MAN-EATERS AND HEAD-HUNTERS
There is no name between the covers of the atlas which so smacks of
romance and adventure as Borneo. Show me the red-blooded boy who, when
he sees that magic name over the wild man's cage in the circus sideshow
or over the orang-utan's cage in the zoo, does not secretly long to go
adventuring in the jungles of its mysterious interior. So, because
there is still in me a good deal of the boy, thank Heaven, I ordered
the course of the _Negros_ laid for Samarinda, which, if the charts
were to be believed, was the principal gateway to the hinterland of
Eastern Borneo. There are no roads in Borneo, you understand, only
narrow foot-trails through the steaming jungle, so that the only
practicable means of penetrating the interior is by ascending one of
the great rivers. The Koetei, which has its nativity somewhere in the
mysterious Kapuas Mountains, winds its way across four hundred miles of
unmapped wilderness, and, a score of miles below Samarinda, empties
into Makassar Straits, answered my requirements admirably, providing a
highroad to the country of my boyish dreams. Though I told the others
that I was going up the Koetei in order to see the strange tribes who
dwell along its upper reaches, I admitted to myself that I had one
object in view and one alone--to see the Wild Man.
Viewed from the deck of the _Negros_, Samarinda, which is the capital
of the Residency of Koetei, was entirely satisfying. It corresponded in
every respect to the mental picture which I had drawn of a Bornean
town. It straggles for two miles or more along a dusty road shaded by a
double row of flaming fire-trees. Facing on the road are a few-score
miserable shops kept by Chinese and Arabs and the somewhat more
pretentious buildings which house the offices of the European trading
companies. Further out, at the edge of the town, are the dwellings of
the Dutch officials and traders--comfortable-looking, one-story,
whitewashed houses with deep verandahs, peering coyly out from the
midst of fragrant, blazing gardens. The Residency, the Custom House,
the Police Barracks and the Koetei Club can readily be distinguished by
the Dutch flags that droop above them. The river-bank itself is one
interminable street. Here dwells the brown-skinned population--Malays,
Bugis, Makassars, and a sprinkling of Sea Dyaks. Sometimes the flimsy,
cane-walled, leaf-thatched huts, perched aloft on bamboo stilts, stand,
like flocks of storks, in clusters. Again they stray a little apart,
seeking protection from the pitiless sun beneath clumps of palms.
Malays in short, tight jackets and long, tight breeches of
kaleidoscopic colors were sauntering along the yellow road, oblivious
of the sun. On the shelving beach naked brown men were mending their
nets or pottering about their dwellings. Now and then I caught a
glimpse of a European, cool and comfortable in topee and white linen.
It was all exactly as I had expected. It was, indeed, almost too
story-booky to be true. Here, at last, was a green and lovely land,
unspoiled by noisy, prying tourists, where one could lounge the lazy
days away beneath the palm-trees or stroll with dusky beauties on a
beach silvered by the tropic moon. I was impatient to go ashore.
Changing from pajamas to whites, I ordered the launch to the gangway
and went ashore to pay my respects to the Resident. To leave your card
on the local representative of Queen Wilhelmina is the first rule of
etiquette to be observed by the foreigner traveling in the Outer
Possessions. In Java, which is more highly civilized, it is not so
necessary. Unlike the Latin races, the Dutch are not by nature a
suspicious people, but political unrest is prevalent throughout the
East, and with Bolshevists, Chinese agitators and other fomenters of
disaffection surreptitiously at work among the natives, it is the part
of prudence to establish your respectability at the start. To gain a
friendly footing with the authorities is to save yourself from possible
annoyance later on.
As I approached the shore the glamor lent by distance disappeared. The
river-bank, which had looked so alluring from the cutter's deck, proved
on closer inspection to be as squalid as the back-yard of a Neapolitan
tenement. It was littered with dead cats and fowls and fish and
castaway vegetables and rotten fruit and tin cans and greasy ashes and
refuse from fishing nets and decaying cocoanuts by the million and
sodden rags. This stewing garbage was strewn ankle-deep upon the sand
or was floating on the surface of the river, not drifting seaward, as
one would expect, but languidly following the tide up and down, forever
lolling along the bank. Above this putrefying feast swarmed myriads of
flies, their buzzing combining in a drone like that of an electric fan.
