row of triangles like those on the knuckles; then a band of narrow lines
and two large concentric moons; above these, a large triangle whose sides
and base are composed of seven narrow, parallel lines,—this represents
the spring bow-piece, affixed to a canoe when shooting rapids; above
this, two more large moons and then the band of rings around the arm.
These patterns vary to a slight extent in different households, but the
main features are always present; the concentric ovals may be replaced by
a spiral coil surrounded by radiating lines; or the twists and zig-zags
of the Tuba-root may be arranged according to the artistic ability of the
operator. The concentric moons are, however, considered a higher grade of
work than the spiral coils.
The pattern on the thighs extends externally from the level of the
hip-joint to the calf of the leg; it consists of four panels, each
enclosed in a border of five delicate and parallel lines. At the top of
these panels are conventionalised designs of ‘scorpions,’ of ‘dogs,’ or
of the ‘heads of prawns;’ at least they closely resemble these patterns
in the tattooing of the men. Beneath these, are small Tuba-root designs,
and then a chain of interlocking diamonds, whereof the smaller and
underlying diamonds have their vertical apices terminating in little
hooks and curves; these, they assert, represent a creeping vine with
hooked tendrils, like many of the palms and rattans. Round the calf is
a series of rings, sixteen, more or less, in number, which completely
encircle the leg like the rings on the forearm. Directly down the back
of the thigh, from the fold of the gluteus muscle to the rings on the
calf of the leg, a strip about an inch wide is left blank; this is an
invariable feature, but they could give me no explicit explanation
of its meaning. Dr. Hose expressed to me his belief that the natives
considered this space to be necessary in order that the ‘blood might run
up and down.’ On several occasions I tried to verify this interesting
explanation, sedulously avoiding all leading questions, but always failed
to elicit satisfactory answers. It would be remarkable should it prove
that they knew anything about the circulation of the blood. As far as
my observation goes, even the most experienced old Dayong, who, as an
_haruspex_, must cut up, yearly, hundreds of pigs and fowls and examine
their internal organs, has not the slightest accurate knowledge of the
function of any organ, not even of the heart. By one tattooer I was
assured that if this space were not left unmolested the leg would swell
excessively and the tattooing prove a failure. It is not impossible that
she had herein found the true reason for this ‘safety valve,’ as it
were, of healthy skin. When a limb is girdled with tattooing, done under
such septic conditions as always obtain in Borneo, the inflammation and
swelling are very considerable; the skin becomes tense and non-elastic,
and if there be no healthy area of elastic skin whereby to relieve
tension, consequences might prove serious.
The markings on the feet are plain, broad stripes running from the
bend of the ankle in front, over the dorsum of the foot, following
the metatarsal bones to the toes; these stripes are interrupted once,
dividing off the upper third over the instep. There is also an oblong
patch of black on the second joint of each toe.
[Illustration: TATTOOING ON THE FOREARMS AND FEET OF A KENYAH WOMAN.]
The persistence of the Tuba-root design in all of these patterns is,
possibly, due to the fact that Tuba-fishing is considered more or less a
feminine sport, although men participate in it and do the greater part
of the work; nevertheless, it is the only sport wherein women join, and
it is always a picnic and jollification.
The conjecture may be hazarded that the bands of rings close to the elbow
and around the calf of the leg may possibly represent the ‘Unus,’ or
rings of braided fern-root, worn by men and boys. The wavy lines look
much like the impressions which these narrow braids make in the skin.
The tattooing of girls is begun when they are about four or five years
old; the fingers and toes and knuckles are then decorated with the
squares and the triangles, but here the process ceases until the girls
become of marriageable age, when the tattooing of arms, and next of legs,
is completed.
In connection with the operation of tattooing (which, by the way, they
call ‘Bityek,’—a disyllabic _Bit-yek_), there seems to be no particular
lali or taboo; no objection to spectators was ever made either by the
operator or by the patient; nor at being photographed was there shown any
more than the usual reluctance.
As an indispensable preliminary, before the skin is touched, several
beads must be given to the operator, who may not keep them all, but must
hand over some to the ‘Toh,’—the demons who are always lurking about to
see that the rules of the house are obeyed. It is lali to draw human
blood in a house unless the Toh be previously informed that it is for a
lawful purpose. Some of the beads are, therefore, flung broadcast out of
doors, for the Toh to gather up at their leisure. The girl is put on no
special diet while undergoing the operation.
