swimming. When we asked to be taken to some place where we could bathe,
we were led about a mile away to a delightful, deep, sandy-bottomed pool;
but our guide thither could not be persuaded to enter the water, and
warned us repeatedly to be careful, as the water was very deep,—it was
hardly up to our waists. When we ducked under, a native bystander shouted
in genuine terror that one of the ‘white fathers’ was drowned.
To test their skill in marksmanship with the blow-pipe, we fastened
a potato about an inch and a half in diameter on a pole, and from a
distance of fifty paces they stuck in it six darts out of ten. For small
birds, they seldom use darts, which cost some trouble to make; little
pellets of clay are equally effective; poisoned darts are reserved for
monkeys and larger game. They assert that with a properly prepared dart
they can kill even the formidable rhinoceros. For such large game, the
point is weighted with a little triangular head of bamboo or of tin,
which carries more poison, and becomes detached in the wound.
When we bade farewell, we gladdened every Punan heart by distributing
all that remained of our gay cloth and good tobacco; the cloth was quite
sufficient for every woman and child in the village to meet the tolerant
demands of fashion in the way of apparel; and as for the tobacco,—I
longed to know what prodigious stories they would rehearse, as they
sat round their fires in the evening, of the marvellous appearance and
mysterious actions of the ‘White Fathers.’ But my heart was woeful
for that little mother as, day by day, she would discover that the
‘picture-making’ had brought no healing balm to her poor, hydrocephalic
boy.
There is one product of the Punan country which I think deserves a note:
it is that luxury so dear to the Chinese palate, the edible nests built
by swallows, or swifts, in certain limestone caves. In the Niah hills,
near the coast, these caves have been the breeding-places of these birds
from time immemorial, and in supplying the market with their nests the
Punans have been for many a year employed by Chinese traders, and the
estimate is well within bounds that several hundred tons of nests have
been there gathered by this tribe.
Within the caves of Mt. Subis,—one of the Niah hills,—there is a small
settlement of Punans who, during the building season, collect nests.
There are three harvests of nests, then the season closes, and the
swallows are allowed to rebuild undisturbed and rear their brood.
When I visited the village of Niah and the caves in Mt. Subis, the
season was closed, but it had been so very successful and had kept all
the natives so busy that those, whose duty it was to attend to the rice
crop, had neglected it; consequently, the people of Niah,—a mixed tribe
of Malanaus and Punans,—were actually suffering from a rice famine;
boats had been sent to neighbouring villages to purchase rice, but they
had been away for thirty days or more, and almost every pound in the
village had been consumed, except a goodly store in the secure granaries
of a stingy, avaricious old head-man, Orang Kaya Perkassa by name, who
demanded such an unconscionably exorbitant price for it that even to
starving men it was almost prohibitory.
[Illustration: PUNAN WOMAN CARRYING HER BABY IN A SLING MADE OF RATTAN.
THIS MODE OF CARRYING CHILDREN ENABLES THE MOTHER TO HAVE BOTH HER HANDS
FREE, AND THE SOMEWHAT CRAMPED POSITION OF THE CHILD KEEPS IT OUT OF
MISCHIEF. ON THESE SLINGS ARE USUALLY HUNG SHELLS OF LAND SNAILS, CURIOUS
KNOTS OF WOOD, MALFORMED BOAR TUSKS, OR SEVERAL LARGE BEADS, ALL OF WHICH
ARE EXCEEDINGLY EFFECTIVE IN WARDING OFF THE EVIL SPIRITS, WHOSE OBJECT
IT IS TO HARASS SMALL CHILDREN.]
And thereby hangs a tale. A strange old fellow was this Orang Kaya
Perkassa, tottering on the brink of the grave, and, possibly for this
very reason, saturated with superstition. I took the opportunity,
when he happened to pay me a visit, to beg him graciously to grant me
the privilege of taking his picture. He refused point-blank and with
unusual vehemence; but at last he so far relented that he professed
his willingness to submit to the hazardous operation, if he might be
allowed to return to his house and procure such charms as would safeguard
his person and counteract the baleful effects of the picture-making.
