We
Passed Many Of The Long, Curious Dayak Houses And Plenty Of Canoes Full
Of These Picturesque People, And At Some Of The Villages Little Dayak
Children Hurriedly Pushed Out Small Canoes From The Shore So As To
Get Rocked By The Waves Made By Our Launch.
This they seemed to enjoy,
to judge from the delighted yells they gave forth.
I several times saw
a most ingenious invention for frightening away the birds and monkeys
from the large fruit trees which surrounded every Dayak village. At
one end of a large rattan cord was a sort of wooden rattle, fixed on
the top of one of the largest fruit trees. The other end of the rattan
was fastened to a slender bamboo stick which was stuck into the river,
and the action of the stream caused the bamboo to sway to and fro,
thus jerking the rattan which in turn set the rattle going. We passed
several small houses built on the tops of large tree-stumps. These,
Dr. Hose informed me, were built by Kanawits, of a race of people
known as Kelamantans. These Kelamantans are supposed to be the oldest
residents of Borneo, being here long before the Dayaks and Kayans,
but they axe fast dying out, as are the Punans, I believe chiefly
owing to the raids of the warlike Dayaks. They were once ferocious
head-hunters, but now they are a very inoffensive people.
About mid-day we stopped at the village of Kanawit, at the mouth of the
river of that name. This village, like Sibu, is composed entirely of
Chinese and Malays. They are all traders and do a thriving business
with the Dayaks and other natives. Here also was a fort with its
cannon, with a Dayak or Malay sergeant and a dozen men in charge. As
we proceeded up river, the scenery became rather monotonous. There
was little tall forest, the country being either cleared for planting
"padi" (rice) or in secondary forest growth or jungle, a sure sign
of a thick population. We saw many Dayaks burning the felled jungle
for planting their "padi," and the air was full of ashes and smoke,
which obscured the rays of the sun and cast a reddish glare on the
surrounding country.
Toward evening we reached the village of Song and stayed here all
night, fastening our launch to the bank. In spite of the fort here,
we learned that the Chinamen were in great fear of an attack by the
Dayaks, which they daily expected. Leaving Song at half-past five the
next morning, we arrived at Kapit about ten a.m. and put up at the
fort, which was a large one. A long, narrow platform from the top of
the fort led to a larger platform on which, overlooking the river,
there was a large cannon which could be turned round so as to cover
all the approaches from the river in case there was an attack on the
fort. We learned that the day before we arrived at Kapit, Mingo, the
Portuguese in charge of the fort, had captured the worst ringleader of
the head-hunters in the bazaar at Kapit, and small parties of loyal
Dayaks were at once sent off to the homes of the other head-hunters
with strict injunctions to bring back the guilty ones, and, failing
persuasion and threats, to attack them.[11] In most cases they were
successful, and I saw many of the prisoners brought in, together with
some of the heads of their victims.
The next morning Hose suddenly called out to me that if I wished
to inspect the heads I would find them hanging up under the cannon
platform by the river, and he sent a Dayak to undo the wrappings
of native cloth and mats in which they were done up. They were a
sickening sight, and all the horrors of head-hunting were brought
before me with vivid and startling reality far more than could have
been done by any writer, and I pictured those same heads full of life
only a few days before, and then suddenly a rush from the outside
amid the unprepared Punans in their rude huts in the depths of the
forest, a woman's scream of terror, followed by the sickening sound of
hacking blows from the sharp Dayak "parangs," and the Dayak war-cry,
"Hoo-hah! hoo-hah!" ringing through the night air, as every single
Punan man, woman and child, who has not had time to escape, is cut
down in cold blood. When all are dead, the proud Dayaks, proceed to
hack off the heads of their victims and bind them round with rattan
strings with which to carry them, and then, returning in triumph,
are hailed with shouts of delight by their envious fellow-villagers,
for this means wives, a Dayak maiden thinking as much of heads as a
white girl would of jewellery. The old Dayak who undid the wrappings
pretended to be horrified, but I felt sure that the old hypocrite
wished that he owned them himself.
Only seven of the heads had been brought in, and two of them were
heads of women, and although they had been smoked, I could easily
see that one of them was that of a quite young, good-looking girl,
with masses of long, dark hair. She had evidently been killed by a
blow from a "parang," as the flesh on the head had been separated by
a large cut which had split the skull open. In one of the men's heads
there were two small pieces of wood inserted in the nose. They were
all ghastly sights to look at, and smelt a bit, and I was not sorry
to be able to turn my back on them.
As in the present case, the brass-encircled young Dayak women are
generally the cause of these head-hunts, as they often refuse to
marry a man unless he has one or more heads, and in many cases a
man is absolutely driven to get a head if he wishes to marry.
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