his private room, clad in high-pointed yellow hoods of bark-cloth, which
flowing down enveloped them from head to foot; they gathered about the
head of the coffin, and wailed to the accompaniment of several deep-toned
gongs. This same rite had been repeated for every visitor who had come
to the Chief’s house since his death; they were in good practice. All
members of the household were in their dirtiest and most worn-out
habiliments; every ornament had been discarded; girdles of beads had
been replaced by belts of twisted rattan, and weights made of pebbles
wrapped in bark-cloth had been substituted for metal ear-rings; many
of the men and some of the women had smeared themselves with soot from
the cooking-pots, and no one had bathed in the river since the demise
of the Chief, four or five days before. They were certainly repulsive
in appearance. This wailing lasted but a scant five minutes, and then
the women retired, and the men withdrew their hands from their eyes; of
course, not a tear had been shed. With the elasticity of youth,—for they
are all mere children,—they were at once interested in hearing of the
expedition we were about to make to the summit of a mountain near by, and
were laughing and joking over the Ghosts and Sprites that we were sure to
meet in that mysterious moss-jungle continually shrouded in mists.
It is the custom among the Berawans to keep a corpse in the house for
several months, varying the length of time in accordance with the rank or
wealth of the deceased; sometimes the body may have to remain unburied
until after the harvest. On the third or fourth day after death, the body
is squeezed into a large jar, which has been carefully cut apart at its
largest diameter, so that the body does not have to be forced through
the narrow neck. It is in the lower half that the corpse is placed in a
cramped, squatting position; the upper half is then fitted on tightly,
and the crack sealed up with resinous gum. The jar is then placed in a
corner of the veranda, and a pipe of hollow bamboo is inserted to drain
off to the ground below the fluids resulting from decomposition. It
occasionally happens that gases accumulate inside the jar, and cannot
escape through the tube, owing to a stoppage, and then an explosion
follows.
The Berawans believe that shortly after death the spirits of the dead
return from Bulun Matai, to see that their relatives and friends are
displaying the due amount of grief by performing the proper ceremonies.
Should a spirit find that it has been neglected and forgotten, it curses
the culprits, and they become blind, deaf, or lame. If all has been done
to show befitting grief and respect,—if the mourners have been on a raid
and secured a nice head wherewith to decorate the grave or the household
hearth,—then the spirit retires to the nether world, never again to
return.
In former days, on the death of any influential Chief, if his people were
either too lazy or too cowardly to go head-hunting, a male or female
slave was purchased and sacrificed in honor of the dead. From near and
far, friends were invited to take part in the high ceremony. When the
poor wretch of a slave was thrust into a cage of bamboo and rattan, he
knew perfectly well the death by torture to which he was destined. In
this cage he was confined for a week or more, until all the guests had
assembled and a feast was prepared. On the appointed day, after every
one had feasted and a blood-thirsty instinct had been stimulated to a
high pitch by arrack, each one in turn thrust a spear into the slave. No
one was allowed to give a fatal thrust until every one to the last man
had felt the delight of drawing blood from living, human flesh. We were
told by the Berawans that the slaves often survived six or seven hundred
wounds, until death from loss of blood set them free. The corpse of the
victim was then taken to the grave of the Chief, and the head cut off and
placed on a pole overhanging the grave. Frequently, some of the guests
worked themselves into such a blood-thirsty frenzy that they bit pieces
from the body, and were vehemently applauded when they swallowed the raw
morsel at a gulp.
It is, probably, in conformity with the same idea of a head-hunt in
honor of the memory of the deceased, that the tribe of Malanaus, on their
return from a burial, engage in a mock battle with those who remained
behind to guard the house, and throw at them mud and imitation javelins
made of light pith.
The body of Aban Liah, although a Berawan, was not placed in a jar, but,
as I have said, in a coffin, and would be kept in the house, so they told
us, for three months, until the end of the harvest. The people darkly
hinted at the absolute necessity of their obtaining, at that time, a
fresh human head. But Dr. Hose warned them of the sure consequences
following every violation of the solemn compact and rites of peace which
they had just concluded.
