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 man whose house I visited was rich, according to Dayak standard, not
in money, but in certain wares that to him are of equal or greater value.
Besides thirty gongs, rows of fine old valuable jars stood along the walls
of his room. There are several varieties of these blangas, some of which
are many hundred years old and come from China or Siam. This man possessed
five of the expensive kind, estimated by the "onder" at a value of six
thousand florins each. He consented to have one of the ordinary kind,
called gutshi, taken outside to be photographed; to remove the real
blanga, he said, would necessitate the sacrifice of a fowl. To the casual
observer no great difference between them is apparent, their worth being
enhanced by age. In 1880 Controleur Michielsen saw thirty blangas in one
house on the Upper Katingan, among them several that in his estimation
were priceless. Over them hung forty gongs, of which the biggest,
unquestionably, had a diameter of one metre. Without exaggeration it
represented, he says, a value of f. 15,000, and he was informed that the
most valuable blangas were buried in the wilds at places known only to the
owner. No European had been there since Schwaner, over thirty years
previously, passed the river.
In front of another house was a group of very old-looking stones which are
considered to be alive, though such is not the belief with reference to
all stones, information in that regard being derived from dreams. Those on
view here are regarded as slaves (or soldiers) of a raja, who is
represented by a small kapatong which presides in a diminutive,
half-tumbled-down house, and who is possessed by a good antoh that may
appear in human shape at night. When the people of the kampong need rice or
have any other wish, a fowl or pig is killed; the blood is smeared on the
raja and on the slaves, and some of the meat is deposited in a jar standing
next to him. When advised of what is wanted the raja gives the slaves
orders to see that the people are supplied.
At each side of the base of a ladder, a little further on, stood a post
with a carving of a tiger-cat grasping a human head and guarding the
entrance. They are a protection to the owner of the house against evil
antohs; it is as if they were saying: "Keep away, antoh! You see I slew a
man, so you know what will happen to you!"
The bones of dead persons were kept at the back of at least one dwelling,
inside the appropriate small house provided for the purpose, and some
curious kapatongs of large size were to be seen, some of which had guarded
the dead for more than a hundred years. One has the head of a good antoh,
showing big corner teeth and out-hanging tongue, as he watches that no bad
antohs come to injure the dead man's soul.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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