All tattooing is done by women, (be it remembered that I am here speaking
only of the Kayans,) who, as far as I could ascertain, have no privileged
position in the community, nor is any qualification demanded of them
other than artistic taste and manual skill. The office is not hereditary,
although it often happens that the profession descends from mother to
daughter, merely because the daughter from an early age is employed as
an assistant, and thereby acquires a familiarity with the process, and
naturally inherits her mother’s instruments.
[Illustration: Kayan Tattooing Instrument. Two-thirds of the natural
size.]
The pattern to be tattooed is marked out on the skin by means of wooden
stamps whereon the raised patterns have been carved out, leaving the
designs in high relief; these stamps are inked and pressed on the
skin, leaving a print which sufficiently guides the operator. For
tattooing, three needles are bound tightly together, and inasmuch as it
is considered advisable to force them obliquely into the skin, they are
inserted slightly slantwise in the head of the wooden holder (shaped
somewhat like a hammer), and enveloped in gutta-percha to about an
eighth of an inch from their points, which holds them firmly in place
and regulates the depth to which they may penetrate the skin. Not
infrequently the handle and the head of the needle-holder are ornamented
with carving.
The ink is made of the juice of sugar-cane, thickened with the soot of
damar gum; it is kept in a bowl of soft wood, wherein the needles can
be dipped without dulling the points; and finally the operator provides
several pieces of soft bark-cloth for wiping away the blood, which
flows profusely. All these instruments are usually kept in a cob-webby,
sooty, blood-smeared box; but as heirlooms and tools they are of almost
priceless value.
During the operation the girl sits or lies upon the floor; beside her
squats the operator, with her toes pressing upon the skin to be tattooed;
an assistant on the opposite side keeps the skin stretched. At the edge
of the design marked out by the wooden stamp is placed a roll of soft
bark-cloth, so thick that when the handle of the needle-holder rests
upon it the needles exactly touch the skin. The needles, well dipped in
the ink, carry enough fluid to tattoo lines several inches in length.
Using the roll of cloth as a rest, the operator follows out the design
and punctures the skin to a proper and uniform depth by means of quick
taps with a small iron rod on that portion of the handle which rests on
the roll. The assistant, following the track of the needles, wipes away
superfluous ink and blood. (_Experto crede_, when I say that the pain
of the Kayan operation, even for small designs, is very considerable;
when endured for more than an hour, it becomes torture. Having also
experienced for many consecutive hours the Japanese method, I can affirm
that in comparison the Kayan verges on the inhuman.) A roll of bark-cloth
or a stick is held by the victim, and, as an anæsthetic during the
operation, clutched with desperate strength. (The photograph herewith
given necessarily had to be taken in a very dark room. A magnifying glass
will greatly assist an examination of the details.)
[Illustration: TATTOOING A KAYAN GIRL.
WHILE THE SKIN IS KEPT TENSE BY THE HANDS OF AN ASSISTANT AND BY THE
FEET OF THE TATTOOER, THE DESIGN, WHICH HAS BEEN MARKED ON THE SKIN WITH
INK-SMEARED WOODEN STAMPS, IS PRICKED IN BY TAPPING ON THE BACK OF THE
NEEDLE-HOLDER WITH AN IRON OR A WOODEN BEATER.]
Of course, the complete pattern on women is never finished at one
sitting; it would involve more suffering than can be borne without,
perhaps, serious shock; but the martyrdom is often endured for a couple
of hours, and then, to fill in chance gaps and weak places, that which
has been already pricked in, and is become an exquisitely tender welt, is
mercilessly jabbed and hammered over again, not only once but even twice.
The instant that the poor wretch of a girl is released from the hands,
and toes, of her tormentor, she runs with the swiftness of agony to the
river, there to soothe with the cool flowing water the frightful, burning
ache. The absorption of so much foreign matter by the lymphatics often
induces high fever; suppuration also not infrequently results from the
septic manner in which the operation is performed; this naturally injures
the sharpness of the lines. After one session, the tattooing is not
resumed until the skin is entirely healed, unless an approaching marriage
necessitates the utmost speed; should a woman have a child before her
tattooing is completed, she is lastingly disgraced. The Kenyah women are
tattooed only on the forearms and hands and on the dorsum of the foot,
not on the legs or thighs.
