our journey up the river, or of our visits to the various houses on our
way; as may be readily inferred, there were many hours, monotonous,
weary, and at times perplexing; three men died of the grippe,—which
seems to have penetrated this most remote corner of the world, and was
at that time fairly epidemic on the Baram. Unfortunately for us, these
deaths were attributed to our presence; a council was held, and we were,
in consequence, requested to return; but we protested our innocence,
asseverated our friendship, and having already come so far begged to
be allowed to go on, and finally allayed their fears and gained their
consent. We distributed tobacco and medicine freely, and held numerous
clinics in our boat and on the river-banks, for the treatment of a
troublesome inflammation of the eyes, probably due to the depilation
of eyelashes, added to constant bathing in the muddy, turbid river. At
one time the rains descended and the floods came, and for five mortal
days we were tied up to the bank of the river, unable to advance on
account of the irresistible current and of the immense logs and trees
that were constantly brought down by the stream. During this enforced
inactivity we became better and better acquainted with our companions;
we learned their names and a generous smattering of their language,—an
easy task; we powdered many and many a wound and abrasion with iodoform,
whereof the color and smell delighted them, and brought us greatly into
favor. From the boys who accompanied the party, and who acted as general
‘slaveys,’ we picked up most of our familiarity with the language;
they were always ready to talk unconstrainedly with us, and we amused
ourselves while amusing them. One little fellow in particular we never
grew tired of watching; his actions were as quick and inquisitive as
those of a monkey, with the added revelation of a shrewd intelligence. I
blush to confess that we taught him the bad manners of putting his thumb
to his nose and wiggling his fingers whenever his elders told him to do
anything for them; the outraged indignation with which this perfectly
novel and insulting gesture was received, and the sly winks little Adom
gave us over his shoulder, at every repetition, were truly delightful.
One day we painted him from head to foot, with water colors, in stripes
of blue, green, yellow, and black, to his joyous delight; and although
he was greeted with outbursts of laughter by the whole party, he was,
nevertheless, exceedingly reluctant to wash off his decoration. Lishun
was another of our particular ‘pals,’ and a sturdier, braver little
fellow it would be hard to find; he was certainly not over eight or nine
years old, but on many occasions he saved our canoe from being swept
back round a sharp turn of the river where the current ran at headlong
speed. Just as the men were losing all hold with their poles and the
bow of the canoe was inevitably swinging out toward the middle of the
river, Lishun, with a rattan rope attached to the bow, in one hand,
would plunge into the swirl of water, and, disappearing for a breathless
moment, would emerge among the roots and branches on the river-bank,
with a shout of laughter from pure enjoyment, and there make fast his
rope, while the polers with a fresh hold brought the bow of the canoe to
the right direction. Why his little limbs were not torn to pieces and
his body battered against the rocks in that seething, whirling water is
to be explained, I suppose, only by the fact that water was almost as
much his element as the earth or air. Then there were Terluat, a solemn
little fellow, who preferred listening to talking; Apoi, a fat and
greasy lumpkin with an inane giggle if you did but look at him; Deng,
about sixteen years old, as clean-limbed and symmetrical an example of
adolescence as can be imagined; and Gau, an ugly little monkey-faced boy,
but as bright as a new penny and an expert in cat’s-cradle. Blari, Tama
Bulan’s nephew, and Tama Talun, the Chief’s right-hand man and a kind of
‘master of ceremonies,’ were our particular friends among the men, apart
from the Chief, Tama Bulan, himself.
[Illustration: SOME OF OUR KENYAH COMPANIONS DURING OUR VISIT TO TAMA
BULAN’S HOUSE.
THE WELL-BUILT MAN IN THE CENTRE IS BLARI; THE BOY ON THE RIGHT IS
LISHUN, SQUATTING CLOSE BY HIM IS DENG, AND STANDING BETWEEN HIM AND
BLARI IS DENG’S ELDER BROTHER. THE NAMES OF THE THREE OTHERS I DO NOT
RECALL.]
