The Hill Dyaks Of Whom I Am Speaking,
However, Have Never Been Pirates, Since They Never Go Near The Sea;
And head-hunting is a custom originating in the petty wars of village
with village, and tribe with tribe, which
No more implies a bad moral
character than did the custom of the slave-trade a hundred years ago
imply want of general morality in all who participated in it. Against
this one stain on their character (which in the case of the Sarawak
Dyaks no longer exists) we have to set many good points. They are
truthful and honest to a remarkable degree. From this cause it is
very often impossible to get from them any definite information, or
even an opinion. They say, "If I were to tell yon what I don't know,
I might tell a lie;" and whenever they voluntarily relate any matter
of fact, you may be sure they are speaking the truth. In a Dyak
village the fruit trees have each their owner, and it has often
happened to me, on asking an inhabitant to gather me some fruit, to
be answered, "I can't do that, for the owner of the tree is not
here;" never seeming to contemplate the possibility of acting
otherwise. Neither will they take the smallest thing belonging to an
European. When living at Simunjon, they continually came to my house,
and would pick up scraps of torn newspaper or crooked pins that I had
thrown away, and ask as a great favour whether they might have them.
Crimes of violence (other than head-hunting) are almost unknown; for
in twelve years, under Sir James Brooke's rule, there had been only
one case of murder in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committed by a
stranger who had been adopted into the tribe. In several other
matters of morality they rank above most uncivilized, and even above
many civilized nations. They are temperate in food and drink, and the
gross sensuality of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them.
They have the usual fault of all people in a half-savage state -
apathy and dilatoriness, but, however annoying this may be to
Europeans who come in contact with them, it cannot be considered a
very grave offence, or be held to outweigh their many excellent
qualities.
During my residence among the Hill Dyaks, I was much struck by the
apparent absence of those causes which are generally supposed to
check the increase of population, although there were plain
indications of stationary or but slowly increasing numbers. The
conditions most favourable to a rapid increase of population are: an
abundance of food, a healthy climate, and early marriages. Here these
conditions all exist. The people produce far more food than they
consume, and exchange the surplus for gongs and brass cannon, ancient
jars, and gold and silver ornaments, which constitute their wealth.
On the whole, they appear very free from disease, marriages take
place early (but not too early), and old bachelors and old maids are
alike unknown. Why, then, we must inquire, has not a greater
population been produced? Why are the Dyak villages so small and so
widely scattered, while nine-tenths of the country is still covered
with forest?
Of all the checks to population among savage nations mentioned by
Malthus - starvation, disease, war, infanticide, immorality, and
infertility of the women - the last is that which he seems to think
least important, and of doubtful efficacy; and yet it is the only one
that seems to me capable of accounting for the state of the
population among the Sarawak Dyaks. The population of Great Britain
increases so as to double itself in about fifty years. To do this it
is evident that each married couple must average three children who
live to be married at the age of about twenty-five. Add to these
those who die in infancy, those who never marry, or those who marry
late in life and have no offspring, the number of children born to
each marriage must average four or five, and we know that families
of seven or eight are very common, and of ten and twelve by no means
rare. But from inquiries at almost every Dyak tribe I visited, I
ascertained that the women rarely had more than three or four
children, and an old chief assured me that he had never known a woman
to have more than seven.
In a village consisting of a hundred and fifty families, only one
consisted of six children living, and only six of five children,
the majority of families appearing to be two, three, or four.
Comparing this with the known proportions in European countries,
it is evident that the number of children to each marriage can hardly
average more than three or four; and as even in civilized countries
half the population die before the age of twenty-five, we should have
only two left to replace their parents; and so long as this state of
things continued, the population must remain stationary. Of course
this is a mere illustration; but the facts I have stated seem to
indicate that something of the kind really takes place; and if so,
there is no difficulty in understanding the smallness and almost
stationary population of the Dyak tribes.
We have next to inquire what is the cause of the small number of
births and of living children in a family. Climate and race may have
something to do with this, but a more real and efficient cause seems
to me to be the hard labour of the women, and the heavy weights they
constantly carry. A Dyak woman generally spends the whole day in the
field, and carries home every night a heavy load of vegetables and
firewood, often for several miles, over rough and hilly paths; and
not unfrequently has to climb up a rocky mountain by ladders, and
over slippery steppingstones, to an elevation of a thousand feet.
Besides this, she has an hour's work every evening to pound the rice
with a heavy wooden stamper, which violently strains every part of
the body.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 35 of 112
Words from 34705 to 35730
of 114260