Woe worth the behests of Bornean fashion! Tattooing is not the only
torture that the Kayan or Kenyah damsel must endure who would fain be a
belle; her ear-lobes must be pierced and stretched with weights until
they hang down to her very bosom in long, slim loops of skin. One
evening, in Tama Bulan’s house, I was entertaining his daughter, Bulan,
with the pictures in some illustrated papers that I had brought with me,
and was trying my best (my fluency in Malay, at that time, was limited)
to make them intelligible to her. As I have mentioned above, she was
filled with boundless amazement at the slim and wasp-like waists of the
women, and utterly failed to understand how any woman could endure the
hourly suffering entailed by being horribly squeezed in by steel bands,
which, I managed to tell her, were the secret of the extraordinary and
unnatural shape. But while in the very act of gazing and marvelling at
these pictures of what rational human beings will suffer in order to
appear more beautiful, she was herself constantly relieving her poor,
elongated ear-lobes of the several pounds weight of copper rings dangling
and clinking on her shoulders, by sustaining in her hands, if only for a
brief moment, these monstrous demands of Bornean fashion.
With a prophetic eye to future charms, they begin early. The ear-lobes
are slit when a baby is two or three days old, and as soon as ever the
cuts are sufficiently healed several small pewter rings are inserted, and
gradually increased in number until their weight amounts to five or six
ounces, and by the end of the first year the lobe has been lengthened
three or four inches.
This gradual increase of weights is kept up with girls until the lobe
stretches seven or eight inches. I have seen many a loop of skin, thus
formed, sufficiently large and elastic to allow it to be slipped over the
head.
It is by no means uncommon to see women with as many as three pounds of
copper rings dangling in their ears; of course, this precludes all rapid
motion unless the weights are supported by the hands. When they stoop
over their work the rings are tossed behind on the back.
It often happens that the weights in the ears are increased
injudiciously, and the thin band of skin gives way; it may be that the
loop catches on a twig in the jungle or on some projection in the house,
and, in a minute, all the long years of suffering have been in vain;
immaculate beauty is for ever gone. To be sure, the ends may be spliced
by instantly binding them fast together; but an ugly, tell-tale lump
is the result, and nevermore are the two ears of a symmetrical, lovely
length, and nevermore can they, like John Gilpin’s bottles, ‘keep the
balance true’ by bearing equal weights of copper rings. The patched lobe
remains the weaker.
[Illustration: A KENYAH WOMAN WITH ELONGATED EAR-LOBES.
THE PROCESS OF ELONGATING THE EAR-LOBES IS BEGUN ON THE SECOND OR THIRD
DAY AFTER BIRTH, BY MAKING IN THE LOBE A SMALL PERPENDICULAR SLIT, WHICH
IS KEPT OPEN WITH A PLEDGET OF CLOTH OR A PLUG OF WOOD UNTIL THE WOUND
HAS HEALED; THEN SEVERAL SMALL PEWTER OR COPPER RINGS ARE INSERTED AND
GRADUALLY INCREASED IN SIZE AND NUMBER UNTIL THE LOBE AND THE SKIN OF
THE NECK BELOW THE EAR BECOME SO STRETCHED THAT THE EAR-RINGS HANG FAR
DOWN ON THE CHEST. SHOULD THE ORIGINAL SLIT NOT PROVE SUFFICIENTLY LARGE,
OR SHOULD A GIRL WISH TO ENHANCE HER CHARMS BY AN ENLARGED EAR-LOBE, A
SMALL, SPLIT CYLINDER OF BAMBOO, HAVING THE EDGES OF THE SPLIT, SHARPENED
LIKE KNIVES, IS CLAMPED UPON THE SKIN ABOVE THE FORMER SLIT, AND
GRADUALLY CUTS THROUGH, THUS ENABLING THE STRETCHING PROCESS TO EXTEND
HIGHER UP TO THE SKIN OF THE EAR AND THE CHEEK.]
The women of the Berawan tribe, instead of weights, insert discs of wood
three or four inches in diameter, often carved on both sides in delicate
star-shaped patterns, and sometimes brightened by bits of colored glass
or mirrors inlaid in the centre.
