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. The
heads are handed down from father to son, and the rank of a Dayak is
generally determined by the number of heads he or his ancestors have
collected. A Dayak goes on the war-path more for the sake of the heads
he may get, than for the honour and glory of the fighting. Generally,
though, there is precious little fighting, as the Dayak attacks only
when his victims are unprepared.
While I was in Borneo I heard the following story of Dayak barbarity,
which is a good example of the way the women incite their men to go
on these head-hunting expeditions. In a certain district where some
missionaries were doing good work among the Dayaks, a Dayak young
man named Hathnaveng had been persuaded by the missionaries to give
up the barbaric custom of headhunting. One day, however, he fell in
love with a Dayak maiden. The girl, although returning his passion,
disdained his offer of marriage, because he no longer indulged in the
ancient practice of cutting off and bringing home the heads of the
enemies of the tribe. Hathnaveng, goaded by the taunts of the girl,
who told him to dress in women's clothes in the future, as he no
longer had the courage of a man, left the village and remained away
for some time.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 92 of 114
Words from 47533 to 48041
of 59060
