themselves in their own language about their quest, but must use ‘camphor
language.’ The Malanau tribes are herein very strict; the crystals will
immediately dissolve if any language be used other than the camphor
language. The Malanau word for _to return_ is ‘muli,’ but when in the
presence of a camphor tree they say ‘beteku;’ _to hide_ in the Malanau
language, is ‘palim,’ but when on a camphor hunt they say ‘krian.’
Similarly, all common names for implements and for food are changed.
One would expect to find an interesting remnant of an ancient language
in this camphor dialect, but it is very doubtful if there be any such
remnant there. This curious custom prevails throughout Borneo, and in
the Malay Peninsula also; possibly, it was introduced by the Malays to
preclude all outside interference in the trading transactions between the
natives and themselves.
[Illustration: KAYAN CAMPHOR-COLLECTORS SELLING THEIR STORE OF CRYSTALS
TO CHINESE TRADERS.
THE PRICE GIVEN FOR CAMPHOR DEPENDS LARGELY UPON THE SIZE AND PURITY OF
THE CRYSTALS; YELLOW AND SOFT CRYSTALS ARE OF LITTLE VALUE. THE BOY ON
THE LEFT IS HOLDING IN HIS HAND SEVERAL ROLLS OF COPPER CENTS TIED UP IN
PACKETS OF FIFTY.]
Among some tribes, when engaged in camphor collecting, the names of
Chiefs and of influential men must never be mentioned; should any one
violate this rule, the trees are always found camphorless.
Wives dare not touch a comb while their husbands are away collecting this
valuable gum; the fibres of the tree will duly reveal abundant spaces
where camphor ought to be found; but if a comb has been touched at home,
these spaces will prove empty and resemble the spaces between the teeth
of a comb.
Husbands are able to discover, by certain knots in the tree, when their
wives are unfaithful; and in former days, many women are said to have
been killed by jealous husbands on evidence no better than these knots.
The leathery sheath of the leaf-stalk of the Penang palm is used as a
plate for food, and it must not be washed during the whole time of an
expedition for camphor, for fear that the camphor will dissolve and
disappear from the crevices of the tree.
No one is allowed to bathe except at daylight and at nightfall; no
song is sung; no deer of any species should be eaten at these times;
the collectors are, however, allowed to hunt for smaller game with the
blow-pipe.
(The finest camphor is that which is found in large, transparent
crystals, about three-quarters of an inch long; this often brings in
the up-country bazaars as much as forty or fifty dollars a pound. The
chief camphor workers are the Punans, who are either hired as guides and
helpers by the Kayans, Kenyahs, Sibops, or Ibans, or else they collect
the camphor themselves and barter it with the other natives, who in turn
sell it to the Chinese.)
With almost every tribe the name for camphor-hunting is ‘Paji.’
_THE PUNANS_
When we parted company with the somewhat unpeaceful Peace-party at Tama
Aping Buling’s, as previously narrated, we set out by ourselves to visit
a settlement of Punans, which had been for some months past in the jungle
a short distance from the head-waters of the Dapoi. The sense of freedom
and relief from the responsibility of that host of warlike peace-makers
could not fail to add to our enjoyment of this lovely river; but, even
apart from this private, personal emotion, nothing can be imagined
more thoroughly and charmingly tropical than the scenery, shifting and
changing at every stroke of the paddle, on which we now entered. The sky
was cloudless, the temperature delightful; great trees, slanting far
over the river, interlocked their branches overhead, and, in perfect
sun-flecked shade, we pursued our slow way over the curling, bubbling,
and babbling water, with our men lazily poling or paddling the canoes.
Little blue, green, and red king-fishers darted across our bows, hither
and thither, from the tangled undergrowth on the banks; from huge,
distorted branches covered with delicate little bright-green ferns,
dangled long, sweeping vines, which had caught in their coils clumps
of stag’s-horn fern and gay orchids, thus adorning our pathway with
hanging-baskets of Nature’s own handicraft; large, startled fruit-pigeons
glided swiftly under the archway of boughs, stirring the leaves with the
wind from their swift wings; and from the depths of the ever-dripping
jungle resounded the hoarse croak of the horn-bill or there was wafted
the plaintive, melodious call of the Wawa monkey. Except for these sounds
and the gurgling of the water, all nature was absolutely hushed, and the
odor of damp, rich earth and warm leaves was heavy, like the atmosphere
in an orchid-house in winter.