The Kayan and Kenyah men never stretch their ear-lobes to the same length
as do the women; it is effeminate in a man to have his ears depend
further than just to graze the shoulder. Men seldom wear more than one
small copper ring, which is heavy enough merely to keep the loop taut.
The men of these same tribes, although they escape from extreme length of
ears, must endure a second mutilation of this appendage. But this time it
is in the upper part that a hole is punched, wherein, when they attain
to full manhood and have been on a war expedition, there is inserted
a tiger-cat’s canine tooth decorated at the large end with a tuft of
bead-work, or a silver cap, to keep it in place. Before they are entitled
to this adornment, the hole, at least half an inch in diameter, is kept
open by a simple wooden plug, which is generally worn, even by warriors,
except on ceremonial occasions, and especially when in mourning for the
dead.
These holes for the tiger-cat’s tooth are not punched at the same time
that the lobe is slit; the operation is not performed until the boy is
about ten years old. The best time for it, so they claim, is in the
evening; the wounds then have the benefit of the quiet, cool night,
whereby the pain and chance of severe inflammation are notably lessened.
A very opportune occasion is during a war expedition, when quietude and
idleness are the rule, frequently for days, while the seers are finding
the Omen Birds, and consulting them as to the success of the expedition.
Young boys always accompany head-hunting raids, and serve in all menial
capacities, such as, baling out the boats, collecting wood, starting
the fires, etc. Inspired by the excitement of the hour, they are more
than willing to undergo the pain of having their ears punched, in
anticipation of the respect with which they will be regarded by their
playmates when they return.
The operation is never performed unless the boy has had an auspicious
dream the night before. It is auspicious to dream of bathing in clear,
cold water, or of fruit trees laden with fruit, or of fish in large
schools. It would be absolutely prohibitory of all thought of the
operation were the lad to dream of fire or of eating anything hot, such
as chillies or wild pepper. To make ready for the operation, the boy
stands against a tree or post, so that the back of his ear stands out
from his head with the firm support of the wood behind it; the hole is
then punched out with a cylinder of bamboo of the proper half-inch size,
which has been sharpened round the edge so that it makes a clean cut when
driven by a smart blow from a billet of wood.
In the hole a plug of wood is at once inserted, and there remains until
the wound is healed. The poor little chaps suffer horribly from the
swelling and inflammation that always ensue. But have they not advanced
the first step toward that happy day when they may be so blest as to kill
a foe, and ever after entitled to wear a tiger-cat’s tooth?
It was not until I saw the women of Tama Bulan’s household dressed out
in all their very best during the ceremonies of The Naming of the son
and heir, that I noticed that they, too, had the upper part of the ear
pierced for the insertion of a small tassel of beads. The hole is very
small, and lies concealed in the fold of skin at the margin of the outer
ear.
The Ibans do not stretch the ear-lobes more than an inch or two; but
they make up for it by puncturing the edge of the outer ear in a series
of small holes about an eighth of an inch apart, extending from the lobe
all round the ear to where it joins with the skin of the head. In these
diminutive holes they insert either a series of small white-metal rings
or an elaborate ornament of open brass rings, either plain or strung
with cowrie shells, and connected, opposite the opening whereby they are
slipped into the holes in the ear, with a narrow band of brass, from
which are suspended many small diamond-shaped pieces of the same metal,
which clink and jingle and glitter. The rings at the top of the ear are
about half an inch in diameter, but they increase gradually in size until
at the lobe they are an inch or more. When an Iban is bedizened with
these aural adornments, and has a red and yellow cloth wound around his
head, and ten yards of Turkey-red calico tied and twined about his waist,
elegance of Iban costume can no further go.
[Illustration: BATU, A KAYAN YOUTH OF THE BARAM DISTRICT.
HIS EAR-LOBE IS OF THE FASHIONABLE LENGTH DESIRED BY ALL THE KAYAN MEN.
THE LARGE, ROUND HOLE IN THE UPPER PART OF THE EAR IS FOR THE INSERTION
OF A TIGER-CAT’S TOOTH, WHEN THE PRIVILEGE OF WEARING THAT BADGE HAS BEEN
WON BY VALOUR ON A HEAD-HUNTING RAID.]
[Illustration: AN IBAN WITH FILED, STUDDED, AND BLACKENED TEETH.