We left them in their grief, and set out on our trip to the summit of Mt.
Dulit, one of the lofty range that forms the watershed between the Rejang
and the Baram Rivers. When we turned into the little stream that flows
down the side of the mountain, we noticed lying on one of the banks the
huge, stately Durian tree, (worth a livelihood to a whole household on
account of its much-prized fruit,) which had been already cut down just
to make a monumental support for the coffin of the good-for-nothing old
Aban Liah. The giant pole was to be elaborately carved and painted, and,
when the Chief’s body was ready to be placed in position, this huge trunk
would be erected near the bank of the river, a little below his house.
Whatever might have been its origin, it is not now easy to determine
what emotion it is which prompts the Borneans to decorate elaborately
the depositories of their dead; at first glance, it seems as if it must
be affectionate remembrance and a devotion to the habitation of the soul
even after the soul has left it. But, certainly among the Borneans,
demonstrative affection is, I should say, an exceedingly rare trait;
their lives are almost as purely individual and selfish as are the
examples Nature sets before them at every turn in the jungle. During
the time that a child is still nursing at the mother’s breast, there is
that instinctive, protective parental affection observable in all mating
animals; but after the child is weaned and is able to toddle, it is
allowed to ramble pretty much where it will, and to take its educational
bumps and tumbles without parental worry. Mother Nature provides the
only clothes it wears, and, after her own healing, scarifying fashion,
darns and patches the rents and tears that they may receive. Among the
young boys and girls there is a sort of playmate affection, whenever
self-sacrifice is not necessary, and where the one who plans the game or
sport always expects to be and is the principal player. Between adults,
be they the nearest of kin or be they even lovers, I think I am safe in
saying that there is no such thing as unselfish love; a youth would never
think of resigning a comfortable place in a boat to his father, or to his
mother, or to his sister, or even to his sweetheart. When a man comes
back from a long, and perhaps dangerous, expedition, he does not fall
into the arms of his family amid tears of joy and welcome; but he walks
up the notched log and stalks along the public veranda, looking neither
to the right nor to the left until he deposits his burden opposite his
own door, and there he sits down, lights a cigarette, and tries to act
and look as if he had just come in from the rice-field after a day’s
work.[14] There is not a greeting of any kind whatsoever exchanged on
either side; but after a while, and little by little, an admiring group
of men and boys gather round, and slowly he unbends, telling scraps of
news about friends or foes in the country whence he is come, until at
last he is haranguing the people and acting ‘Sir Oracle’ in the centre
of a circle of gaping mouths and unwinking eyes. It is the same were he
about to start off on an expedition; no kerchiefs are waved to him nor
do eyes stream with tears as his canoe pushes off from the shore; he
goes down to the boat with his parcels in just the same matter-of-fact
manner as if he were only going to cross the river for fire-wood. I
have seen Bornean mothers, fathers, and sweethearts, part from those
who ought to have been dear to them, and who were about to set out on
distant expeditions of a peaceful nature, or on long war expeditions of a
dangerous nature, but I remember only one solitary instance where there
were any tears or the slightest show of reluctance at parting; that one
instance was the parting of a sister from a brother who had come over on
a visit to the house into which she had married quite recently. The woman
in this case did really show a downright love for her snaggle-toothed and
hideous brother; she hung upon his neck, sobbing and wailing, trying her
best to hold him back, and pleading with him not to go; he patted her on
the shoulder, seemed very self-conscious and exceedingly bored; finally,
extricating himself rather rudely from her arms, he stalked toward the
notched log and descended, looking straight in front of him. Possibly it
was, on the woman’s part, more homesickness than love for her brother.
From the Arctics to the Tropics, be it ever so humdrum, there’s no place
like home.