The banks of the Dapoi are somewhat thickly populated, and we halted at
several houses, where we made ourselves most welcome by largesses to
the women of strips of bright yellow or of gay red cloth, for frontlets,
and to the men we gave handfuls of Java tobacco. From the female heart,
as grateful as, in this instance, it was vain, our gifts received an
immediate appreciation; when we took our departure, the river-bank looked
like nothing so much as a bed of marigolds and poppies in fullest bloom.
[Illustration: TAMA BALAN DENG, A CHIEF OF THE SIBOP TRIBE. HIS THREE
DAUGHTERS, AND TWO SONS.]
[Illustration: PIPES AND OTHER REQUISITES TO TOBACCO SMOKING.
ON THE LEFT, IN THE UPPER HALF OF THE PHOTOGRAPH, IS A CARVED, BAMBOO
TOBACCO BOX, USED BY THE KAYANS TO HOLD BOTH TOBACCO AND ROLLS OF BANANA
LEAF, WHEREOF CIGARETTES ARE MADE. NEXT TO IT IS A PAIR OF WOODEN TOBACCO
BOXES, PROBABLY MADE BY A KELABIT. ABOVE THEM IS A POUCH OF PLAITED
RATTAN. THE THREE LONG SECTIONS OF BAMBOO, WITH SLIM BOWLS INSERTED AT
RIGHT ANGLES, AND ALSO THE BENT ROOT WITH A SMALL BOX ATTACHED, ARE PIPES
USED BY THE SIBOP TRIBE. ON A RIGHT IS A PLUG OF PALM LEAVES, FASTENED
IN A CLEFT STICK, WHICH IS INSERTED IN THE STEM OF A PIPE TO STRAIN THE
SMOKE AND TO KEEP THE ASHES OF TOBACCO FROM BEING DRAWN INTO THE MOUTH.
NEXT TO IT IS A FIRE-SYRINGE, USED BY THE SARIBAS IBANS, CONSISTING OF
A BRASS CYLINDER LINED WITH LEAD, AND A TIGHTLY FITTING, WOODEN PISTON;
ON THE TIP OF THE PISTON IS PLACED A SMALL PIECE OF TINDER MADE FROM A
MOSSY LICHEN, AND BY DRIVING THE PISTON VIOLENTLY INTO THE CYLINDER AND
RAPIDLY WITHDRAWING IT, THE SUDDEN COMPRESSION AND EXHAUSTION OF THE AIR
IGNITE THE TINDER. THE OPERATION REQUIRES GREAT DEXTERITY. ABOVE ARE TWO
SMALL TOBACCO BOXES, ONE COVERED WITH BEAD-WORK, THE OTHER WITH PLAITED
FERN-FIBRE; TO THE LATTER ARE ATTACHED A WHET STONE AND A GOURD TO HOLD A
SUPPLY OF PITH BUTTS FOR THE BLOW-PIPE DARTS. IN THE LEFT LOWER HALF IS A
STRAIGHT BAMBOO PIPE, USED BY MADANGS. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PICTURE IS A
BOARD, WHEREON CIGARETTES ARE ROLLED AND TOBACCO IS CUT INTO THIN STRIPS.
(From _The Furness-Hose Collection_, Philadelphia.)]
At dusk we arrived at Tama Balan Deng’s,—a village of Sibops recently
moved over from the Rejang. The Chief gave up his own room to us, and,
hospitable soul, without hinting it to us, quietly and silently moved his
family into an adjoining temporary hut; for his house was only partially
completed. We found here that tobacco was smoked by the men much more
frequently in pipes—a rare custom in this part of Borneo—than in
cigarettes. These home-made pipes differ so widely from any I have ever
seen or heard of, that possibly they are worth a word of description:—The
stem is a piece of bamboo more than an inch in diameter, into which is
set a straight, slim bowl, which can hold only a small wad of tobacco.