THE TEETH ARE DRILLED THROUGH THE CENTRE, AND IN THE HOLES ARE INSERTED
EITHER PLUGS OF BRASS WIRE OR BRASS-HEADED TACKS, WHEREOF THE HEADS HAVE
BEEN CUT INTO STARS OR CRESCENTS. THE FOUR FRONT TEETH IN THE UPPER AND
LOWER JAWS ARE FURTHERMORE FILED TO POINTS. THE FILING, DRILLING, AND
BLACKENING KILL THE NERVES; THE GUMS RECEDE, AND AT A COMPARATIVELY EARLY
AGE THE TEETH DECAY AND DROP OUT.
THE PHOTOGRAPH ALSO SHOWS ONE OF THE IBAN FASHIONS OF ORNAMENTING THE
EARS WITH A SERIES OF SMALL PEWTER RINGS, ABOUT ONE-EIGHTH OF AN INCH
APART ROUND THE MARGIN OF THE EAR.]
In the way of improving nature, there is yet a third form of cosmetical
adornment in which, it is safe to say, almost every tribe in Borneo
indulges, namely, blackening the teeth. White teeth are universally
considered frightful disfigurements, and he or she, who for a few days
neglects to renew the stain, is sure to be jeered at by all companions
with the scoffing remark that white teeth are no better than a dog’s. I
have had that reproach cast at me many a time by little children. The
staining is effected with a paste made of a greyish-black shale rock,
called ‘Tunai,’ powdered very fine and mixed with water and the ashes of
a wood, which probably contains a considerable quantity of gallic or of
tannic acid; two or three applications of this paste impart to the teeth
a brilliant, shining black, which color remains for several days, and
then must be renewed by fresh applications.
The Ibans use a mixture of the ashes of cocoanut husks and of a wood,
known to them as ‘Garang,’ and the burnt juice of a green rattan. This
mixture produces the same evenly tinted black as the Tunai stone.
Incomprehensible as it may seem, a row of regular, well-shaped teeth of
inky jet is not devoid of charm; at a distance, I admit, the mouth looks
cavernous, but near enough to distinguish the teeth at all, I venture to
say it is attractive.
Now comes the fourth mandate of fashion, of an ineffably excruciating
character:—
The Ibans, not content with blackening the teeth, actually drill holes
through and through the faces of the six front teeth, and therein
insert plugs of brass, whereof the outer end is elaborated into stars
and crescents. Then they finish up by filing the teeth to sharp points!
No dentist’s chair can hold a more hideous torture than this. The
drill,—usually no more delicate an instrument than the rounded end of a
file,—bores directly through the sensitive pulp of the tooth, tearing and
twisting a nerve so exquisitely sensitive that but to touch it starts the
perspiration and seems the limit of human endurance; yet an Iban will lie
serene and unquivering on the floor while his beauty is thus enhanced
by some kind and tender-hearted friend. Of course, the tooth dies and
becomes a mere shell, tanned inside and out by repeated applications of
the astringent blackening; the gums recede, exposing the fangs of the
teeth and sometimes portions of the alveolar process,—I need not add that
the mouth of a middle-aged Iban is anything but attractive.
The brass plugs can be inserted or removed at will. When a young Iban lad
whom I took with me as a servant to Singapore and Siam, noticed that the
people in the streets stared at his bestudded teeth, he at once removed
the brass studs and kept them carefully locked up in his private box.
For a fifth time Nature and the Borneans are at odds:—
Nature’s beneficent provisions of eyelashes, eyebrows, beard, and
moustache are all disdained, and plucked incontinently away. On the
score of beauty, I draw the line at blackened teeth. The depilation of
eyebrows and eyelashes is a backward step, and mars every face subjected
to it, and is the cause, naturally enough, of much discomfort, if not of
actual disease. At almost every house where we stopped we were called
upon to treat cases of severe conjunctivitis, for which we could find
no more reasonable cause than that it was due to the irritation caused
by the depilation of eyelashes, coupled with bathing in muddy water.
Furthermore, the absence of the slight shade given by the eyelashes
in the glare of the sun seemed to me to be the cause of that anxious,
distressed expression, or of a fierce and wild scowl, observable on so
many faces. The moustache is very seldom allowed to grow, except on one
side, and then only in a tuft at the corner of the mouth. The beard
likewise is usually limited to a few straggling hairs on one side of the
chin.