Of course, I readily acquiesced, and in a few minutes he reappeared
with a ponderous bundle of infallible charms, (they may be seen in
his photograph, girdling his waist,) which were oddly shaped pebbles,
malformed boars’ tusks, strange knots of wood, etc., (I was not permitted
to see them, but from my knowledge of Bornean charms, I cannot be far
astray.) As soon as the exposure was over, in an imperative tone he
demanded a picture of myself, saying, ‘Since the Tuan now has my picture,
it is in his power to do all manner of harm to me, unless I have one of
him to keep me safe.’ Before I had time to tell him that I really had no
picture of myself with me, several of the natives who had accompanied me
on the trip besought me most urgently to refuse his request, insisting
that should this wicked old man once get hold of my likeness he would
work most powerful charms with it, and I should inevitably die within the
month.
It appeared that Orang Kaya Perkassa had recently suffered, under his own
roof, an extraordinary piece of ill-luck; a Malay had there run amuck,
and, after slashing several of the inmates very severely with his parang,
had fled to a hut on the river-bank, where he had been surrounded and
finally speared to death. This, of course, involved no end of bad luck to
the Orang Kaya’s house; wherefore to exorcise the evil Spirits a great
feast had been held, poles elaborately decorated with carved faces were
erected to frighten away demons; and, finally, the blood of slaughtered
pigs and chickens, together with pieces of their flesh, was sprinkled
over both cooked and uncooked rice, which, combined with salt and
native ginger, was enclosed in small packages, and solemnly placed in a
miniature boat and set adrift on the river, to the end that it might bear
out to sea all the ill-luck of the household, and waft it where it could
do no one any harm.
After I had finished photographing the Orang Kaya in my own quarters,
I left him busy talking to some of his friends, and, with my camera,
strolled casually toward his house. After having taken a picture of
the ‘demon frighteners’ erected near his dwelling, my attention was
attracted to a collection, on his veranda, of uncouth, worm-eaten,
water-worn, wooden idols, openly displayed on a shelf and draped with
extremely dirty bits of coloured cloth. I had just finished photographing
them, when the Orang Kaya himself suddenly hobbled up the notched log,
and was at my elbow. He was exceedingly angry, I am sorry to say, at
my boldness in taking a picture of them during his absence, and I did
my very best to soothe him, and apologized humbly for my intrusion by
urging my ignorance. I succeeded at last in appeasing him, and had just
calmed him into a fairly peaceable frame of mind, when, unwittingly and
most unluckily, I undid all that I had done, by innocently offering to
buy one of the worm-eaten figures. Never shall I forget the violent,
vehement, towering rage into which he fell, nor the flood of Malay which
my proposal called forth. ‘How dare Tuan ask such a thing?’ he almost
shrieked, his wrinkled and cross-wrinkled features working with rage.
‘Shall I sell for money my gods of good fortune! Those are gods, _gods_,
I tell you! they are not wood! they are my honored guests, my dearest
friends! from the broad sea they came to me! and they will bring me
blessings if their livers are not enraged by having a picture made of
them. Never would I have suffered it had I been here; the people in the
house should have stopped it! Surely, surely more misfortunes will now
fall on me!’
He then stamped into his room and slammed the door. The evil my camera
had done must be thwarted. Accordingly, from that sunset till dawn,
and even into broad daylight, every gong, big and little, in the Orang
Kaya’s house was kept hot with beating. All through the weary vigils of
that night we heard this incessant din. ‘The good that’s done we may
compute, but not the ill prevented;’ therefore, who can say what success
attended this fervent zeal? That it was not successful, the Orang Kaya
himself probably believed. For certain it is that he sickened and died
within three or four weeks. His death was really due, I believe, to old
age, hastened by an unbridled temper and a life of avarice, so strong
that, as I have mentioned, he was willing his neighbors and even his own
household should die of starvation if only he could add to his wealth.
His people, I learned afterward, attributed his death to my camera, but
I rather imagine that by this time they have found out that my camera
really brought them an unmixed blessing in disguise.
[Illustration: ORANG-KAYA PERKASSA, HEAD-MAN IN THE MALANAU VILLAGE AT
NIAH.
ROUND HIS WAIST IS TIED A BUNDLE OF HIGHLY POTENT CHARMS, WORN ESPECIALLY
FOR THIS OCCASION, TO COUNTERACT THE EVIL EFFECTS OF HAVING HIS
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN. IN HIS LEFT HAND HE IS HOLDING A NATIVE-MADE CIGARETTE
OF THE USUAL, GENEROUS SIZE. THE CHARMS WERE, HOWEVER, IMPOTENT; A MONTH
AFTER THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN HE DIED.]