In the stem they insert a plug of shredded palm leaves, or of shavings
of wood, bound on a stick; and then take the end of the stem into their
mouths, and having first got the tobacco well alight by a few gentle
puffs, they give a powerful suck, whereby the wad of glowing tobacco is
drawn down through the bowl into the stem, but is prevented from reaching
the mouth by the plug of palm leaves. Their name for a tobacco-pipe is
‘S’puk,’ which seems to be an imitation of the sound of the check given
by the plug of palm leaves to the wad of tobacco under the vigorous suck.
Very few of the inmates of the house had ever before seen white people;
and we had a crowd of gaping spectators constantly about us. During
our first night, almost all the inmates crowded into our room, as I
said above, where they remained, positively the whole night through,
watching us, exchanging observations on our personal appearance, and lost
in wonder at our clothes, our marvellous paleness, the colour of our
eyes and of our hair. We opened our eyes at daylight, in time to catch
sight of the women in the group creeping out, almost on all fours. This
creeping, crouching, feminine mode of walking obtains among almost all
the tribes; when women pass a group of men on the veranda, they must
crouch down as low as they can; or even when they have themselves been of
the group and wish to leave it, they must creep away, not rising higher
than a squatting position until they are at a distance. Thus it was, on
this present morning; when they withdrew from this inquisitive vigil they
crouched until they were outside the room.
Tama Balan’s was the last house on the Dapoi, and as we continued up the
pleasant stream we seemed to have left all Borneo behind us. Suddenly we
caught sight of a young Punan girl standing in a canoe near the shore,
and so earnestly engrossed in stamping grated tapioca root through a
piece of matting to strain it, that she never noticed our approach.
When at last she looked up and caught sight of our canoes, and the
inconceivable white beings in them, in a flash she snatched up her mat
and basket of tapioca, and darted into the jungle, like a startled fawn.
She was such a pretty picture, as she stood in her canoe, absorbed in
her work, that I told one of our men to find her and lure her back with
promises of rich presents, if she would allow me to take a picture of
her. She was quickly found, and brought back somewhat reluctantly; never
before had she seen white folk, and what idea the making of a picture
conveyed to her poor, little, bewildered brain, cannot be fathomed. In
reminiscence, it must have seemed to her a hideous dream; she was told
to go on with her work, while a horrible monster, with a face as pale as
ashes, and incomprehensibly clad, stood off at a distance, and placed
on three long sticks an awful object, that expanded and contracted, hid
his face in a black cloth, looked at her with an awful eye for a moment,
gave her a big piece of yellow cloth and a handful of tobacco, and then
with his black object and long sticks was off again in a canoe;—such,
at least, was her utterly bewildered and dazed expression, as she stood
motionless in her canoe, holding in her hands the yellow cloth and the
tobacco, her only proofs that she was not dreaming, and glancing from
them to us alternately as we disappeared rapidly round the turn of the
river, vanishing into empty space from which we had as suddenly and
mysteriously emerged. No Punan mind could doubt that she had been visited
in a trance by supernatural Spirits.
[Illustration: PUNAN HUTS NEAR THE HEAD WATERS OF THE DAPOI.
THESE LEAFY SCREENS, THE MOST SUBSTANTIAL HABITATIONS WHICH THE PUNANS
EVER BUILD, ARE DESERTED AS SOON AS THE TAPIOCA OR OTHER JUNGLE PRODUCT,
ON WHICH THE PEOPLE LIVE, IS EXHAUSTED IN THAT LOCALITY. THE PUNANS DO
NOT PLANT RICE, NOR DO THEY CULTIVATE ANY CROPS, BUT LIVE SOLELY ON WHAT
THEY FIND GROWING WILD IN THE JUNGLE.]
[Illustration: PUNAN GIRL STRAINING GRATED TAPIOCA.