The sun struck viciously down upon the yellow foreshore, its glare
reflected by the hard-packed sands as by a sheet of brass; the
heat-waves danced and flickered. Sending the launch back to the cutter,
I picked my way across this noisome place to the shelter of the trees
along the road. But the shade that had appeared so inviting from the
river proved as illusory as everything else. Grass? There was none. The
earth was baked to the hardness of asphalt.
To make matters worse, I found that I had landed too far down the
beach. The building that I had assumed was the Residency proved to be
the Custom House. The Harbor Master, whom I encountered there, seized
the opportunity to present me with a bill for a hundred
guilders--something over forty dollars--for port dues. It seemed a high
price to pay for the privilege of lying in the stream, a quarter-mile
off-shore. In all the Dutch ports at which we touched I noted this same
disposition on the part of the authorities to charge all that the
traffic would bear--and then some. Foreign vessels are rarely seen at
Samarinda, and one would suppose that they would be welcomed
accordingly, but the Dutch are a business people and do not permit
sentiment to interfere with a chance to make a few honest guilders.
The Residency, I found upon inquiry, was two miles away, in the
outskirts of the town. And, as there are neither rickshaws nor
carriages for hire in Samarinda, I was compelled to walk. It was really
too hot to move. In five minutes my clothes were as wet as though I had
fallen in the river. The green silk lining of my sun-hat crocked and
ran down my face in emerald rivulets. When I had covered half the
distance I paused beneath a waringin tree to rest. A breath of breeze
from the river, sighing through the palms, brought to my streaming
cheeks a hint of coolness and to my nostrils more than a hint of the
garbage broiling on the beach. Anyone who could be romantic in Borneo
_must_ be in love.
The Assistant Resident, Monsieur de Haan, was as glad to see me as a
banker away from home is to see a copy of _The Wall Street Journal_. I
brought him a whiff of that great outside world from which he was an
exile, with whose doings he kept in touch only through the meager
despatches in the papers brought by the fortnightly mail-boat from
Java, or through occasional travelers like myself. Dutch officials in
the Indies can obtain leave only once in ten years and Monsieur de Haan
had not visited the mother country for nearly a decade, so that when he
learned I had recently been in Holland he was pathetically eager to
hear the gossip of the homeland. For an hour I lounged in a Cantonese
chair beneath the leisurely swinging punkah--the motive power for the
punkah being provided by a native on the verandah outside, who
mechanically pulled the cord even while he slept--and chatted of homely
things: of a restaurant which we both knew on the Dam in Amsterdam, of
bathing on the sands of Scheviningen, of band concerts on summer
evenings in the Haagsche Bosch. Only when his long-pent curiosity as to
happenings in Europe had been appeased did I find an opportunity to
mention the reasons which had brought me to Samarinda. I wished to go
up country, I explained. I wanted to see the real jungle and the
strange tribes which dwell in it; particularly I wished to see the
head-hunters. Now in this I was fully prepared for discouragement and
dissuasion, for head-hunters are not assets to a country; to a visitor
they are not displayed with pride. When, in the Philippines, I wished
to see the head-hunting Igorots; when I asked the Japanese for
permission to visit the head-hunters of Formosa, I met only with
excuses and evasions. At my taste the officials pretended to be
surprised and grieved. But Monsieur de Haan, doubtless because he had
lived so long in the wilds that head-hunters were to him a commonplace,
not only made no objection, he even offered to accompany me.
"We can go up the Koetei on your cutter," he suggested. "It is
navigable as far as Long Iram, two hundred miles up-country, which is
the farthest point inland that one of our garrisons is stationed. Thus
you will be able to see the Dyak country as comfortably as you could
see Holland from the deck of a canal boat. On our way we might pay a
visit to the Sultan of Koetei, who has a palace at Tenggaroeng. Though
he has no real power to speak of, he exercises considerable influence
among the wild tribes, of which he is the hereditary ruler. He's the
very man to put you in touch with the head-hunters."
The suggestion sounded fine. Moreover, in visiting savages as
temperamental as the Dyaks, there would be a certain comfort in having
the head of the government along. So, as Monsieur de Haan did not
appear to be pressed with business, we arranged to start up-river the
following morning.
It was late afternoon when I returned to the _Negros_. I was completely
wilted by the terrible humidity, and, as the river looked cool and
inviting in the twilight, I decided to refresh my body and my spirits
by a swim. But when I suggested to the Doctor that he join me he shook
his head gloomily.
"Nothing doing," he said. "I've been wanting to go in all day but the
port surgeon tells me that I'd be committing suicide."