[Illustration: GRAVE OF THE WIFE OF ORANG KAYA TEMANGANG LAWI.
THE CORPSE WAS PLACED IN A SQUATTING POSITION IN A DEEP PIT, HOLLOWED OUT
AT THE UPPER END OF THE COLUMN AND COVERED OVER WITH A LARGE TRIANGULAR
SLAB OF WOOD, CUT FROM THE ROOT OF A BUTTRESS TREE. THE ORNAMENTATION IS
COMPOSED OF WHITE CHINA BOWLS AND PLATES, FASTENED ON WITH GUTTA-PERCHA]
Among certain tribes, the body of a Chief swathed in cloths is placed
within the upper end of a tree trunk hollowed out for the purpose, and
a large slab of wood cut from a ‘buttress tree’ is fastened on top. The
photograph, on the opposite page, is that of the grave of a Chief’s
wife, and I am sure that in its erection and ornamentation no jot of
affection was felt by the husband, Temangang Lawi, than whom no more
heartless old head-hunter, and slayer of women and children, exists in
Borneo. His only idea in spending so much time and money on the grave of
his wife was his own glorification. The white spots on the column are
china bowls and saucers stuck on with damar gum; the flags and streamers
on top are strips of white and red cloth, possibly to keep off birds of
prey; possibly a remnant of the Mongolian idea that anything moving and
fluttering in the wind attracts or distracts the attention of the Spirits.
Again, other tribes enclose their dead in coffins which are placed in
miniature houses on the top of high poles, sometimes on single poles,
again on two or even four poles. These little houses are decorated with
open-work carving along the ridge-pole and down the angles of the roof,
and with painting on the sides. Not infrequently small wooden figures of
men are placed standing on the roof or climbing up the poles; possibly,
these are effigies of the slaves which in former times were sacrificed at
the burial.
Natural surroundings and the habitations of the living have, of course, a
great influence on the methods of disposing of the dead. In mountainous,
stony districts, the primitive form of burial is apt to be in cairns or
in caves; in lowlands, where land is swampy, burial in trees, out of the
way of beasts of prey, is adopted. In those districts of Borneo where
the jungle is so dense that it is well-nigh impossible to dig a grave
through the impenetrable, interlocking roots of trees, a burial on poles
follows of necessity. Where the river-banks are constantly changing with
every freshet, burial in such soft soil would not be permanent. I think,
therefore, that it is more than likely that burial on high pedestals
was, in the first instance, a result of natural surroundings, and the
elaborate decorations are for the glorification of the living, and not
for the dead. In Borneo, there are no carnivorous animals to dig up
bodies, but it is by no means unknown that men exceedingly anxious to win
admiration as head-hunters obtain from graves the coveted prize, be it
of friend or of foe; therefore, the more inaccessible the body, the less
is the likelihood that the market for heads will become over-stocked. In
the Naga Hills of Eastern Assam, where the natives live in communities
much like the Borneans, some of the tribes bury their dead in the village
streets; others dig graves just outside the door of the house, or, when
the body is perhaps that of a young unmarried girl or a child, the grave
is made even inside the door. There was I acknowledge, much pathos in the
explanation once given to me by a Naga, whose child was buried inside his
house, that if his little girl were buried out in the jungle or under
the open sky, she would be ‘very much frightened at night.’ The simple
and unostentatious mounds made by the Nagas over their dead, bear more
evidence, I think, of their affection than do the gaudily decorated tombs
erected by the tribes of Borneo, and yet in their daily lives the Nagas
are not one whit more demonstrative than the Borneans.
When, after two days of hard climbing through virgin jungle, we reached
the topmost peak of Dulit, which is almost exactly five thousand feet
high, dense clouds shut off our view of the valley below, but the last
rays of the sun were slanting through endless aisles and marvellous
recesses of emerald moss, and from far below, and beneath the clouds,
came the dull booming of a deep-toned tawak from the house of the dead
Aban Liah, announcing fresh mourners at his coffin.
