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
The natives of Angkipi are stocky, crude people. Several had eyes set
obliquely, _a la_ Mongol, in a very pronounced manner, with the nose
depressed at the base and the point slightly turned upward. Among the
individuals measured, two young women were splendid specimens, but there
were difficulties in regard to having them photographed, as they were all
timid and anxious to go home to their mountains.
Next day, marching through a somewhat hilly country, we arrived at the
kampong Mandin on the River Lahanin. Here was the residence of Ismail, to
whose influence probably was due the recent conversion to Islam of several
families. The pasang-grahan, though small, was clean and there was room
for all. Thanks to the efforts of the vaccinateur, the Dayaks, who were
very friendly, submitted to the novel experience of the camera and kept me
busy the day that we remained there. A great number of women whom I
photographed in a group, as soon as I gave the signal that it was all
over, rushed with one impulse to the river to cleanse themselves from the
evil effects of the operation.
As the Bukits are not very strong in carrying burdens, we needed fifty
carriers, and Ismail having assisted in solving the problem, the march was
continued through a country very much cut up into gulches and small hills.
Time and again we crossed the Riham Kiwa, and went down and up gullies
continually. At a small kampong, where I took my midday meal sitting under
a banana-tree, the kapala came and in a friendly way presented me with a
basket of bananas, for these Dayaks are very hospitable, offering,
according to custom, rice and fruit to the stranger. He told me that
nearly all the children were ill, also two adults, but nobody had died
from a disease which was raging, evidently measles.
At Ado a harvest-festival was in progress in the balei, which, there, was
of rectangular shape. Within I found quite elaborate preparations, among
which was prominently displayed a wooden image of the great hornbill.
There was also a tall, ornamental stand resembling a candelabrum, made of
wood and decorated with a profusion of long, slightly twisted strips of
leaves from the sugar-palm, which hung down to the floor. From here nine
men returned to our last camping-place, where they had left a similar
feast in order to serve me. The harvest-festival is called bluput, which
means that the people fulfil their promise to antoh. It lasts from five to
seven days, and consists mostly of dancing at night. Neighbouring kampongs
are invited and the guests are given boiled rice, and sometimes babi, also
young bamboo shoots, which are in great favour and are eaten as a sayur.
When the harvest is poor, no feast is made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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