During the weary days of waiting for the floods to subside, we used the
youngsters to teach us their language, and never missed the opportunity
of having them in our boat, where we could make the idle moments pass
in showing them a collection of illustrated papers that we had brought
with us. One evening, after they had been giving us a concert of their
own music, we tried what effect some of our songs would have on them.
Somewhat to my surprise, such melodies as ‘The Suwanee River’ and ‘The
Old Kentucky Home’ possessed not the smallest charm for them; they
evidently thought our style of singing exceedingly amusing,—perhaps it
was; and they made no attempt to restrain their laughter. Afterward we
heard them trying to imitate it by merely a continuous rise and fall of
voice in a high key. One song, however, did appeal to them as more like
their own; this was ‘Three Old Crows Sat on a Stone’ with the refrain of
‘Jimmy Magee Magaw;’ frequent repetitions were called for; and finally
they caught the air and adapted words of their own to it, with a refrain
of ‘Balli Boin Akán,’ a phrase wherewith the Dayongs, or priests, address
pigs that are about to be sacrificed.
At the end of five days, during which the freshet acquired daily and
nightly new strength from heavy thunder-showers, the Omen Birds, the
guides and guardians of these people, were harangued and alternately
cajoled and threatened. At one time a fruitless attempt was made to
deceive them. The whole party disembarked, and, donning their spears
and parangs, made a wide circuit in the jungle, so as to make the birds
believe that the canoes were not going home, but were on an ordinary
hunting expedition. Once Tama Bulan, while sitting in our canoe, shook
his fist at a bird perched on a bough near by, and upbraided it for
not causing the rain to cease. When he observed our interest in his
proceedings his face broke into an embarrassed smile, and he poked me in
the ribs, and said, chuckling, ‘Tuan does not believe in the birds, does
he? He thinks Tama Bulan is crazy.’ I assured him that when in Borneo
the white man was as much under the protection of the birds as were the
natives themselves, which was equivocal, but gratifying to his belief.
On another occasion both Dr. Hiller and myself were sprinkled with water
from a stick cut into shavings at one end and held on the blade of a
parang. Had the skies immediately cleared, it would have afforded such
irrefragable proof of our league with evil Spirits that I know not what
would have been our fate. But at last the waters fell, and, finally, we
reached the mouth of the Pata River, the large tributary whereon Tama
Bulan lives; and then after three days of hard boating over rapids which
necessitated our disembarking twice and carrying our boat and all our
baggage overland for a short distance, we arrived within one turn of the
river from Tama Bulan’s house. Here a halt for final purification was
made. An arch of boughs about five feet high was erected on the beach,
and beneath it a fire was kindled, and then Tama Bulan, holding a young
chicken, which he waved and brushed over every portion of the arch,
invoked all evil Spirits which had been accompanying us, and forbade them
to follow us further through the fire. The fowl was then killed, its
blood smeared all over the archway and sprinkled in the fire; then, led
by Tama Bulan, the whole party filed under the arch, and as they stepped
over the fire each one spat in it vociferously and immediately took his
place in the boats.[4] A half hour more brought us to the huge log which
serves as a landing along the shore below the house of Tama Bulan.
[Illustration: BULAN, THE DAUGHTER OF TAMA BULAN.