The great Peace-party had at least brought peace to that scheming,
turbulent old soul, whose body now rests in the valley of the Tinjar.
[Illustration: THE MOSS-COVERED JUNGLE ON THE SUMMIT OF MT. DULIT.
SPHAGNOUS MOSS AND OVERGROWN LYCOPODIUMS COVER THE GROUND AND ENVELOPE
EVERY TWIG AND BRANCH, TRANSFORMING THE JUNGLE INTO A LABYRINTH OF ALLEYS
AND GROTTOS, DRIPPING WITH MOISTURE AND LIT BY FLECKS OF SUNLIGHT, WHICH,
FALLING UPON THE SPARKLING DROPS, ILLUMINE THESE SILENT DEPTHS WITH A
SOFT, GREEN LIGHT.]
On the opposite page is a photograph taken on the summit of Mt. Dulit.
The heavy drapery which covers every tree and branch, almost every leaf,
is a sphagnous moss, breast-high and many feet in thickness. I beseech
the reader to summon to his memory the most vivid, emerald green he has
ever beheld; and then intensify it by a cloudless, tropical sun, at high
noon; and then, in addition to this, let every burnished leaflet glow and
sparkle with myriads of iridescent drops fed by the warm, heavy mists
which constantly sweep over the mountain.
No words can describe the endless shades of ‘greenth’ which are revealed
in the vistas formed by overhanging masses, where here and there the rays
of the sun pierce the cavernous recesses; of which, most assuredly, this
is the first photograph that has ever been taken.
_PERSONAL EMBELLISHMENT_
Early in the morning of the third day of our journey up the Baram,
to visit Tama Bulan, far in the interior of Borneo, we stopped at a
long-house, and as I saw the women descend on their errand to the river
for water I was utterly amazed at their costume, and rubbed my eyes to
make sure I was not dreaming. I looked and rubbed, and rubbed and looked!
It was no illusion! The women who were descending the long notched logs
to the river’s edge wore on their thighs and legs beautiful blue silk
_tricots_ or ‘tights,’ of an elaborate open-work pattern! and on their
hands and forearms delicate black silk mits! I was not prepared for this
elegant toilette in the Jungle, and my bewildering amazement continued
until, on nearer inspection, I found that the airy tracery which I had
mistaken for silken tights was tattooing.
I will not enter on any discussion of the origin or purpose of
tattooing:—whether or not it began in the mark which God set on Cain
after the killing of Abel, or as to its religious, or tribal, or social
purposes, but will simply set forth the customs in regard to it as I
observed them among the Kayans and Kenyahs, the patterns, and the mode
of performing it. Inasmuch as the details will be dry and extremely
uninteresting, and, in reference to the patterns, given with minuteness,
because these patterns are in their general features almost immutable
and are supposed to be symbolic, I would advise my readers to skip the
following pages, and examine only the photographs, merely premising that,
since Nature has inscribed at the entrance to the Torrid Zone, ‘All
clothes abandon, ye who enter here,’ I fancy no one will dispute that, as
a substitution for clothes, pervasive tattooing provides a device both
attractive and modest.
[Illustration: BATU—YOUNGEST SON OF THE KAYAN CHIEF OYONG LUHAT.
HIS TATTOOING IS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE KAYANS OF THE BARAM DISTRICT,
EXCEPT THAT HIS HANDS DO NOT BEAR THE MARKS DENOTING A SUCCESSFUL
HEAD-HUNTER; THE TIGER-CAT’S TEETH IN HIS EARS SHOW, HOWEVER, THAT HE HAS
BEEN ON HEAD-HUNTING EXPEDITIONS AND HAS ATTAINED THE RANK OF A WARRIOR.