"But why?" I demanded irritably, for I was ill-tempered from the heat.
"It's perfectly clean out here in mid-stream and there is no danger
from sharks here, as there was at Zamboanga and Jolo."
By way of replying he pointed to a black object, which I took to be a
log, that was floating on the surface of the river, perhaps fifty yards
off the cutter's gangway.
"That's why," he said dryly.
As he spoke a dugout, driven by half-a-dozen paddles in the hands of
lusty natives, came racing down stream. As the canoe drew abreast of
us, the paddlers chanting a barbaric chorus, there was a sudden swirl
in the water and the object which I had taken for a log abruptly
dropped out of sight.
"A crocodile!" I ejaculated, a little shiver chasing itself up and down
my spine.
The Doctor nodded.
"The river is alive with them," he said. "Man-eaters, too. The port
surgeon told me that they get a native or so every day."
"I've changed my mind about wanting a swim," I remarked, heading for
the ship's shower-bath.
* * * * *
(Dusk is settling on the great river and the palm fronds are gently
stirring before the breeze that comes with nightfall on the Line. If
you have nothing better to do, suppose you sit down beside me in a
deck-chair and let me tell you something about these cruel and cunning
monsters and the curious methods by which they are captured. _Boy! Pass
the cheroots and bring us something cold to drink._)
Though crocodiles are found everywhere in Malaysia, they attain their
greatest size and ferocity in the rivers of Borneo, it being no
uncommon thing for them to attack and capsize the frail native canoes,
killing their occupants as they flounder in the water. I suppose that
the crocodile of Borneo more nearly approaches the giant saurians of
prehistoric times than anything alive to-day. Imagine, if you please, a
creature as large as a ship's launch, with the swiftness and ferocity
of a man-eating shark, the cunning of a snake, a body so heavily
armored with scales that it is impervious to everything save the most
high-powered bullets, a tail that is capable of knocking down an ox,
and a pair of jaws that can cut a man in two at a single snap. How
would you like to encounter that sort of thing when you were having a
pleasant swim, I ask you? Compared to the crocodile of Malaysia, the
Florida alligator is about as formidable as a lizard. One was captured
while we were at Sandakan which measured slightly over twenty-eight
feet from the end of his ugly snout to the tip of his vicious tail.
Before you raise your eyebrows incredulously you might take a look at
the accompanying photograph of this monster. Nor was this a record
crocodile, for, shortly before our arrival at Samarinda, one was caught
in the Koetei which measured ten metres, or within a few inches of
thirty-three feet.
The crocodile obtains its meals by the simple expedient of lying
motionless just beneath the surface of a pool where the natives are
accustomed to bathe or where they go for water. The unsuspecting brown
girl trips jauntily down to the river-bank to fill her
amphora--usually a battered Standard Oil tin. As she bends over the
stream there comes without the slightest warning the lightning swish of
a scaly tail, a scream, the crunch of monster jaws, a widening eddy, a
scarlet stain overspreading the surface of the water--and there is one
less inhabitant of Borneo. But instead of proceeding to devour its
victim then and there, the crocodile carries the body up a convenient
creek, where it has the self-control to leave it until it is
sufficiently gamey to satisfy its palate. For the crocodile, like the
hunter, does not like freshly killed meat. Hence, a crocodile swimming
up-stream with a native in its mouth is by no means an uncommon sight
on Borne an rivers.
"But it is a quick death," as an Englishman whom I met in Borneo
philosophically observed. "They don't play with you as a cat plays with
a mouse--they just hold you under the water until you are drowned."
Yet, in spite of the hundreds who fall victim to the terrible jaws each
year, the natives seem incapable of observing the slightest
precautions. For superstitious reasons they will not disturb the
crocodile until it has shown itself to be a man-eater. If the crocodile
will live at peace with him the native has no wish to start a quarrel.
But the day usually comes when a native who has gone down to the river
fails to return. In America, under such circumstances, the relatives of
the missing man would send for grappling irons and an undertaker. But
in Borneo they summon a professional crocodile hunter. The idea of this
is not so much to obtain revenge as to recover the brass ornaments
which the dear departed was wearing at the moment of his taking off,
for, though human life is the cheapest thing there is in Borneo, brass
is extremely dear.