(From a photograph taken, and kindly loaned, by Professor A. C. Haddon,
F. R. S.)]
Tama Bulan did all in his power to show us that we were welcome, and
assigned to us an immense slab of Tapang wood about eight feet square
and suspended about three feet above the floor by beams from the roof;
hereon we could spread our mats at night and keep our possessions out
of the reach of the hungry mongrel dogs that pervaded the veranda. As
soon as we were thus properly shelved, and had our things stowed away
comfortably, our host came and requested us to visit him in his private
apartment and meet his family. With much pride he conducted us into the
presence of his daughter, Bulan, who had gathered about her a bevy of
her intimate girl friends, all busily engaged in making cigarettes; she
received us with quiet dignity, but, owing to our lack of proficiency
in Malay, I must acknowledge that the conversation could not be termed
particularly brilliant. However, we did our best to be entertaining;
Dr. Hiller and myself displayed the elaborate Japanese tattooing on our
arms, and I sprung by hand, at her father’s instigation, into Bulan’s
good graces. She was about seventeen or eighteen years old, with a strong
resemblance to her father, and mild, gentle eyes which she slowly opened
and shut with demure solemnity; her teeth were, of course, blackened;
her hair was parted in the middle, and brought down low in glossy black
waves over her forehead and held in place by a fillet of plaited rattan;
her eyebrows and eyelashes had been either shaved or depilated. The
one ineradicable blemish in her beauty is her left ear; over-ambitious
parents had suspended therein too heavy weights when she was young, and
one beautiful ear-lobe had given away; to be sure, it had been patched
and reunited, but the patch was undeniable, and an ugly lump the result.
Alas! even three hundred miles in the heart of Borneo _il faut souffrir
pour être belle_. I showed her some of the pictures of American men and
women in the Magazines we had with us; she was much amused at the small
waists of the women, which I was obliged to tell her were effected by
steel bands laced tightly about them. This was incomprehensible to her,
and the torture which she inferred excited her sympathy. In every picture
where neither beard nor moustache marked the sex I had to tell her which
were men and which were women; she could see no difference in the faces,
and the dress and coiffure had no meaning to her.
We were next shown the little son and heir who was to be the centre of
the coming festivities; he was the whitest Bornean baby that I ever
saw, his skin was what might be called a dark-cream color. Infant as he
was,—not yet a year old,—he evinced the utmost terror at the sight of us,
and emitted such bawls that he had to be carried away quickly. His ears,
even at that early age, had been slit, and were already quite elongated
with large bunches of pewter rings, which were, in fact, his sole article
of dress. It always seemed strange to see babies in arms carried about
without a rag of clothing on them; long clothes are so indissolubly
associated in our minds with infancy that there seemed to be something
monstrous and discordant in a tender little baby continually stark naked.
This baby, in spite of its bad temper, was, however, the idol of the
household; nephews, nieces, friends, and slaves of its parents were all
proud to be allowed to carry it about the veranda, in its sling hung with
charms.
While we were away on a five days’ visit to another Chief on the Apoh
River, Tama Bulan most hospitably caused to be constructed for us in the
veranda, nearly opposite his apartment, a little room partitioned off by
matting and a wall of bamboo rods, wherein, as he explained, we should
be free from the annoyance of children and dogs; but even while he was
speaking a row of little, beady eyes peering at us through the cracks
between the bamboos made me sympathize with the feelings of the _freaks_
at a circus when the small boy lifts the flaps of the tent.
On the day of our arrival, the only indication of the approaching
festivities were hundreds of bunches of bananas, suspended everywhere
from the roof; but when we returned from the Apoh River, preparations
were already in full swing for the Naming, and we contributed freely from
our store of tobacco for the manufacture of cigarettes. Bulan’s room
was the centre of this industry, and the workers, all women and girls,
occupied every inch of the floor, squatting in groups round baskets
piled high with the stringy weed. While some prepared the dried banana
leaves, others rolled the cigarettes; some rolled them on their thighs,
others on polished boards held in their laps. It was a merry gathering,
with a constant buzz of gossip, and now and then loud bursts of innocent
laughter that bespake the vacant mind. The holiday had already begun,
and during the days devoted to the ceremonies there is no work in the
rice-fields, consequently the house was full of young people who would
be, at other times, hard at work out of doors. The small boy was, of
course, ubiquitous,—as, on similar busy occasions, he is in civilized
countries; and little Adom seemed to be everywhere at every instant,
upsetting baskets of tobacco, purloining rolls of banana leaf, dropping
chips and rubbish from rafters above on the heads of the workers beneath,
and at every turn in everybody’s way; nevertheless he was treated with
uniform forbearance, and only occasional playful sallies from the girls
kept him from downright hindering them in their work. Kindliness and
hilarity ruled the hour.
