The Guardians Of The Ladang And The Implements Are To Be Regaled With New Paddi.

Blood of pig and fowls mixed with new rice having been duly offered to antoh, the mixture is smeared on the kapatongs and implements and a small quantity is also placed on a plate near the trays.

Here also stands a dish of boiled rice and meat, the same kind of food which is eaten later by the family. The owner with wife and children having concluded their meal, all others present and as many as care to come are welcome to partake of new rice and meat and to drink tuak.

On the following day they go to the ladang to cut paddi, but barely half the number that took part in the feast assist in the work. The first rice spear that is cut is preserved to be taken home and tied underneath the roof outside the door. This is done in order to prevent birds, monkeys, rusa, or babi from eating the paddi. At the ladang rice is boiled, and on this occasion the family and their guests eat at the same time. When the first baskets of new paddi arrive at the storehouse and the grain is poured out on the floor, a little blood from a fowl sacrificed is smeared on it after the necessary offering to antoh has been thrown up into the air.

Upon the death of a man who was well-to-do, the body is kept for a period of seven days in the coffin, within the family dwelling-house, but for a poor man one day and night is long enough. Many people gather for the funeral. There is little activity in the day time, but at night the work, as the natives call it, is performed, some weeping, others dancing. When the room is large the feast is held in the house, otherwise, outside. Fire is kept burning constantly during the night, but not in the daytime. Many antohs are supposed to arrive to feast on the dead man. People are afraid of these supernatural associations but not of the departed soul. Formerly, when erecting a funeral house for an important man, an attendant in the next life was provided for him by placing a slave, alive, in the hole dug for one of the upright posts, the end of the post being set directly over him.

On the Samba I found myself in close proximity to regions widely spoken of elsewhere in Borneo as being inhabited by particularly wild people, called Ulu-Ots: (ulu = men; ot = at the headwaters). Their habitats are the mountainous regions in which originate the greatest rivers of Borneo, the Barito, the Kapuas (western), and the Mahakam, and the mountains farther west, from whence flow the Katingan, the Sampit, and the Pembuang, are also persistently assigned to these ferocious natives. They are usually believed to have short tails and to sleep in trees. Old Malays may still be found who tell of fights they had forty or more years ago with these wild men. The Kahayans say that the Ulu-Ots are cannibals, and have been known to force old men and women to climb trees and hang by their hands to the branches until sufficiently exhausted to be shaken down and killed. The flesh is roasted before being eaten. They know nothing of agriculture and to them salt and lombok are non-existent. Few of them survive. On the authority of missionaries there are some three hundred such savages at the headwaters of the Kahayan, who are described as very Mongolian in appearance, with oblique eyes and prominent cheekbones, and who sleep in trees.

They are considered inveterate head-hunters, and the skulls of people killed by them are used as drinking-vessels. Controleur Michielsen, who in his report devotes two pages of hearsay to them, concludes thus: "In the Upper Katingan for a long time to come it will be necessary to exercise a certain vigilance at night against attacks of the Ulu-Ot head-hunters." A civilised Kahayan who, twelve years previous to my visit, came upon one unawares at the headwaters of the Samba, told me that the man carried in his right hand a sampit, in his left a shield, and his parang was very large. He wore a chavat made of fibre, and in his ear-lobes were inserted large wooden disks; his skin was rather light and showed no tatuing; the feet were unusually broad, the big toe turned inward, and he ran on his toes, the heels not touching the ground.

Without precluding the possibility, although remote, of some small, still unknown tribe, it seems safe to assume that Ulu-Ot is simply a collective name for several mountain tribes of Central Borneo with whom we already have made acquaintance - the Penyahbongs, Saputans, Bukits, and Punans. Of these the last two are nomads, the first named have recently been induced to become agriculturists, and the Saputans some fifty years ago were still in an unsettled state. The "onder" at Braui confirmed this opinion when telling me of the fight he and thirty other Duhoi once had with Penyahbongs from whom he captured two heads - for they are Ulu-Ots, he said.

Before all my things were cleared away from my camping-place and taken to the prahus, the kapala and three women, one of them his wife, came and seated themselves in a row close together in a squatting position. With the few words of Malay he knew he explained that the women wanted to say good-bye. No doubt it was their way, otherwise they have no greetings. At the landing float the "onder" and his Kahayan assistant were present to see us off. When leaving I was on the point of wishing I might return some day to the unsophisticated Duhoi.

On our arrival at Kuala Samba we found ourselves in a different atmosphere. The Bakompai, although affable, are inquisitive and aggressive, and do not inspire one with confidence.

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