The professional crocodile hunters are usually Malays. One of the best
known and most successful in Borneo is an old man who runs a ferry
across the Barito at Bandjermasin. He has capitalized his skill and
cunning by organizing himself into a sort of crocodile liability
company, as it were. Anyone may secure a policy in this company by
paying him a weekly premium of 2-1/2 Dutch cents. When one of his
policy holders is overtaken by death in the form of a pair of four-foot
jaws the old man turns the ferry over to one of his children and sets
out to fulfill the terms of his contract by capturing the offending
saurian, recovering from its stomach the weighty bracelets, anklets and
earrings worn by the deceased, and restoring them to the next of kin.
In order to make good he sometimes has to kill a number of crocodiles,
but he keeps on until he gets the right one. This is not as difficult
as it sounds, for the big man-eaters usually have their recognized
haunts in certain deep pools in the rivers, many of them, indeed, being
known to the natives by name. The old ferryman at Bandjermasin has been
so successful in the conduct of his curious avocation that, so the
Dutch Resident assured me, he has several hundred policy holders who
pay him their premiums with punctilious regularity, thereby giving him
a very comfortable income.
The method pursued by the crocodile hunters of Borneo is as effective
as it is ingenious. Their fishing tackle consists of a hook, which is a
straight piece of hard wood, about the size of a twelve-inch ruler,
sharpened at both ends; a ten-foot leader, woven from the tough,
stringy bark of the baru tree; and a single length of rattan or cane,
fifty feet or so in length, which serves as a line. One end of the
leader is attached to a shallow notch cut in the piece of wood, the
other end is fastened to the rattan. With a few turns of cotton one end
of the stick is then lightly bound to the leader, thus bringing the two
into a straight line. Then comes the bait, which must be chosen with
discrimination. Though the body of a dog or pig will usually answer,
the morsel that most infallibly tempts a crocodile is the carcass of a
monkey. But it must not be a freshly killed monkey, mind you. A
crocodile will only swallow meat that is in an advanced stage of
decomposition, the more overpowering its stench the greater the
likelihood of the bait being taken. The bait is securely lashed to the
pointed stick, though anyone but a Malay would require a gas-mask to
perform this part of the operation.
Everything now being ready, the bait is suspended from the bough of a
tree overhanging the pool which the crocodile is known to frequent,
being so arranged that the carcass swings a foot or so above the
surface of the stream at high water level, the end of the rattan being
planted in the bank. Lured by the smell of the bait, which in that
torrid climate quickly acquires a bouquet which can be detected a mile
to leeward, the crocodile is certain sooner or later to thrust its long
snout out of the water and snap at the odoriferous bundle dangling so
temptingly overhead, the slack line offering no resistance until the
bait has been swallowed and the brute starts to make off. Then the
man-eater gets the surprise of its long and checkered life, for the
planted end of the rattan holds sufficiently to snap the threads which
bind the pointed stick to the leader. The stick, thus caused to resume
its original position at right angles to the line, becomes jammed
across the crocodile's belly, the pointed ends burying themselves in
the tender abdominal lining.
The next morning the hunter finds bait and tackle missing, but a brief
search usually reveals the coils of rattan floating on the surface of
some deep pool at no great distance from the spot where the bait was
taken. At the bottom of the pool Mr. Crocodile is writhing in the
throes of acute indigestion. Taking the end of the line ashore, the
hunter summons assistance. A score of jubilant natives lay hold on the
rattan. Then ensues a struggle that makes tarpon fishing as tame in
comparison as catching shiners. At first the monster tries to resist
the straining line, its tail flailing the water into foam. The great
jaws close on the leader like a bear-trap, but the loosely braided
strands of baru fiber slip between the pointed teeth. The leader holds.
The natives haul at the line as sailors haul at a halliard. Soon there
emerges from the churning waters a long and incredibly ugly snout,
followed by a low, reptilian head, with venomous, heavy-lidded, scarlet
eyes, a body as broad as a row-boat and armored with horny scales, and
finally a tremendous tail, twice as long as an elephant's trunk and
twice as powerful, that spells death for any human being that comes
within its reach. Sometimes it happens that the hunters momentarily
become the hunted, for the infuriated beast, catching sight of its
enemies, may come at them with a rush and a bellow, but more often it
has to be dragged to land, fighting every inch of the way.
Now comes the most hazardous part of the whole proceeding--the securing
of the monster. By means of a noose, deftly thrown, the great jaws are
rendered harmless. Another noose encircles the lashing tail and binds
it securely to a tree. The front legs are next lashed behind the back
and the hind legs treated in the same fashion. Thus deprived of the
support of its legs, the crocodile is helpless and it is safe to
release its tail. A stout bamboo is then passed between the bound legs
and a score of sweating natives bear the captive in triumph to the
nearest government station, where the bounty is claimed. The crocodile
is then killed, the stomach cut open and its contents examined, any
brassware or other ornaments worn by its victim at the time of his
demise being handed over to the heirs.
