They Seemed To Be Very Angry, All Talking At Once, And
I Still Heard The Sound Of Their Angry Voices Above The Paddles' Beat,
Long After They Had Disappeared Up A Narrow Creek On The Other Side.
I had intended going with my two servants further up the river and
living for some time among the Dayaks, but Dr. Hose made objections
to my doing so.
He said it would be very unsafe for me to live among
these Kapit Dayaks at the present time, as they were naturally in a
very excitable state, and would have thought little of killing one of
the "orang puteh" (white men), whom they no doubt considered the cause
of all their trouble. They would be sure to take me for a government
official. Hose instead advised me to go up a small unexplored branch
river below Sibu, so as the launch was returning to Sibu I determined
to return in her, leaving Hose and Shelford at Kapit.
During my short stay at Kapit I added very few new specimens to
my collections of birds and butterflies; in fact, it was the worst
collecting-ground that I struck during more than a year's wanderings
in Borneo. I, however, made a fine collection of Dayak weapons,
shields and war ornaments from our friendly Dayaks, who seemed very
low-spirited now that there was to be no fighting, and on this
account traded some of their property to me which at other times
nothing would have induced them to part with, at a very low figure.
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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