- Most Ibans now procure the PARANG ILANG of the Kayans and
copy their wooden shields.
[208] -- The fire-piston is found also in North Borneo, but with this
exception is peculiar to the Ibans among the pagan tribes. It has been
widely used by the Malays of the peninsula and those of Menangkaban
in Sumatra (see H. Balfour, "The Fire Piston," in volume of essays
in honour of E. B. Tylor).
[209] -- The general use of this mat is common to the Kenyahs, Punans,
and most of the Klemantans, but it is comparatively rare among the
Kayans; this is a significant fact, for such a mat is more needed by
a jungle dweller than by one whose home is a well-built house. We
have not met with any mention of such a mat among the tribes of
the mainland.
[210] -- See the vocabularies of the Kayan, Kenyah, and Kalabit
(Murut) languages recently published by Mr. R. S. Douglas, Resident
of the Baram district, in the JOURNAL OF THE SARAWAK MUSEUM, Feb. 1911.
[211] -- This is clearly shown in the article "BALI" of Monier
Williams's SANSKRIT DICTIONARY.
[212] -- For a full account of these transactions and for the later
history of Sarawak in general the reader may be referred to the
recently published SARAWAK UNDER TWO WHITE RAJAHS, by Messrs. Bampfylde
and Baring-Gould, London, 1909.
[213] -- The principles according to which the government has been
conducted cannot be better expressed than in the following words of
H. H. Sir Charles Brooke, the present Rajah. Writing in the SARAWAK
GAZETTE of September 2, 1872, he observed that a government such
as that of Sarawak may "start from things as we find them, putting
its veto on what is dangerous or unjust and supporting what is fair
and equitable in the usages of the natives, and letting system and
legislation wait upon occasion. When new wants are felt it examines and
provides for them by measures rather made on the spot than imported
from abroad; and, to ensure that these shall not be contrary to
native customs, the consent of the people is gained for them before
they are put in force. The white man's so-called privilege of class
is made little of and the rules of government are framed with greater
care for the interests of the majority who are not European than for
those of the minority of superior race."
[214] -- See pp. 417 -- 420 of Messrs. Bampfylde and Baring Gould's
TWO WHITE RAJAHS.
[215] -- These three masks were afterwards given to the Resident,
and are now in the British Museum.
[216] -- "A Savage Peace-Conference," by W. McDougall, THE EAGLE,
the magazine of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1900.
[217] -- The dollar is the Straits Settlements dollar; its value in
English money is two shillings and fourpence.
[218] -- This Company has enjoyed, for more than half a century, the
right to work minerals in Sarawak, paying royalty to the government;
it has been and is the principal channel through which the natural
products of the country have been brought into the world's markets. It
has always worked in harmony with the government, and to the judicious
conduct of its affairs the present material prosperity of the country
is largely due. An important development of the Company's activity
in recent years has been the planting of large areas with the Para
rubber-plant.
[219] -- The beneficent and active interest taken by the Rajah in
the prosperity of the natives, and the paternal character of his
government, are well illustrated by a recently issued order. It is
within the memory of all that in the years 1910 and 1911 occurred the
great rubber "boom" in the markets of Europe. With the hope of vast
profits, speculators hurried to every region where rubber was known
to grow. The seeds of the Para rubber-plant had been introduced to
Sarawak many years before; the suitability of the soil and climate
for the production of the best quality of Para rubber had been
abundantly demonstrated and the natives had been encouraged to
plant for their own profit the seeds and young plants which were
distributed to them from the government stations, so that when the
boom came many of them possessed small plantations of the trees that
"lay the golden eggs." The speculators were everywhere seeking to
buy these plantations at prices which, though they seemed handsome
to the natives, were low enough to provide a very large profit to the
buyers. The Rajah caused warnings to be published and brought to the
notice of the natives, and informed them that they were at full liberty
to appropriate jungle. land for the formation of rubber plantations,
and that their tenure of such lands would be secured to them so long
as they cared for the trees and worked the rubber properly. He further
ordered that no sales of rubber plantations should be effected without
the knowledge and approval of the government.