[Illustration: Catching a man-eating crocodile in a Borneo river]
The method of fishing pursued by the Dyaks of Borneo is quite as
curious, in its way, as their manner of catching crocodiles. Instead of
netting the fish, or catching them with hook and line, they asphyxiate
them, using for the purpose a poison obtained from the tuba root, known
to scientists as _Cocculus indicus_. When a Dyak village is in need of
food the entire community, men, women and children, repairs to a stream
in which fish are known to be plentiful. Across the stream a sort of
picket fence is erected by planting bamboos close together. In the
center of this fence is a narrow opening leading into an enclosure like
a corral, the walls of which are made in the same fashion. When this
part of the preparations has been completed a party of natives proceeds
up-stream by canoe for a dozen, or more miles, taking with them a
plentiful supply of tuba root. Early the next morning the canoes are
filled with water, in which the tuba root is beaten until the water is
as white and frothy as soapsuds. When a sufficient quantity of this
highly toxic liquid has thus been obtained, it is emptied into the
stream and, after a brief wait, the canoes are again launched and the
fishermen drift slowly down the current in the wake of the poison. Many
of the fish are stupefied by the tuba and, as they rise struggling to
the surface, are speared by the Dyaks. Other, seeking to escape the
poisonous wave, dart down-stream and, when halted by the barrier, pour
through the opening into the corral, where they are captured by the
thousands. I might add that the tuba does not affect the flesh of the
fish, which can be eaten with safety. As a means of obtaining food in
wholesale quantities fishing with tuba is perhaps justified. As a sport
it is in the same class with shooting duck from airplanes with
machine-guns.
* * * * *
Monsieur de Haan, wearing the brass-buttoned white uniform and
gold-laced conductor's cap which is the garb prescribed for Dutch
colonial officials, came abroad the _Negros_ shortly after breakfast.
The gangway was hoisted, Captain Galvez gave brisk orders from the
bridge, there was a jangle of bells in the engine-room, and we were off
up the Koetei, into the mysterious heart of Borneo. Above Samarinda the
great river flows between solid walls of vegetation. The density of the
Bornean jungle is indeed almost unbelievable. It is a savage tangle of
bamboos, palms, banyans, mangroves, and countless varieties of shrubs
and giant ferns, the whole laced together by trailers and creepers.
Contrary to popular belief, there is little color to relieve the somber
monotony of dark brown trunks and dark green foliage. It is as gloomy
as the nave of a cathedral at twilight. Here and there may be seen some
vine with scarlet berries and many orchids swing from the higher
branches like incandescent globes of colored glass. But it is usually
impossible for one on the ground to see the finest blooms, which turn
their faces to the sunlight above the canopy of green. Gray apes
chatter in the tree-tops; strange tropic birds of gorgeous plumage flit
from bough to bough, monstrous reptiles slip silently through the
undergrowth; insects buzz in swarms above the putrid swamps;
occasionally the jungle crashes beneath the tread of some heavy
animal--a rhinoceros, perhaps, or a wild bull, or an orang-utan. (I
might mention, parenthetically, that _orang-utan_ means, in the Malay
language, "man of the forest," while _orang-outang_, the name which we
incorrectly apply to the great red-haired anthropoid, means "man in
debt.") The Bornean jungle is a place of indescribable dismalness and
dread, its gloom seldom dissipated by the sun, its awesome silence
broken only by the stirrings of the unseen creatures which lurk
underfoot and overhead and all around.
The palace of the Sultan of Koetei stands in the edge of the jungle at
a horseshoe bend in the river. You come on it with startling
abruptness--miles and miles of primeval wilderness and then, quite
unexpectedly, a bit of civilization. In no respect does its exterior
come up to what you would expect the palace of an Oriental ruler to be.
It is a great barn of a place, two stories in height, painted a bright
pink, with the arms of Koetei emblazoned above the entrance. It
reminded me of a Coney Island dance hall or one of the tabernacles
built for Billy Sunday.