AFTER THE EAR HAS BEEN STRETCHED TO THE DESIRED LENGTH, ONE SMALL
COPPER RING IS USUALLY ALL THAT IS WORN, MERELY TO KEEP THE LOBE FROM
CONTRACTING. THE BANDS BELOW HIS KNEES ARE OF FINELY BRAIDED FERN-ROOT,
AND ARE KNOWN AS ‘UNUS’; OCCASIONALLY THEY ARE OF STRIPS OF RATTAN BOUND
WITH BRASS WIRE. UNUS ARE UNIVERSALLY WORN BY THE MEN, AND THEY THINK
THAT WITHOUT THEM A MAN LOOKS EXCEEDINGLY NAKED.]
The tattoo-marks on the Kayan men are small in size, and confined to
certain portions of the body. There are only four or five, and they
are placed on the thighs either in front, below the groin, or on the
outer surface, just below the hip-joint, and on the flexor surface
of the forearm. The designs consist of extremely conventionalised
representations of ‘dogs,’ ‘scorpions,’ and the ‘head of a prawn;’ these
are the native names given to the different patterns; in none of them is
it possible to recognise the animal after which it is named.
Professor Alfred C. Haddon, whose opinion commands all respect,
has expressed to me the extremely ingenious explanation, that,
notwithstanding the native names, all these patterns represent the head
of a dog. To this I modestly and most humbly demur, and incline to the
belief that it is rather the head of that animal which enters so largely
into all their ceremonials, namely, the pig. Dogs, on the other hand, are
treated by all Borneans uniformly with great contempt. It may be noted,
furthermore, that this same pattern, whatever be its origin, enters into
all Kayan decoration, whether of doors, of beams, of implements, of
bead-work, or of graves.
The patterns are selected purely according to fancy, and, as far as I
could ascertain, serve solely as personal embellishment. The only mark
which is really a male distinction is placed on the back of the hands
and fingers after a man has taken a head. The designs on the hands of
these men are always very indistinct, owing to the constant exposure and
rough treatment to which the tattooing is necessarily subjected before
it is thoroughly healed; hence the lines become faint and merge into one
another, so that the appearance of a head-hunter’s hands reminds one
forcibly of Edward Lear’s nonsensical Jumblies, whose ‘heads were green
and their hands were blue, and they went to sea in a sieve.’ I never saw
a head-hunter’s hands that were freshly tattooed, nor did I ever see the
stamps wherewith these designs are marked out. I am, therefore, unable to
give a description of these important marks further than that the backs
of the hands appear to be covered with narrow parallel lines running
transversely, and the knuckles and their interspaces are covered with
triangles with base and apex alternating; on the joints of the fingers
are oblong patches of solid black.
The tattooing on the men, except, of course, the badge of a head-hunter,
is done at about the age of puberty. It is not at all a ceremony; the
youth himself decides when it shall be done and selects the pattern.
In many tribes allied to the Kayans, in the Dutch possessions in South
Borneo, some of the men are far more elaborately tattooed than the Kayans
and Kenyahs of Sarawak, and extend the tattooing to the chest and back,
and even to the cheeks and neck; but these elaborately tattooed men are
the exceptions and not the rule in their tribe, and the marks are by no
means as characteristic as are the ‘dog,’ ‘scorpion,’ and ‘prawn’ of the
Baram Kayans. The Dayaks, or, properly speaking, the Ibans (the name
_Dayak_ is a mere Malay name, meaning ‘up-river people,’ and never used
by the natives themselves to whom it is applied) tattoo on the wrists,
forearms, chest, neck, and thighs, but never in large designs. On the
chest, and on the point of the shoulder, they bear many-pointed stars,
with a spiral sometimes double and interlocking in the centre. On the
throat I have often observed narrow zig-zag lines connecting two designs
like the escapement wheel of a watch. The zig-zag lines, they said,
represent chains, but why a chain should be appropriate for the neck
they did not say. The stars on the chest and shoulder, some maintained,
represent flowers; others said they were silver dollars. With the
exception of the few links of chain on the front of the throat, they do
not seem to aim at the representation of ornaments, such as necklaces,
bracelets, anklets, etc. In addition to these marks on the chest, arms,
and neck, a very common position for a small design is directly on the
prominent end of the ulna at the wrist; almost every Iban has over this
prominence a small star, or a wheel-like design, with radii extending
beyond the circumference.