[220] -- The Rajahs of Sarawak have personally chosen and appointed
their white officers with the greatest care; and their good judgment
has secured for, their country the services of a number of Englishmen
of high abilities and sterling moral quality. Of those members
of the Sarawak service who have passed away, the following have
pre-eminent claims to be gratefully remembered by the people of the
country: James Brooke Brooke (nephew of the first Rajah), W. Brereton,
A. C. Crookshank, J. B. Cruickshank, C. C. de Crespigny, A. H. Everett,
H. Brooke Low, C. S. Pearse, and, above all, F. R. O. Maxwell.
[221] -- Crawford, a leading authority on the history of the East
Indian Islands, wrote of the Dutch in Borneo of the early times --
"Their sole object, according to the commercial principles of the
time, was to obtain, through arrangements with the native prince,
the staple products of the country at prices below their natural cost,
and to sell them above it... . The result of these (arrangements) was
the decline of the trade of Banjermasin; its staple product, pepper,
which had at one time been considerable, having become nearly extinct"
(DICTIONARY OF THE INDIAN ISLANDS, Lond., 1865, p. 65).
[222] -- 'QUER DURCH BORNEO,' by A. W. Nieuwenhuis.
[223] -- Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis, "Anthropometrische Untersuchungen bei
den Dajak." Bearbeitet durch Dr. J. H. F. Kohlbrugge, MITT. AUS DEM
NIEDERL. REICHSMUS. FUR VOLKERK. ser. ii. No. 5, Haarlem, 1903. Owing
to the inaccessibility of this memoir, I have incorporated his more
important observations in this essay.
[224] -- Swaving, G., NATUURK. TIJDSCHR. V. NED. IND., xxiii., 1861,
xxiv., 1862.
Hoeven, J. van der, CATALOGUS CRANIORUM DIVERSARUM GENTIUM.
Virchow, R., Z.F.E., xvii., 1885, p. (270), in which he states
that of 47 "Dayak" skulls in the museums of Paris, Amsterdam, and
the Royal College of Surgeons, London, 20 were dolichocephalic, 12
mesaticephalic, and 15 brachycephalic. Cf. also Z.F.E., xxiv., 1892,
p. (435).
Hagen, B., VERH. D. KON. AKAD. D. WETENSCH. NATUURKUND, xxviii.,
Amsterdam, 1890.
Waldeyer, W., Z.F.E., xxvi., 1894, p. (383).
Zuckerkandl, E., MITT. D. ANTHROP. GESELL. WIEN, xxiv., 1894, p. 254.
Kohlbrugge, J. H. F., L'ANTHROPOLOGIE, ix., 1898, p. 1.
Volz, W., ARCH. F. ANTHROP., xxvi., 1900, p. 719.
Haddon, A. C., ARCHIV. PER L' ANT. E L' ETNOL., xxxi., 1901, p. 341.
[225] -- Nieuwenhuis usually speaks of these as Ulu Ajar Dajak. I
have more than once deprecated this use of the term "Dayak" as it has
simply come to mean a non-Malayan inhabitant of Borneo, for example,
we find "Kenjah Dajak" on his map. In Sarawak this term is confined
to the Sea Dayaks and Land Dayaks, for the former I have suggested
that the native name Iban be adopted, but I have not been able to
find a suitable native name for the Land Dayaks of Sarawak who are
probably allied to the Ulu Ayars.
[226] -- The foregoing statement is taken from Nieuwenhuis, but
Dr. Hose sends me the following remarks:
"PARI is the word for PADI in both Kayan and Kenyah language.
"The Uma Timi and Uma Klap of the Upper Rejang are possibly Bahautribes
but the four Kayan tribes of the Upper Rejang, the Uma Bawang, Uma
Naving, Uma Daro and Uma Lesong say that they came from Usun Apo or
Apo Kayan as Nieuwenhuis calls it.
"The Kayans in the Kapuas are the Uma Ging, and the only Kayans that I
know of in the Bulungan river are the Uma Lekans: there are no Kayans
or Kenyahs in the Limbang river.
"Apo Kayan or Usun Apo is the country from which the Batang Kayan
river or Bulungan, the Kotei, and their great tributaries rise on
the one side, and the tributaries of the Rejang and Baram on the
other. It extends from the Bahau river in the north to the Mahakam
in the south. The Kenyahs of the Baram are spoken of by the people
of the Batang Kayan as Kenyah Bau."
[227] -- In order to make Kohlbrugge's data comparable with ours
I have in all cases grouped his youths and girls over 16 with the
adults, and have left those younger out of reckoning.
[228] -- I.E. having an index of 77.9 and under.
[229] -- This was drawn up by Dr. Hose from his general knowledge
of the people of Sarawak, and it will be found to agree very closely
with the anthropometric data, thus we may regard it as expressing the
present state of our knowledge of the affinities of the several tribes.
End of Project Gutenberg Pagan Tribes of Borneo, by Hose & McDougall