[Illustration: GROUP OF BOYS
THE FOURTH ON THE LEFT IN THE FRONT ROW IS LAWI, AN ADOPTED SON OF ABAN
LIAH, AND A PRESUMPTIVE CHIEF. THE OTHERS WERE ALREADY HIS DEVOTED
FOLLOWERS.]
As fast as the cigarettes were made they were strung on a thread and
hung, a dangling fringe, on a framework of rattans about six feet long,
representing a horn-bill with his wings outspread. The head was carved
of wood and painted, so that it had a most life-like appearance, and in
addition it was ornamented with several strips of bead-work cloth draped
around it and enveloping the neck; its tail was composed of real feathers
with the broad black band. The cigarettes were hung almost as closely as
feathers all over the body, wings, and tail,—indeed, there must have been
a thousand affixed to it. When the last cigarette was hung in place, and
it took far into the night before the whole was finished, the huge bird
was suspended from a rafter beyond the reach of pilfering hands, until
the proper time for distribution.
In deciding the exact date for the important ceremony of naming the son
of a Chief, the phase of the moon is of vital importance. According to
the Kenyah calendar, the moon passes through twelve phases, whereof only
two or three are really auspicious; and when some are in the ascendant
they prognosticate even downright ill luck to all who are then named.
These phases are as follows (‘bulan,’ meaning _moon_): (1) ‘Bulan musit,’
_the birth of the moon_; (2) ‘Bulan anak,’ _the moon has a child_; (3)
‘Bulan dyipu boin,’ _the pig’s tooth moon_; (4) ‘Bulan bakwong,’ _the
bird’s-bill moon_; (5) ‘Bulan petak,’ _moon of sickness_; (6) ‘Bulan
batak-palan,’ _the fish moon_, moderately good, but not auspicious for
building houses; (7) ‘Bulan salap jiit’ and (8) ‘Bulan salap bioh,’ _the
big_ and _the little belly-moons_; both good moons; the ‘Salap bioh’
is the best for naming children. (9) ‘Bulan loong-payong jiit,’ _moon
of the small payong fruit_; (10) ‘Bulan loong-payong bioh,’ _moon of
the big payong fruit_; these two phases are auspicious for almost any
undertaking. (11) ‘Bulan blasong jiit,’ _moon of the small pearl shell_
(the shell often attached to the front of a war-coat); this is also an
auspicious phase. (12) ‘Bulan blasong bioh,’ _moon of the big pearl
shell_,—_i.e._, full moon; this is considered not a very favorable phase.
A child born under it goes to extremes. It is either very intelligent or
else an idiot. Fighting and trouble are most apt to occur during the full
moon.
The usual age at which a child is named is at about the end of the first
year or at the beginning of the second. Up to this time all the children,
especially those of a Chief, are under a ‘lali,’ a word signifying a
_restriction_, and used in the same sense as taboo. As long as this
lali is in force the child must not be bathed in the river, but in the
private apartment of its parents; it must not be carried even down
the ladder from the house to the ground; even to mention its future
name is so ill-omened as to be prohibitory; it is known only by the
indefinite appellation ‘Angat’ if a boy, and ‘Endun’ if a girl,—Angat
means literally _a little worm_; what Endun means, if it have a separate
meaning, I do not know. On the present occasion, the moon was in the
phase of Salap bioh, the big-bellied moon,—that is, gibbous.
Numerous guests now began to arrive to participate in the ceremonies;
they came so quietly, and so little commotion followed their arrival,
that we were hardly aware of their presence until we noticed the large
groups outside of Tama Bulan’s door.
