Through Central Borneo; an Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters Between the Years 1913 and 1917Lumholtz, Carl
History
Through Central Borneo; an Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters Between the Years 1913 and 1917
Lumholtz, Carl
Borneo -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Borneo; Natural history -- Borneo
We stayed for the night at a former camping place of rattan seekers, a
small, narrow clearing on the river brink, on which tents and sheds were
huddled closely together in the way military men prefer when travelling in
the utan. The paddlers had asked us to be ready at daylight, but at seven
o'clock in the chilly and very foggy morning they were still warming
themselves around the fire. An hour later, when we had finished loading
the prahus, the river began to rise incredibly fast, at the rate of ten
centimetres per minute in the first six minutes, and in two hours and a
quarter it had risen 2.30 metres, when it became steady. In the meantime
we had remade our camp, hoping that the river might permit us to travel
next day. Three of the Penyahbongs went out hunting with the only sumpitan
we had, and shortly afterward returned with a pig.
Early in the afternoon we were much surprised by the appearance of a prahu
with three Dayaks who had a dog and a sumpitan and brought a pig which
they had killed in the morning. They were the chief, with two companions,
from Data Láong on the Kasao River for which we were aiming. The rumour of
our party had reached his ears, and with thirty men he had been waiting
for us on this side of the watershed. Their scanty provisions soon ran
out, and after waiting nine days all had returned home except the present
party, whom we welcomed. The new men proved a valuable addition to our
crew. The kapala, who was attached to my prahu, was active and gave his
orders as if he knew how, a great relief from a weak Malay that hitherto
had been at "the helm." When the men with the poles were unable to move
the boat against the current, the small, but strongly built man, with a
few very powerful pushes, would bring it forward, making it vibrate by his
strength.
At Tamaloe animals and birds were not plentiful, the call of the wah-wah
usually imparting a little life to the mornings; and I once heard a crow.
I do not remember to have seen on the whole Busang River the most familiar
of all birds on the Bornean rivers, an ordinary sandpiper that flits
before you on the beach. Birds singing in the morning are always rare
except in the localities of paddi fields. The one most likely to attract
attention on a forenoon is the giant hornbill, and as we advanced up the
Busang its laugh might still be heard. Much more unusual was the call of
some lonely argus pheasant or a crow. A few of the beautiful white raja
birds were observed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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