According To The Opinion Of Those Best Able To Judge, Bathing-Water In The Tropics Should Be Of The Same Temperature As The Body, Or Slightly Lower.

There are three important items in my personal outfit:

A kettle in which drinking water is boiled, another (of a different colour) in which water for bathing is heated, and a five-gallon tin can which serves as a bathtub.

Much refreshed from my bath, I felt ready for further action. In the morning I had requested the captain not to wait for me, and he had already left. At 12 o'clock the Otto departed, and a few minutes later our flotilla was under way. We stayed over night at Biha, a small but clean Dayak kampong. The Murungs, as seen here for the first time, are rather shy, dark-complexioned, somewhat short and strongly set people. They are not ugly, though their mouths always seem ungainly. The next day we arrived at a Malay kampong, Muara Topu, which is less attractive on account of its lack of cleanliness and its pretense of being civilised.

I soon realised that it would not be possible to overtake the captain, still less to proceed overland, as our men from Puruk Tjahu were rather a poor lot. They were Malays with the exception of three Dayaks, and one of these, an Ot-Danum, had accepted Islam and therefore had imbibed many Malay ideas. The majority of them were personally amiable, but physically, with few exceptions, they were even below the Malay average, having weak, ill-balanced bodies. I saw one man, when pushing his prahu, fall into the water twice, and the men in my prahu often nearly upset it. In view of these conditions I decided to stop over at the large kampong Tumbang Marowei. Something might be gained by a stay among the Murungs, and meantime the overdue photographic supplies, much needed for our inland expedition, would possibly arrive.

The kampong created a pleasant impression, the space in front toward the river, which the Dayaks are compelled to clear and keep clean, being unusually extensive - almost approaching a boulevard on the river bank. Along this are four communal houses arranged lengthwise, in two pairs, and elevated on upright posts. Between the groups and farther back is a smaller house. There are areca-palms and other trees planted in front, and at the back the vast jungle begins immediately. Most of the people were absent, burning trees and bushes that had been cut down to make new fields for rice-planting, the so-called ladangs, but about sunset they returned, and all were quite friendly in their manners.

We asked the kapala if he could have the people dance in order that we might photograph them, but he said that would not be possible unless a feast were made, a necessary part of which would be the sacrifice of a babi (pig), whereupon an agreement was easily reached that I should pay for the babi six florins, and that the Murungs should perform. The feast was held one day later and was more interesting than I had expected. It took place in front of the house where the kapala resided, and here a sacred pillar stood, by the Katingans and others called kapatong, erected on the occasion of a death.

A striking feature in Dayak kampongs, especially in remote regions, is the presence of such upright pillars, carved more or less completely into human form and standing before the houses. These are invariably for the benefit of a dead person whom they guard, and if the deceased was well provided with earthly goods two or three are furnished. They are made of ironwood and often higher than a man, but usually only the upper part is actually worked into shape, though many instances are observed of smaller statues the entire surface of which is crudely carved. When a death occurs many duties are incumbent on the surviving relatives, one of the first being to make the kapatong, the soul of which waits on and guards the soul of the departed one.

A good-sized domestic pig had been brought in dependent from a long pole about which its feet had been tied, and it was deposited at the base of the kapatong. One man held an upright stick between the legs of the animal, while another opened the artery of the neck with one thrust of his knife. The pig was next lifted up by the carrying-pole so that the blood might run into a vessel, which was handed to a man who climbed the kapatong and smeared blood on the image of a human being at the top. This indicated that the feast was for the benefit of the soul of that ironwood statue, because it is an invariable custom for the blood of a sacrificed animal to be smeared on the principals of any feast or ceremony, and this is also done when attempting to cure or ward off illness. The same custom obtains in the case of those about to be married; or, if children are to be named, if a move is made to a new home, blood is first daubed on the house.

The pig was then carried a little farther away, where the space was more favourable for dancing, which soon began to our edification. It was the same type of dance that is universal among the Dayaks wherever I have been, although other varieties are seen in Borneo. This principal one consists of moving in a circle around the sacrificial offering, which is lying at the foot of an upright rod to the top of which a piece of cloth is tied, or at the base of a sacred jar (blanga). The participants join hands, and the movement is slow because an essential feature consists in bending the knees - heels together - down and up again, slowly and in time; then, moving one step to the left and bringing right heel to left, the kneeling is repeated, and so on.

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