On the morning of the appointed day, alternate blows on two large gongs
gave notice that the ceremony was about to begin. We filed into the
Chief’s room with the others, and, passing through the narrow and dark
little entry with its very ramshackle floor, we found the family and the
guests sitting cross-legged about a large mat in the middle of the room.
In the centre of this mat was a heap about a foot high of white husked
rice; at one side of this heap sat the proud mother, holding the pale
little son and heir. When we were all seated, the gongs redoubled and
trebled their din, to drown all sounds of evil portent while the rites
take place.
It is the first duty of the Dayong, or priestess, (on this occasion
Tama Bulan’s first wife, the mother of Bulan,) to drive away all evil
Spirits which may be perchance still lurking near the child. Old age is
seldom, if ever, beautiful in Borneo, and as old Tina Bulan stood up to
officiate, with her straggly hanks of swarthy hair, her blackened snags
of teeth, her shrivelled, bony arms and corded neck, she looked the
supreme incarnation of a witch, straight from the ‘pit of Acheron.’ But
ugliness, as well as beauty, is only skin deep; and we learned to know
this Tina Bulan as a dear old soul, as kind and good-natured as mortal
can be.
She held by its legs a young chicken, which, with excited gesticulations,
she waved above and about the little stark-naked, bawling baby,
struggling in its mother’s lap, and as she waved she dipped water from a
bowl, and, sprinkling it upon the fowl, exhorted it, as follows:
‘Misau balli yap!
Balli Isit! balli Sakit!
Misau balli Mibang nelatang,
Balli nupi jiat, iya malat!
Ja! dua! talu! pat!
Pat porat petat, peti pasi balli jiat!’
Which, somewhat freely translated, means, ‘Drive away, O hallowed fowl,
and hallowed Isit [omen bird], all sickness and evil Spirits that
surround us! Render harmless all bad dreams! One! two! three! four! Away,
all evil demons, here, there, and everywhere!’
As she counted ja! dua! talu! pat! she waved her hands violently and
threateningly, as if fairly pushing the evil Spirits from her. Trembling
with excitement, she then dropped cross-legged close to the heap of
snow-white rice, and with a bamboo joint measured out eight portions;
out of these, she made a separate pile at one side. Eight measures of
rice are the portion for the child of a Chief, half that number suffices
ordinary children. The rice, thus measured, is for the god, Penylong,
the guardian of all souls, and for his wife, Perbungan; the spiritual
essence alone of the grains goes to the gods; the ceremony over, the
rice may be eaten by mortals. In the middle of this lesser pile of rice
she planted a small sprig of a tree, called the _tree of life_, ‘Kayu
urip;’ with this symbol in front of her, she carefully picked out from
the pile eight full, well-shaped grains; wrapping them in a strip of
bark-fibre, and holding the strip close above the child’s head, she tied
a knot in it enclosing and holding fast the grains. (This strip thus
knotted is called ‘Tebuku urip.’) Eight times was this repeated, and all
the while the brazen gongs kept up their hideous, deafening din; now and
then, when the wearied performers stopped for a moment to change hands,
the vigorous and well-sustained bawling of the noble infant filled the
gap. Once I caught sight of little Adom sliding stealthily down from his
perch on the rack for bamboo water-bottles, whence he had been enjoying
his wonted bird’s eye view of the whole performance, and, seizing the arm
of a tired gong-beater, his little dust-begrimed face all contorted with
earnestness, helped him to beat louder.
Every time that Tina Bulan enclosed in a knot the eight grains of rice,
she murmured: ‘May your soul live long, and, by the omens of this knotted
cord of life, may you live to a venerable old age!’[5]
If each grain of rice mean a year of life, the reckoning does not fall
far short of the Biblical three score and ten.
