Through Central Borneo An Account Of Two Years' Travel In The Land Of The Head-Hunters Between The Years 1913 And 1917 By Carl Lumholtz
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When About To Undertake A
Journey Of More Than Four Or Five Days' Duration One Must Abstain From
Eating Snake Or Turtle, And If A Pregnant Woman Eats These Reptiles The
Child Will Look Like Them.
Should she eat fruit that has fallen to the
ground, the child will be still-born.
The same prohibition applies to
lizards.
Up to twenty years ago the Duhoi and the Katingans made head-hunting raids
on each other. It was the custom to take a little flesh from the arm or
leg of the victim, which was roasted and eaten. Before starting on such an
expedition the man must sleep separate from his wife seven days; when
going pig-hunting the separation is limited to one day. On the Upper Samba
the custom still prevails of drinking tuak from human skulls. This was
related to me by the "onder" of Kasungan, a trustworthy man who had
himself seen it done.
A wide-awake kapala from one of the kampongs above was of excellent
service in explaining the purposes of the ethnological objects I
purchased. About articles used by women he was less certain, but he gave
me much valuable information, though it was impossible to keep him as long
as I desired because he felt anxious about the havoc rusa and monkeys
might make with his paddi fields. At five o'clock of an afternoon I had
finished, and in spite of a heavy shower the kapala left to look after his
paddi, with a night journey of six hours before him.
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