THE TUBERS ARE FIRST FINELY GRATED AND THEN, DILUTED WITH WATER, PLACED
IN A MAT, AND BY A VIGOROUS TREADING THE FINE PARTICLES ARE STRAINED
THROUGH AND COLLECTED IN THE BOTTOM OF THE BOAT OR OTHER RECEPTACLE USED
FOR THE PURPOSE.]
Not long after this, the river grew so shallow that we deserted the
boats, and walked for miles and miles, so it seemed, up the bed of the
stream.
At last, as we were nearing our destination, we halted for rest and
refreshment, at a rice-field hut; and here there strolled in upon us one
of the Punans themselves from the settlement; he had been out with his
blow-pipe after small game. He made no attempt to conceal his speechless
wonderment at white people, and silently gazed at us in open-eyed and
open-mouthed astonishment. When our Sibop guide, whom we had brought from
Tama Aping’s, as an interpreter, asked him whether he had ever before
seen white men, he replied, with awestruck earnestness, ‘Never anything
like them have I seen! Surely they must be the Fathers of all People!’
Ever after he referred to us or addressed us as his ‘fathers.’
Not long after resuming our march, our guide suddenly turned off from
the river-bed into the open jungle,—that is, jungle in which there is
but little undergrowth, except thorny palms and rattans. It is the ideal
forest primeval, where old and majestic trees form in every direction
vast, illimitable, solemn vistas. On a sudden, our guide asked us to halt
and keep perfectly silent, while he went on ahead to give notice to the
Punans that some peaceful, friendly visitors were approaching. Unless
this notice were given, he declared that the people would scatter at the
first sound of our approach, and we should find nothing but empty huts.
When he returned, he guided us down a slight hill and over a stream, and
through a dense hedge of tall plants of wild tapioca. We emerged into
more open ground, and were all at once in the Punan village. The huts
could be hardly distinguished from the surrounding grasses and palms,
so low and fragile were they. The walls were merely boughs and twigs
interlaced, and against them leaned broad palm leaves; the roofs were a
loose thatch of leaves and boughs, but could not be more waterproof than
the natural roof of leaves overhead. The ‘village’ comprised only four
huts, and in not one of them could I stand upright.
Outside the huts, when we approached, there seemed to be only a few
old women. Although our friendly intentions had been announced, the
younger folks had hidden in the huts, so as to observe us from a safe
distance through the chinks in the leafy walls. There were only two men
in the village when we arrived; all the others were away hunting with
blow-pipes, or after camphor, gutta-percha, rattans, or other products
of the jungle, which from time to time they trade off with their more
civilized neighbors, the Sibops and Berawans, for cloth, tobacco, salt,
etc. Three old women, however, at once greeted us, and, coming up
boldly, insisted on touching all of us, passing their hands over our
arms and our backs, and talking volubly all the while in a plaintive and
much injured tone of voice. It was quite depressing. I was sure that
we had unconsciously wounded their tenderest and holiest feelings, and
that they were reproaching us for wandering near their ‘sacred bower’
and molesting their ‘ancient solitary reign;’ but, before long, I was
immensely relieved by finding that a tone of petulant but resigned
remonstrance was the common and invariable intonation of each and all.
Little by little all fear was dismissed, and we were soon surrounded by
a merry, but sad-voiced, crowd of boys and girls, young women and old;
even babies in arms,—I should say, babies in slings on their mothers’
backs,—were pressed forward, not merely to look at us and to touch us,
but to be touched by us. Gentle, simple-hearted creatures, they believed
that merely to stroke us or to be stroked by us, brought them blessings;
this then, we found, was the meaning of the feeble stroking and caressing
touches that greeted us from the old women. Our interpreter told me, that
what I had imagined were reproaches, was a continuous plaintive murmur
of how good and kind it was of the wonderful white people to come so far
just to see them and bring them blessings. They examined and admired
everything we had with us or on us; our coats, our hats, our shoes, the
buttons and button-holes on our clothes,—these excited their profound
wonder.
