I Returned To Sibu With Mingo, And We Took With Us The Ringleader Of
The Head-Hunters.
He was kept handcuffed in the hold, and he worked
himself up into a pitiable state of fright.
He thought he was going to
be killed, and the whole of the voyage he was chanting a most mournful
kind of song, a regular torrent of words going to one note. My Dayak
servant Dubi informed me that he was singing about the heads he had
taken, and for which he thought he was now going to die.
After a day's stay in Sibu I went up the Sarekei River with my
two servants, and made a long stay in a Dayak house. I will try to
describe my life among the Dayaks in the next chapter. In conclusion,
I must tell the tragic story of a fatal mistake, which was told me by
Johnson, one of the officials at Sibu, which serves to illustrate the
superstitious beliefs of the Malays. A Chinese prisoner at Sibu had
died, at least Johnson and Bolt both thought so, and they sent some of
the Malay soldiers to bury the body on the other side of the river. A
few days later one of them casually remarked to Johnson that they had
often heard it said that the spirit of a man sometimes returned to
his body again for a short time after death (a Malay belief), but he
(this Malay) had not believed it before, but he now knew that it was
true.
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