A broad flight of white marble steps leads to a wide, covered terrace
of the same incongruous material. This terrace opens directly into the
great throne-hall, a lofty apartment of impressive proportions, though
its furnishings are a bizarre mixture of Oriental taste and Occidental
tawdriness. Its marble floor is strewn with splendid rugs and
tiger-skins; hanging from the ceiling are enormous cut-glass
chandeliers; set in the walls, on either side of the scarlet-and-gold
throne, are life-size portraits of the present Sultan's father and
grandfather done in glazed Delft tiles, which seem more appropriate for
a bathroom than a throne-hall. From each end of the apartment
scarlet-carpeted staircases, with gilt balustrades, lead to the second
floor. Under one of these staircases is a sort of closet, with glass
doors, which looks for all the world like a large edition of a
telephone booth in an American hotel. The doors were sealed with strips
of paper affixed by means of wax wafers, but, peering through the
glass, I could made out a large table piled high with trays of precious
stones, ingots of virgin gold and silver, vessels, utensils and images
of the same precious metals. It was the state treasure of Koetei and
was worth, so the Resident told me, upward of a million dollars.
When I was at Tenggaroeng the young Sultan, an anaemic-looking youth in
the early twenties, had not yet been permitted by the Dutch authorities
to ascend the throne, the country being ruled by his uncle, the Regent,
an elderly, affable gentleman who, in his white drill suit and round
white cap, was the image of a Chinese cook employed by a Californian
friend of mine. Upon the formal accession of the young Sultan the seals
of the treasury would be broken, I was told, and the treasure would be
his to spend as he saw fit. I rather imagine, however, that the Dutch
_controleur_ attached to his court in the capacity of adviser will
have something to say should the youthful monarch show a disposition to
squander his inheritance.
Up-stairs we were shown through a series of apartments filled to
overflowing with the loot of European shops--ornate brass beds, inlaid
bureaus and chiffoniers, toilet-sets of tortoise-shell and ivory,
washbowls and pitchers of Sèvres, Dresden and Limoges, garnish vases,
statuettes, music-boxes, mechanical toys, models of all ships and
engines, and a thousand other useless and inappropriate articles, for,
when the late Sultan paid his periodic visits to Europe, the
shopkeepers of Paris, Amsterdam and The Hague seized the opportunity to
unload on him, at exorbitant prices, their costliest and most unsalable
wares. Opening a marquetry wardrobe, the Regent displayed with great
pride his collection of uniforms and ceremonial costumes, most of
which, the Resident told me, had been copied from pictures which had
caught his fancy in books and magazines. That wardrobe would have
delighted the heart of a motion-picture company's property-man, for it
contained everything from a Dutch court dress, complete with sword and
feathered hat, to a state costume of sky-blue broadcloth edged with
white fur and trimmed with diamond buttons. I expressed a desire to see
the royal crown, for I had noticed that the pictures of former sultans,
which I had seen in the throne-room, showed them wearing crowns of a
peculiar design, strikingly similar to those worn by the Emperors of
Abyssinia. My request resulted in a whispered colloquy between the
Resident, the Controleur, the Regent and the young Sultan. After a
brief discussion the Resident explained that the Controleur kept the
crown locked up in his safe, but that he would get it if I wished to
see it. To the obvious relief of everyone except the young Sultan I
assured them that it did not matter. He seemed distinctly disappointed.
I imagine that he would have liked to have gotten his hands on it.
Outside the palace--just below its windows, in fact--is a long, low,
dirt-floored, wooden-roofed shed, such as American farmers build to
keep their wagons and farm machinery under. This was the royal
cemetery. Beneath it the former rulers of Koetei lie buried, their
resting-places being marked by a most curious assortment of
fantastically carved tombs and headstones. Some of the tombs hold the
ashes of men who sat on the throne of Koetei when it was one of the
great kingdoms of the East, long before the coming of the white man.
Lady luck was kind to me, for shortly after our arrival at Tenggaroeng
a delegation of Dyaks from one of the tribes of the far interior
appeared at the palace to lay some tribal dispute before the Regent for
his adjudication. There were about a score of them, including a rather
comely young woman, whose comeliness was somewhat marred, however,
according to European standards at least, by the lobes of her ears
being stretched until they touched her shoulders by the great weight of
the brass earrings which depended from them. The warriors were the
finest physical specimens of manhood that I saw in all Malaysia--tall,
slim, muscular, magnificently developed fellows, with bright, rather
intelligent faces. They had the broad shoulders and small hips of Roman
athletes and when the sun struck on their oiled brown skins they looked
like the bronzes in a museum. Unlike the natives we had seen along the
coast, whose garments made a slight concession to the prejudices of
civilization, these children of the wild "wore nothing much before and
rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind." Several of them were armed with
the sumpitan, or blow-gun, which is the national weapon of the Dyaks,
and each of them carried at his waist a _parang-ilang_, the terrible
long-bladed knife which the head-hunter uses to kill and decapitate his
victims.