A book of photographs, which I had taken during a former visit to the
Baram, was looked at over and over again; they never wearied of it,
and their clucks of admiration were constant while they explained to
one another the meaning of the pictures. After they fully understood
that these miraculous pictures had been made by my camera, they became
absolutely without fear of having their pictures taken,—indeed, in their
simple hearts, they had somehow come to believe that thereby bodily
ailments would be cured. In the photograph of a group of women and
children, on the opposite page, in the corner on the right, there sits a
poor, unhappy mother, whose unfortunate little baby is so hopelessly and
enormously hydrocephalic that it could never leave the basket which she
holds in her lap. She begged me for medicine to cure it, but when I told
her that there is none that would do it any good, she piteously begged
to be allowed to sit in the front line, so that the little patient might
derive the full benefit of the picture-making. Just beyond her stands
another devoted mother, who, in order to bring the powerful curative
effect of the camera to bear on the alleviation of the severe sufferings
of her little boy, is holding her hand on the abdominal locality, where
little children most frequently have pains. On her right, and again in
the front row, are women afflicted with goitre, which they, too, hoped
would be cured by the picture-making.
[Illustration: HUNTING FOR SMALL GAME WITH THE SUMPIT.
THESE MEN ARE NOT PUNANS, BUT LEPPU ANNANS OF THE TINJAR RIVER; THE
MANNER OF HOLDING THE SUMPIT IS, HOWEVER, THE SAME IN ALL TRIBES. THE
JOINT OF BAMBOO, HANGING AT THE BELT, IS THE QUIVER FOR POISONED DARTS;
IT IS USUALLY LINED WITH FUR, TO PROTECT THE DELICATE POINTS OF THE
DARTS. THE POISON SEEMS TO ACT VERY SLOWLY ON BIRDS; UNLESS THE WOUND
FROM THE DART CRIPPLES THE FLIGHT OR ENTERS A VITAL PART, THE GAME
ESCAPES THE HUNTER. FOR KILLING SMALL BIRDS, CLAY PELLETS ARE QUITE AS
EFFECTIVE AS DARTS.]
[Illustration: WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF THE PUNAN SETTLEMENT NEAR THE HEAD
WATERS OF THE DAPOI.
BECAUSE THEY SAW IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS WHICH I SHOWED THEM ONLY
HEALTHY-LOOKING PEOPLE, THEY BELIEVED THAT THEREFORE PICTURE-MAKING MUST
BE A PANACEA FOR ALL AILMENTS.]
The Punans are nomads, never building permanent houses, nor remaining
long in one locality. Of all the tribes they are, perhaps, the most mild
and gentle; they are not head-hunters, and care no more for a collection
of human heads than for that of any other animal, and, therefore, never
go on a raid. They know the country more thoroughly than any other
natives, and are always sought by the Sibops, Kayans, Kenyahs, and Ibans
as guides in expeditions after camphor, gutta-percha, and bees-wax. They
live solely on the products of the jungle, esculent roots and plants,
such as caladium, wild tapioca, a species of canna, the tender, uncurled
fronds of ferns, and the heart of several species of palm.
The men are extremely skilful with the blow-pipe and in the construction
of snares and traps. When they are not surfeited with small birds, they
are completely happy with roast or boiled monkey, and as for the small
Bornean porcupine,—it is a delicacy never to be rejected. For some
reason, which I could never discover, they will not kill a python. Salt,
tobacco, and rice are downright luxuries. They cultivate no fields, owing
to their nomadic life; consequently, the Punan fathers and husbands and
sons work hard to obtain from the jungle, far and near, those articles
for which they themselves have no use, such as camphor, bees-wax, etc.,
which they can barter with Malay and Chinese traders. Most valuable of
all these articles is rhinoceros horn; in fact, the killing of a single
rhinoceros places the wealth of a Punan village almost ‘beyond the dreams
of avarice;’ there is no scrap or portion of the animal that is not
prized; the flesh is coveted food; the horn, nails, hair, skin, and even
the contents of the stomach, are traded at the highest rate of exchange
to the Chinese, who use them all for medicinal purposes.