[Illustration: THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OF ORANG-KAYA PERKASSA.
THESE WATER-WORN, WOODEN IMAGES WERE WASHED UP ON THE BEACH AT THE MOUTH
OF THE NIAH RIVER; THE ORANG-KAYA, PERCEIVING AT ONCE THAT THEY HAD COME,
OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL, TO BRING HIM GOOD FORTUNE, ESTABLISHED THEM IN
A PLACE OF HONOUR IN THE VERANDA OF HIS HOUSE, AND ADORNED THEM WITH
SUITABLE RAIMENT.
THE FEATHERED WAR-COAT HANGING TO THE LEFT OF THE IMAGES WAS WORN BY
THE ORANG-KAYA AT THE TIME OF THE FEAST, WITH ITS ATTENDANT SACRIFICE
OF PIGS, WHICH WAS HELD TO COUNTERACT THE EVIL ENTAILED BY THE VIOLENT
AND SUDDEN DEATH OF A MEMBER OF THE HOUSEHOLD WHO RAN AMUCK. THE
BLOOD-SMEARED COAT IS HUNG NEAR THE GODS, TO ASSURE THEM THAT EVERY RITE
HAD BEEN PERFORMED TO PRESERVE THEIR DIGNITY.]
Mt. Subis is only about fifteen hundred feet high, and the entrance to
the birds’-nest cave on the mountain side is some little distance from
the base, and can be gained only by a very tortuous and narrow path round
the ledges and projections of slippery limestone.
Not far from the main cave is a smaller one, known as the ‘Traders’
cave,’ wherein is a village of twenty or thirty huts, for the
accommodation of the Chinese traders who come to pay for the nests that
have been collected. It is a village of houses without roofs; within the
cave there is no fear of the sun smiting by day nor the moon by night,
nor of rain from clouds; consequently, the houses are merely walls
and floors, and pretty wobbly walls and floors in addition. The roof
of the cave, frescoed with green mould and lichen, is fifty or sixty
feet overhead, with irregular projections of limestone, but free from
stalactites. No swallows build here, the cave is too light and shallow.
The Punans’ cave, beyond, is of majestic size; just within the entrance
the floor dips abruptly to a deep valley, and the roof curves upward
in a vast dome; hence, from the level of the valley to the roof is at
least six hundred feet. Insensate, indeed, must he be who is not filled
with speechless awe as he turns from the brilliant sunshine and enters
this illimitable abode of silence and of night. It seemed the veritable
entrance to the Inferno; and as the light from the opening struck the
massive projections here and there, and cast long, blacker shadows, it
became a landscape in the moon, while the appalling, death-like stillness
seemed to presage a frightful cataclysm in nature. Underfoot is a deep
carpet,—fully three feet deep,—of what seemed tan-bark, but which proved
to be a fine, dry, odorless guano, composed mostly of the wing-covers
of insects, of a dark-brown color; the jagged sides and roof, and here
and there boulders projecting through the covering of the floor, were
covered with a deep-green mould or lichen, except where the white
limestone gleamed out in patches and seemed almost phosphorescent. The
extent beyond, in the utter darkness, seemed illimitable.
Our presence and the echoing of our voices soon startled the swallows,
and forth they emerged, in myriads on myriads, from the darkness, and
circled round us and above us, and about the mouth of the cave like
swarming bees; the whirr of their wings and their twittering sounded like
waves on a pebbly beach.
On a flat ledge at one side, near the entrance, was a line of fifteen or
twenty of the platform dwellings of the Punans, even more fragile and
tumble-down than the huts in the ‘Traders’ cave.’ At the time of our
visit, the huts were deserted, giving an air of even greater desolation.
The nests are obtained by lashing long, stout poles, end to end, and then
supporting them with guy-ropes of rattan until they reach to the very
top of the cave. Up these poles the agile Punans climb hand over hand
and foot over foot, walking up them like monkeys; when at the top, they
scrape down the nests within reach, by means of a long pole bearing a
hoe-like blade, and with a home-made wax candle fastened to it to show
where the nests are. An assistant below gathers the nests as they fall.
There are two varieties of nest, the black and the white; the latter sell
for two thousand Mexican dollars a picul, (one hundred and twenty-three
pounds,) the black nests bring only a hundred dollars for the same
weight. Unfortunately, the Niah caves are ‘black nest’ caves; but the
nests are so very abundant that the export revenue tax assessed on them
by the Sarawak Government amounts to thousands of dollars in a year.