Monsieur de Haan, as well as the other Dutch officials whom I
questioned on the subject, attributed the prevalence of head-hunting in
Borneo to the vanity of the Dyak women. He explained that, just as
American girls expect candy and flowers from the young men who are
attentive to them, so Dyak maidens expect freshly severed human heads.
The warrior who refused to present his lady-love with such grisly
evidences of his devotion would be rejected by her and ostracized by
his tribe. Nor does head-hunting end with marriage, for the standing of
both the man and his wife in the community depends upon the number of
grinning skulls which swing from the ridgepole of their hut. Heads are
to a Dyak what money is to a man in civilized countries--the more he
has, the greater his importance. The Controleur at Tenggaroeng assured
me very earnestly that his Dyak charges were by no means ferocious or
bloodthirsty by nature and that they practised head-hunting less from
pleasure than from force of custom. But I am compelled to accept such
an estimate of the Dyak character with reservations. From all that I
could learn, head-hunting is a sport, like fox-hunting in England. Nor
does it, as a rule, involve any great risk to the hunters, for the
head-hunting raids are usually mere butcheries of defenceless people,
the Dyaks either stalking their victim in the bush and killing him from
behind, or attacking a village when the warriors are absent and
slaughtering everyone whom they find in it--old, men, women, and
children. The head of an orang-utan, by the way, is as highly prized in
many of the Dyak tribes as that of a human being. Nor is this
surprising, for the warrior who single-handed can kill one of the
mighty anthropoids is deserving of the trophy.
During my stay in Borneo I heard many theories advanced in explanation
of head-hunting. Some authorities claimed that it is the Dyak's way of
establishing a reputation for prowess. Others asserted that he takes
heads merely to gratify the vanity of his women. There are still others
who hold the opinion that the Dyak believes that he inherits the
courage and cunning of those he kills. In certain of the Dyak tribes
the heads are treated with profound reverence, being wreathed with
flowers, offered the choicest morsels of food, and sometimes being
given a place at the table, while in other tribes they are hung from
the ridgepole and displayed as trophies of the chase. My own opinion is
that, though prestige and vanity and superstition all contribute to the
prevalence of head-hunting, in the inherent savagery of the Dyak is
found the true explanation of the custom.
I have already made passing mention of that characteristic weapon of
the Dyaks, the sumpitan, or, as it is called by foreigners, the
blow-gun. The sumpitan is a piece of hard wood, from six to eight feet
in length and in circumference slightly larger than the handle of a
broom. Running through it lengthwise is a hole about the size of a
lead-pencil. A broad spear-blade is usually lashed to one end of the
sumpitan, like a bayonet, thus providing a weapon for use at close
quarters. The dart is made from a sliver of bamboo, or from a
palm-frond, scraped to the size of a steel knitting-needle. One end of
the dart is imbedded in a cork-shaped piece of pith which fits the hole
in the sumpitan as a cartridge fits the bore of a rifle; the other end,
which is of needle-sharpness, is smeared with a paste made from the
milky sap of the upas tree dissolved in a juice extracted from the root
of the tuba. With the possible exception of curare, this is the
deadliest poison known, the slightest scratch from a dart thus poisoned
paralyzing the respiratory center and causing almost instant death. The
dart is expelled from the sumpitan by a quick, sharp exhalation of the
breath. In fact, M. de Haan told me that among certain of the Dyak
tribes virtually all of the men suffer from rupture as a result of the
constant use of the blow-gun. Though I have heard those who have never
seen the sumpitan in use sneer at it as a toy, it is, at short
distances, one of the most accurate weapons in existence and, when its
darts are poisoned, one of the deadliest. In order to show me what
could be done with the sumpitan, the Regent stuck in the earth a bamboo
no larger than a woman's little finger, and a Dyak, taking up his
position at a distance of thirty paces which I stepped off myself, hit
the almost indistinguishable mark with his darts twelve times running.
That, as the late Colonel Cody would have put it, "is some shooting."
In Borneo the use of the blow-gun is not confined to the Dyaks. They
are also used by fish! That is to say, by a certain species of fish.