When the ceremony was completed of the Tebuku urip (where ‘urip’ means
_of life_), the ‘Kayu urip’ (_the tree of life_) was placed in a joint of
bamboo, wherein also the tebuku itself was stored. The bamboo joint is
assigned only to a man-child; out of bamboo are made tobacco-boxes, and
quivers for the poisoned darts of the blow-pipe. Such things are carried
only by men, never by women.
[Illustration: KENYAH WOMEN IN ORDINARY COSTUME.
THE RINGS STRETCHING THE EAR-LOBES ARE OF COPPER, CAST BY CHINAMEN AT
THE BAZAAR. THE GIRDLES OF BEADS ROUND THE HIPS ARE MADE IN GERMANY AND
IMPORTED BY CHINESE TRADERS.]
At the naming of a girl, the Kayu urip and the Tebuku are placed in a
small basket, like those wherein rice is carried; this symbolises women’s
work in the rice-fields.
These symbols are hung up in the child’s room, over the sleeping-place,
and are ever after venerated.
The moment that Tina Bulan had placed the Kayu urip and the Tebuku in
the bamboo joint the gongs ceased, and I think a sigh of relief swept
over the whole assembly. Thus far no sound of evil omen had been heard;
indeed, any malevolent lizard or rancorous frog, in order to make his
fateful croak audible above the indescribable din of those fearsome
gongs, would have to employ a siren whistle with megaphone attachment.
The little baby was now danced and jiggled and carried about in its sling
to stop its wailing. Several young girls and old women handed round on
flat baskets, heaps of little packages of salt and ginger-root wrapped in
pieces of green banana leaf; these, together with two or three bananas,
they distributed to each guest.
Tama Talun, who sat beside me on the floor throughout the ceremony, and
with genuine courtesy explained from time to time what was going on, told
me that the salt, the ginger, and the sweet banana indicated what it was
hoped would be the future disposition of the child, namely, he should
be duly calm, hot, and gentle, never sluggish nor apathetic. Of course,
I opened my package, ate a pinch of salt, nibbled the ginger-root, and
wished the while good luck to the babe; then cheerfully pledged him in
a cup of arrack, which was also passed to each guest. This apparently
completed the ceremonies of the first day for Tama Bulan, Junior (I
cannot call him by his real name; what that was, as yet not a soul but
his father and mother knew). The women all arose and began to file out
of the room; wishing not to miss anything, I too rose up, and was slowly
making my way among them to the door when I became aware of an unusual
amount of giggling around me, nay, of several explosions of laughter from
the men in the room behind me. I turned about and saw all their faces
on a broad grin. What ridiculous breach of etiquette had I committed?
I paused, and good-natured Tama Talun came to my rescue, shouting out
over the heads of the rest, ‘Go on, Tuan, it’s all right; they are only
foolishly laughing because the Tuan seems to think he is a woman. We men
have to stay behind until all the women get into the next room.’ With the
exception of Dr. Hiller, I was the only one in that dusky assemblage that
could blush; my cheeks and forehead at once fulfilled their duty, and I
gently edged out of the crowd.
It is usual, on the naming-day of a Chief’s son, to bestow names on all
the babies of a befitting age in the house; advantage must be taken of
the same auspicious day. Therefore as soon as the ceremony was thus
far completed in Tama Bulan’s room, there was a second wild uproar of
gongs a little further down the veranda, and to this room the guests
all repaired. There, the same ceremonies were repeated, except, as I
mentioned before, only four measures of rice were apportioned for the
humbler folk; but, nevertheless, eight grains were tied up in each knot
of the Tebuku.
Thus it went on throughout that whole day; the guests wandering from room
to room, tasting pinches of salt, nibbling ginger, sipping arrack, and
stuffing themselves with bananas; between whiles cooling off by bathing
in the river.
The rites of the first day are but preliminary to the more august
ceremonies of the second day, which are conducted in public outside
the Chief’s room, in the veranda, opposite to his door, where all the
household and guests can assemble to welcome the youngster as soon as his
name is proclaimed.