The Punans, however, are not the owners of the poles in the caves, but,
on account of their skill in climbing, are hired by a Malay or Chinaman,
who pays so much a season to the Government for all the nests gathered in
an area prescribed by the length of the detaching-pole. The Punans do not
use the nests as food, and have learned their value and the best times
and methods of harvesting them only since Chinese and Malay traders have
come to Niah. The caves, however, have been inhabited by the Punans for
very many years. We found tobacco growing wild not far from the mouth,
and we were told that it is to be found in considerable quantities all
about this locality. The Punans know it well and gather it, but maintain
that it is none of their planting, and that it has been known to them and
used by them as long as they can remember.
[Illustration: THE BIRDS’-NEST CAVES AT NIAH.
THE LINES INTERSECTING THE PHOTOGRAPH DIAGONALLY FROM RIGHT TO LEFT ARE
GUY ROPES OF RATTAN, SUPPORTING THE POLES WHEREON THE COLLECTORS CLIMB TO
REACH THE NESTS. THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN FROM THE CREST OF AN ELEVATION,
ABOUT FIFTY YARDS WITHIN THE MOUTH OF THE CAVE, WHENCE A VIEW COULD BE
OBTAINED ACROSS A DEEP VALLEY TO THE SUMMIT OF ANOTHER HILL. THE GROUND
WITHIN THE CAVE WAS COVERED WITH A FINE, DRY GUANO, ABOUT THREE FEET
IN DEPTH AND OF A DARK-BROWN COLOUR, APPARENTLY COMPOSED MAINLY OF THE
REMAINS OF BEETLES.]
[Illustration: PUNAN HUTS WITHIN THE BIRDS’-NEST CAVES.
WITH THE ROOF OF THE CAVE OVERHEAD, THERE IS NO NEED OF ROOFS TO THE
HOUSES; CONSEQUENTLY, THIS IS A VILLAGE OF HOUSES WITHOUT HOUSE-TOPS.]
As to the relationship of the Punans to the other tribes of the interior,
Aban Deng, of the clan of Long Wats, (who in turn are closely allied to
the Kayans, Kenyahs, and Sibops,) gave us the following account:—‘An old
Chief living far in the interior highlands of Borneo, left, at his death,
two sons, one of whom was energetic and laboured in the rice-clearings,
while the other was incorrigibly lazy. With such different temperaments,
the affairs of their common household soon became much disordered, and
they agreed to separate, each one choosing the families that were to
follow them, and thereafter all were to live as they pleased. The lazy
brother and his adherents, who preferred hunting and roaming, betook
themselves to the jungle, never built houses nor cultivated rice; their
descendants are the Punans of to-day. The industrious brother, named
Plian, and his adherents cleared the hills of jungle, planted rice, and
built strong houses; from them are descended the Sibops and Long Wats.
The Punans, after many years of wandering, determined to begin the
cultivation of rice; two of their Chiefs collected them in a fertile
valley near the base of “Bukit Bulan,” or the Mountain of the Moon, that
high mountain in the centre of Kalamantan, (Borneo,) and they all set to
work clearing off the jungle, while the Chiefs stood in a group and gave
directions on all sides. The Punans, utterly unversed, however, in the
cultivation of land, set fire in many places at once to the jungle when
it was felled, and their leaders, thus surrounded by a circle of fire,
perished in the flames. Dispirited and discouraged at the loss of their
leaders, they once more scattered, and have ever since wandered in small
bands throughout the jungle, depending on their blow-pipe, and snares,
and the fruits of the forest, for their sustenance.’
When a Punan of the common class dies, his body is stretched out simply
in a little hut of boughs and leaves, with no further burial. The corpse
of a head-man or of one of his family is, on the other hand, wrapped in
a coarse mat or a sheet of bark-cloth, and, doubled up in a squatting
position, is forced into one of the baskets they use for carrying loads
on their backs. It is then placed on a platform of poles, and over it a
flimsy shelter of leaves.
[Illustration: PUNANS CAMPED FOR THE NIGHT.