Far more elaborate, on the contrary, is the tattooing of Kayan women,
which, in the case of married women, invariably covers the thighs, legs,
forearms, hands, and feet.
On the arms, it extends from the second joint of the fingers, (whereon is
a simple black patch about a half inch square,) to just a little below
the bend of the elbow. The knuckles and intervening hollows are decorated
with a row of solid black triangles with base and point alternating; on
the back of the hand are four small ovals surrounded by five concentric
ovals, the outer four merging into the contiguous series, so that the
upper and lower arcs form merely wavy lines. This row of concentric
ovals is enclosed in a border of five lines, following the margin of the
back of the hand below the knuckles to the wrist.
[Illustration: TATTOO DESIGNS ON THE FOREARMS OF KAYAN AND KENYAH WOMEN
COPIED FROM THE ARM OF A WOMAN IN TAMA BULAN’S HOUSEHOLD.]
[Illustration: TATTOO DESIGNS USED BY IBANS OF THE REJANG AND BY KENYAHS
OF THE BARAM.
1. IBAN. ‘KALA,’ THE SCORPION,—ON THE OUTERSIDE OF THE THIGH.
2. ” ‘TAIA GASING,’ THE COTTON SPINNER,—ON THE ULNAR SIDE OF THE
WRIST, EXTENDING UP THE ARM.
3. ” ON THE FRONT OF THE THROAT.
4. ” ON THE FRONT OF THE THROAT.
5. ” ‘KALA,’ THE SCORPION,—ON THE OUTERSIDE OF THE THIGH.
6. ” ‘BUAH ANDU,’ THE ANDU (?) FRUIT,—ON THE SHOULDER IN FRONT.
7. ” ‘TALI SABIT,’—ALONG THE RIBS.
8. KENYAH. ‘ASU,’ THE DOG,—ON THE FOREARM.
9. ” ‘KALA ASU,’ THE SCORPION DOG,—ON THE FOREARM.
10. IBAN. ‘BUAH ANDU,’—ON THE SHOULDER IN FRONT.
11. ” ‘LUKUT,’—ON THE POINT OF THE SHOULDER.
12. ” ‘TANDAN BUAH,’ THE TANDAN (?) FRUIT,—ON THE CHEST.
13. KENYAH. ON THE BACK AND FRONT OF A WOMAN’S FOREARM.
14. IBAN. ‘BUNGA TRONG,’ THE TRONG (?) FLOWER,—ON THE SHOULDER.
15. KENYAH. ‘KALA ASU,’—ON THE FOREARM OR THIGH.
16. IBAN. ‘RINGGIT SALILANG,’—ON THE CHEST OR BREASTS.]
On the back of the wrist is another row of four concentric ovals; above
these, nine narrow lines and then two rows of five concentric ovals
alternating with bands composed of five narrow lines. Above these, again,
are intertwining zig-zags and scrolls composed of seven lines; this
pattern, they told me, represents the root of the Tuba-plant, which is
used in drugging, or poisoning, the water to get fish. The concentric
ovals, so they say, are pictures of the moon. It is barely possible that
an explanation of this frequent figure of the moon is to be found in a
remark made to me by a tattooer, that when a woman died and passed to
the next life, ‘her tattooing becomes luminous like a fire-fly’s light,
and that without it she would wander in total darkness.’ Above the Tuba
pattern are eleven, sometimes more, finely waving lines completely
encircling the arm, like rings. From these rings to the wrist, along both
sides of the arm, is a narrow recurrent line making four laps on itself,
and dividing the patterns on the flexor and extensor surfaces of the arm.