These are a savage people who inhabit Borneo. They lived there before the
Malays came, and they have been obliged to submit to them. They are
savages indeed. They are darker than the Malays; yet they are not black;
their skin is only the color of copper. Their hair is cut short in front,
but streams down their backs; their large mouths show a quantity of black
teeth, made black by chewing the betel-nut. They wear very little
clothing, but they adorn their ears, and arms, and legs, with numbers of
brass rings. Their looks are wild and fierce, but not cunning like the
looks of the Malays. They are not Mahomedans; they have hardly any
religion at all. They believe there are some gods, but they know hardly
anything about them, and they do not want to know. They neither make
images to the gods, nor say prayers to them. They live like the beasts,
thinking only of this life; yet they are more unhappy than beasts, for
they imagine there are evil spirits among the woods and hills, watching
to do them harm. It is often hard to persuade them to go to the top of a
mountain, where they say evil spirits dwell. Such a people would be more
ready to listen to a missionary than those who have idols, and temples,
and priests, and sacred books.
Their wickedness is very great. It is their chief delight to get the
heads of their enemies. There are a great many different tribes of Dyaks,
and each tribe tries to cut off the heads of other tribes. The Dyaks who
live by the sea are the most cruel; they go out in the boats to rob, and
to bring home, not _slaves_, but HEADS! And how do they treat a head when
they get it? They take out the brains, and then they dry it in the smoke,
with the flesh and hair still on; then they put a string through it, and
fasten it to their waists. The evening that they have got some new heads,
the warriors dance with delight,--their heads dangling by their
sides;--and they turn round in the dance, and gaze upon their heads,--and
shout,--and yell with triumph! At night they still keep the heads near
them; and in the day, they play with them, as children with their dolls,
talking to them, putting food in their mouths, and the betel-nut between
their ghastly lips. After wearing the heads many days, they hang them up
to the ceilings of their rooms.
No English lord thinks so much of his pictures, as the Dyaks do of their
heads. They think these heads are the finest ornaments of their houses.
The man who has _most_ heads, is considered the _greatest_ man. A man who
has NO HEADS is despised! If he wishes to be respected, he must get a
head as soon as he can. Sometimes a man, in order to get a head, will go
out to look for a poor fisherman, who has done him no harm, and will come
back with his head.
When the Dyaks fight against their enemies, they try to get, not only the
heads of _men_, but also the heads of _women_ and CHILDREN. How dreadful
it must be to see a poor BABY'S HEAD hanging from the ceiling! There was
a Dyak who lost all his property by fire, but he cared not for losing
anything, so much as for losing his PRECIOUS HEADS; nothing could console
him for THIS loss; some of them he had cut off himself, and others had
been cut off by his father, and left to him!
People who are so bent on killing, as these Dyaks are, must have many
enemies. The Dyaks are always in fear of being attacked by their enemies.
They are afraid of living in lonely cottages; they think it a better plan
for a great many to live together, that they may be able to defend
themselves, if surprised in the night. Four hundred Dyaks will live
together in one house. The house is very large. To make it more safe, it
is built upon _very high posts_, and there are ladders to get up by. The
posts are sometimes forty feet high; so that when you are in the house,
you find yourself as high as the tall trees. There is one very large
room, where all the men and women sit, and talk, and do their work in the
day. The women pound the rice, and weave the mats, while the men make
weapons of war, and the little children play about. There is always much
noise and confusion in this room. There are a great many doors along one
side of the long room; and each of these doors leads into a small room
where a family lives; the parents, the babies, and the girls sleep there,
while the boys of the family sleep in the large room, that has just been
described.
You know already what are the ornaments on which each family prides
itself,--the HEADS hanging up in their rooms! It is the SEA Dyaks who
live in these very large houses.
The HILL Dyaks do not live in houses quite so large. Yet several families
inhabit the same house. In the midst of their villages, there is always
one house where the boys sleep. In this house all the HEADS of the
village are kept. The house is round, and built on posts, and the
entrance is underneath through the floor. As this is the best house in
the village, travellers are always brought to this house to sleep. Think
how dreadful it must be, when you wake in the night to see thirty or
forty horrible heads, dangling from the ceiling! The wind, too, which
comes in through little doors in the roof, blows the heads about; so that
they knock against each other, and seem almost as if they were still
alive. This is the HEAD-HOUSE.
These Hill Dyaks do not often get a new head; but when they do, they come
to the Head-House at night, and sing to the new head, while they beat
upon their loud gongs. What do they say to the new head?
"Your head, and your spirit, are now ours. Persuade your countrymen to be
slain by us. Let them wander in the fields, that we may bring the heads
of your brethren, and hang them up with your heads."
How much Satan must delight in these prayers. They are prayers just
suited to that great MURDERER and DESTROYER!
The Malays are enemies to all the Dyaks; and they have burnt many of
their houses, cut down their fruit trees, and taken their children
captives. The Dyaks complain bitterly of their sufferings. Some of them
say, "We do not live like men, but like monkeys; we are hunted from place
to place; we have no houses; and when we light a fire, we fear lest the
smoke should make our enemies know where we are."
They say they live like monkeys. But why do they behave like tigers?
An English gentleman, named Sir James Brooke, has settled in Borneo, and
has become a chief of a large tract of land. His house is near the river
Sarawak. He has persuaded the Sultan of Borneo, to give the English a
VERY LITTLE island called the Isle of Labuan. It is a desert island. Of
what use can this small island be to England? English soldiers may live
there, and try to prevent pirates infesting the seas. If it were not for
the pirates, Borneo would be able to send many treasures to foreign
countries. It is but a little way from Borneo to Singapore, and there are
many English merchants at Singapore, ready to buy the precious things of
Borneo. Gold is found in Borneo, mixed with the earth. But I don't know
who would dig it up, if it were not for the industrious Chinese, who come
over in great numbers to get money in this island. Diamonds are found
there, and a valuable metal called antimony.
The sago-tree, the pepper plant, and the sugar-cane, and the cocoa-nut
tree are abundant.
The greatest curiosity that Borneo possesses are the eatable nests. These
white and transparent nests are found in the caves by the sea-shore, and
they are the work of a little swallow. The Chinese give a high price for
these nests, that they may make soup for their feasts.
ANIMALS.--Borneo has very few large animals. There are, indeed, enormous
alligators in the rivers, but there are no lions or tigers; and even the
bears are small, and content to climb the trees for fruit and honey. The
majestic animal which is the pride of Ceylon, is not found in Borneo: I
mean the elephant.
Yet the woods are filled with living creatures. Squirrels and monkeys
sport among the trees. The leaps of the monkeys are amazing; hundreds
will jump one after the other, from a tree as high as a house, and not
one will miss his footing; yet now and then a monkey has a fall. The
most curious kind of monkey is found in Borneo--the Ourang-outang; but it
is one of the least active; it climbs carefully from branch to branch,
always holding by its hands before it makes a spring. These
Ourang-outangs are not as large as a man, yet they are much stronger. All
the monkeys sleep in the trees; in a minute a monkey makes its bed by
twisting a few branches together.
Beneath the trees--two sorts of animals, very unlike each other, roam
about,--the clumsy hog, and the graceful deer. As the _largest_ sort of
_monkeys_ is found in Borneo, so is the _smallest_ sort of _deer_. There
is a deer that has legs only eight inches long. There is no more elegant
creature in the world than this bright-eyed, swift-footed little deer.