A LARGE, FLAT BUTTRESS ROOT OF A TAPANG TREE FORMS THE BACKGROUND ON THE
RIGHT. THE STICKS CUT INTO CURLED SHAVINGS ARE THE CHARMS INVARIABLY PUT
UP TO WARD OFF EVIL SPIRITS. THE HEAD-MAN OF THE PARTY IS HONOURED WITH
THE PROTECTION OF A ROOF OF PALM LEAVES, BUT HIS FOLLOWERS SLEEP EITHER
ON THE GROUND OR ON PALM-LEAF MATS, WITH NO OTHER COVERING THAN THE
‘CLOISTERED BOUGHS’ OVERHEAD.]
Were the choice of a residence in a Bornean tribe forced on me, I should
not hesitate long in casting my lot with the Punans. They have never a
thought of the morrow; no cares; no responsibilities; no possessions;
no enemies, for they desire nothing that other people have, not even
clothes; money is dross; and home is where they rest their blow-pipes
and hang up their parangs. Night can never find them homeless; home is
wherever the setting sun finds them; does rain threaten, a few poles and
a few leaves make a house; let the night be clear, and a soft bed of
leaves in a nook between the great flat roots of a Tapang tree is luxury
itself; for ‘where youth with unstuffed brain [never was a Punan brain
‘stuffed’] doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.’
And, finally, in the happy land of the Punan there is no dressing and
undressing morning and evening.
_TUBA-FISHING_
There are two varieties of Tuba[15] known to the natives, and used by
them to poison fish in streams; these two varieties are called by them
‘Tuba Berábut,’—a shrub, and ‘Tuba Ja Jaran,’—a creeper; Tuba Berábut is
more generally used, and is known to Botany as _Derris elliptica_. The
poison is extracted from the bark of the creeper, and from the tubers
and roots of the shrub. It seems to kill the fish by suffocation, and
does not injure them for food; and as they do not die at once, but rise
to the surface of the water, and dart hither and thither to evade the
poison, there is not a little sport in spearing them or scooping them up
in nets; at any rate, a Tuba-fishing is made a great occasion by all the
tribes, and furnishes almost as fruitful a topic of conversation as a war
expedition. To none of the tribes is the sport more attractive than to
the Kenyahs, who live in the mountainous districts of the interior of the
island.
The streams usually selected for this form of fishing, are the
tributaries of the larger rivers,—mountain streams as clear and cool as
crystal, flowing over pebbly beds. High over-arching trees, draped and
festooned with ferns, orchids, and vines, ward off the heat of the sun
and tone down its glare to that emerald, translucent green of damp, dense
tropical forests. The swish and tinkle of the water as it rushes over the
rapids above and below the deep pools which the fish frequent, and the
musical calls of the Wawa monkeys, alone break the stillness, until the
arrival of the merry, happy party of fishers from a Kenyah long-house.
The women are bedecked in their finery of gay head-gear and bright
bead-work necklaces. The young, unmarried damsels prove to be the life of
the party, and are endlessly chaffing their lovers; the sidelong glances
from beneath palm-leaf hats are as arch and coquettish as any ever cast
from behind a spangled fan. Fun and innocent frolic rule supreme as
the canoes race and jostle with each other round sharp turns where the
stream runs swift, or over the turbulent rapids. The women catch the
excitement of the fierce, desperate paddling; they stand up to the work,
their jet-black hair streams over their shoulders, their tawny bodies
sway with the boat as they dash from their paddles the ‘tender, curving
lines of creamy spray.’ The men shout in triumph or laugh in defeat; and
even the old crones cackle and urge on the youths to the sport. The scene
is idyllic; there is nothing to revolt, everything to charm. Careless,
untamed life amid a tropical jungle is to be seen at its very fairest on
one of these Tuba-fishings among the Kenyahs.
The best time for the sport is during the dry season, when the rivers
are low and the stones, left bare on the wide banks of the river, supply
material for the dams, where the fish may be ‘rounded up.’ A dam is
built of loose stones, either straight across the river, or else in a
wedge-shape with the point up-stream, thus forcing the fish close to the
bank on each side, where the chase is to end. When it has been built
about eighteen inches high, a platform of rattans, with little fences at
the sides, is placed in the centre of the dam or wherever the fish will
be apt to congregate. The up-river end of this platform rests on the
bottom of the stream, and the down-river end is about on a level with the
surface of the water. In their mad endeavour to escape the suffocating
poison, the fish make futile attempts to leap the dam, but by the force
of the stream and their own exertions they land on the platform, where an
active watcher deals death to them with a stick.
[Illustration: SCENE ON A LEVEL STRETCH OF RIVER IN THE
CENTRAL-HIGHLANDS.]