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
Shortly afterward the babi arrived. All the people heard the noise it made
as it came through the utan, breaking the jungle down. They said to Inyah:
"You would better run away from here. We are afraid he may eat us." Inyah
went away, trying to reach another kampong. She got there and asked for
help against the man-eating babi. Hardly had she received permission to
remain before a great noise was heard from the babi coming along. The
people, frightened, asked her to pass on, and she ran to another kampong.
There was a woman kapala in that kampong who lived in a house that hung in
the air. Inyah climbed the ladder, which was drawn up after her. The babi
came and saw Inyah above, but could not reach her, and waited there many
days.
Dirang, who was on his way back from the headhunting expedition, came down
the river, and he said to one of his companions: "It is well to stop here
and make food." This chanced to be close to the place where Inyah was.
They went ashore to make camp. Some of them went out to search for wood
and met the babi, who attacked them, and they fled to their prahus. When
Dirang, who was an antoh, saw his men on the run, he became very angry,
went after the babi, and cut off its head. His men cut up the body and
cooked the meat in bamboo, near the river, sitting on a long, flat rock.
They ate much, and Dirang said that he now wanted to paddle down to the
kampong, so they all started. Inyah had seen Dirang, and she said to the
woman kapala: "Look! There is my husband. No other man would have been
brave enough to kill the babi." The woman kapala said: "I should like to
have such a husband if I wanted one, but I am afraid of a husband." Inyah
said: "I want to go down." And she walked over to the place where the men
had been sitting on the rock, went upon it, and accidentally stepped on a
bone left from the meal, which hit her on the inside of the right ankle.
The bone was from the right hind leg of the babi, and was sharp, so it
drew a little blood from the ankle.
She felt pain and went back to the house. Some time later the leg began to
swell, and as time passed it grew bigger and bigger. The woman kapala
said: "There must be a child inside." "If that is the case," said Inyah,
"then better to throw it away." "No, don't do that. Wait until the child
is born and I will take care of it," said the kapala. When her time had
come the child arrived through the wound made by the babi bone, and the
kapala washed the child and took care of it. When two months old the child
was given the name Obongbadjang. When he was fifteen years old he was as
strong as Dirang.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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