It falls to the lot of the women to prepare the tapioca root for food, an
operation which takes the place of the monotonous pounding and threshing
of rice in other tribes.
These roots, which look much like sweet potatoes, are first scraped or
grated on a piece of the stalk of a rough, scaly palm, and the coarse
pulp is then washed and strained by stamping it through a mat while water
is constantly poured over it; this washed and strained pulp is then
collected in wooden troughs and allowed to settle. The sediment is a
thick, white paste, which when boiled makes a very palatable farinaceous
diet. The paste may be also dried and preserved for future use. The roots
of the _Caladium esculentum_ are either boiled like potatoes or mashed
and made into a sort of gruel. We partook of all the toothsome dishes
of the Punans except boiled fern-fronds and monkey; neither happened to
be in the Punan larder at the time. I must candidly admit that to me
the sight of the preparation of tapioca is not appetizing. In the first
place, the hands which hold the tubers while they are being scraped
are none too icy clean, they often dabble in the pulp just after they
have been successfully busy in alleviating a neglected or troublesome
coiffure. In the next place, the finely scraped pulp is taken to a stream
and deposited in a mat which rests in a trough, or in a large wooden
bowl, on a little platform over the stream. The operator then jumps into
the mash and executes therein a lively dance, while, from time to time, a
small boy dips up water from the stream and splashes it over the legs of
the dancer, to wash down the particles that may have been spattered up,
and also to moisten the mash. Strange to say, the paste, when strained,
is of the most pure and dazzling whiteness.
To be sure, this operation is no worse than wine-making; but then we very
seldom see the must foaming round ‘the white feet of laughing girls;’
whereas we cannot pass a day, where tapioca is the standing diet,
without seeing our dinner mashed by girlish feet by no means white,—or
clean.
[Illustration: SIBOP GIRLS IN THE HOUSE OF TAMA BALAN DENG GRATING TUBERS
OF TAPIOCA.
THIS IS THE FIRST STAGE IN THE PREPARATION OF TAPIOCA; AFTER THE ROOTS
HAVE BEEN FINELY GRATED BY RUBBING THEM ON PIECES OF ROUGH, SCALY
PALM-STEM, THE MASH IS STRAINED THROUGH A CLOSELY WOVEN MAT.]
[Illustration: PUNAN WOMEN STRAINING GRATED TAPIOCA ROOTS.
THE GRATED TAPIOCA IS THEN PLACED ON A MAT IN A WOODEN TROUGH, WHICH IS
SUPPORTED ON A PLATFORM OVER A STREAM, AND BY EXECUTING ON THE PULP A
LIVELY DANCE, THE FEET, NONE TOO IMMACULATE, OF THE WOMEN PRESS OUT THE
FINE WHITE PASTE, WHICH IS WASHED THROUGH THE MAT BY CONSTANT ADDITIONS
OF WATER DIPPED UP AND POURED INTO THE MASH BY A SMALL BOY WITH A LARGE
PALM-LEAF LADLE. THE PASTE SINKS TO THE BOTTOM OF THE TROUGH AND THE
WATER IS DRAINED OFF.]
Our men built for us a temporary hut, which, in comparison with any of
the Punan huts, was a palace; unfortunately, it had one serious defect;
its location seemed to be over an extremely popular thoroughfare of
stinging ants,—those veritable little devils. Just as we were about to
turn in for the night, a broad procession of thousands of them, every
single one with its vicious little tail turned defiantly up, began
a diabolical march across our floor of bark. The natives, however,
immediately built a small fire directly in their path, which at once
caused, first, a stampede of the vanguard, and then all the rest turned
tail, and, still in quadruple or sextuple file, retreated somewhat more
rapidly than they had advanced, and, at last, all disappeared under the
leaves on the ground outside. Next to land-leeches, they are the most
pestiferous and noxious insects in the jungle. They do not wait to be
attacked, but are instantly aggressive when a victim comes within their
ken; and they know to a nicety where the skin is most sensitive. Their
bite is quite as severe as the sting of a wasp or of a hornet.