This fish, which is remarkable neither in size nor color, seldom being
larger than our domestic goldfish, is known to the natives as _ikan
sumpit_ (literally "fish with a sumpitan") and to science as _Toxodes
jaculator_. But it is unique among the finny tribe in possessing the
curious power, on corning to the surface, of being able to squirt from
its mouth a tiny jet of water. This it uses with unerring aim against
insects, such as flies, grasshoppers and spiders, resting on plants
along the edge of the streams, causing them to fall into the water,
where they become an easy prey to these Dyaks of the deep. It was lucky
for us that the crocodiles were not armed with blow-guns!
When Latins engage in a serious quarrel they are prone to decide it
with the stiletto, or, if they belong to the class which subscribes to
the code, they meet on the field of honor with rapiers or pistols;
Anglo-Saxons are accustomed to settle their disputes in a court of law
or with their fists; but when Dyaks become involved in a controversy
which cannot be adjusted by the tribal council, they have recourse to
the _s'lam ayer_, or trial by water. This curious method of deciding
disputes is conducted with great formality, according to the rules of
an established code. For example, should two husky young head-hunters
become involved in a lovers' quarrel over a village belle--the lobes of
whose ears are probably pulled down to her shoulders by the weight of
her brass earrings--they adjourn, with their seconds and their friends,
to what might appropriately be called the pool of honor. Almost any
place where there are four or five feet of water will do. Into the
bottom of the pool the seconds drive two stout bamboo poles, a few
yards apart. The rivals then wade out into the water and take up their
positions, each grasping a pole. At a signal from the chief who is
acting as umpire they plunge beneath the water, each duelist keeping
his nostrils closed with one hand while with the other he clings to the
pole so as to keep his head below the surface. As both of them would
drown themselves rather than acknowledge defeat by coming to the
surface voluntarily, at the first sign either of the two gives of being
asphyxiated, the seconds, who are watching their principals closely,
drag the rivals from the water. They are then held up by the heels,
head downward, in order to drain off the water they have swallowed, the
one who first recovers consciousness being declared the victor and
awarded the hand of the lady fair. It is a quaint custom.
As I have no desire to strain your credulity to the breaking-point, I
will touch on only one more Dyak custom--the disposal of the dead. It
seems a fitting subject with which to bring this account of the wild
men to a close. Certain of the Dyak tribes expose their dead in trees,
some burn them, while still others bury them until the flesh has
disappeared, when they exhume the skeletons, disarticulate them, and
seal the bones in the huge jars of Chinese porcelain which are a Dyak's
most prized possession. Sometimes these burial-jars are kept in the
family dwelling--a rather gruesome article of furniture to the European
mind--but more often they are deposited in a grave-house, a small,
fantastically decorated hut or shed which serves as a family vault. But
I doubt if any people on the face of the globe have so weird a custom
of disposing of their dead as the Kapuas of Central Borneo, who hollow
out the trunk of a growing tree and in the space thus prepared insert
the corpse of the departed. The bark is carefully replaced over the
opening and the tree continues to grow and flourish--literally a living
tomb.
[Illustration: Major Powell talking to the Regent of Koetei on the
steps of the palace at Tenggaroeng
From left to right: the regent, Major Powell, the prime minister, the
Sultan of Koetei (who has since ascended the throne), and the Dutch
resident, M. de Haan]
[Illustration: State procession in the Kraton of the Sultan of
Djokjakarta]
Noticing that I was interested in the equipment of the Dyaks, the
Regent of Koetei called up their chief and, without so much as a
by-your-leave, presented me with his sumpitan and the quiver of
poisoned darts, his wooden shield--a long, narrow buckler of some
light wood, tastily trimmed with seventy-two tufts of human hair,
mementoes of that number of enemies slain on head-hunting
expeditions--a peculiar coat of mail, composed of overlapping pieces of
bark, capable of turning an arrow, and his imposing head-dress, which
consisted of a cap formed from a leopard's head, with a sort of visor
made from the beak of a hornbill, the whole surmounted by a bunch of
yard-long tail-feathers from some bright-plumaged bird. When the
presentation was concluded all the chieftain had left was his
breech-clout. He did not share in my enthusiasm. From the murderous
glance which he shot at me when the Regent was not looking, I judged
that if he ever met me alone in the jungle he would get his shield
back, with another scalp to add to his collection. And I could guess
whose head that scalp would come from.