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
He heard music from inside the house, and saw a woman dancing alone to the
tune of the instrument that played by itself. She was the antoh of the end
of the sky, and he knew that she ate people, so he was afraid to come
down, for many men since long ago had arrived there and had been eaten.
Many corpses of men could be seen lying on the ground. From his bamboo
cask he took a small arrow, placed it in his sumpitan, and then blew it
out toward the dancing woman. The arrow hit the woman in the small of the
back, and she fell mortally wounded. Then he flew down to the house,
finished killing her with his spear, and cut her head off with his parang.
He then went up to her room and took the musical instrument, her beautiful
clothing, and beads, and placed all, together with the head, in his prahu.
He also took many fine rattan mats, burned the house, and flew away in the
sky. After a month he arrived in his kampong and returned to his wife.
"Here is the musical instrument you wanted," he said. "Good!" she
answered, "what else did you hunt for?"
He placed it on the floor and asked it to play by striking it one time.
Sugar, boiled rice, durian, cocoanuts began to fall down, also tobacco,
salt, clothing--all the good things that they could wish for. The Raja
Besar was greatly pleased and was all smiles, and the people of her
kampong no longer found it necessary to work. Everything that they needed
came when they wished for it, and all enjoyed this state of things.
When a month had passed she learned of a woman's hair ornament which was
to be found in the river far away. It was of pure gold, and when one hung
it up and struck it all sorts of food would drop from it. "Go and get
that," she told her husband. "It is in a cave underneath the waters of the
river."
Batangnorang made himself ready. He put on tiger skin, placed on his head
a rattan cap with many tail feathers of the hornbill fastened to it, took
his parang, his shield adorned with human hair, and his sumpitan. But he
did not carry mats for bedding, nor food. He had only to wish for these
things and they came. He then said farewell to his wife in a way that the
Long-Glats use when departing on a long journey. She sat on the floor, and
bending down he touched the tip of his nose to the tip of hers, each at
the same time inhaling the breath as if smelling.
Batangnorang departed, stopping on the river bank, where he stood for a
time looking toward the East, and calling upon the antoh Allatala. Then he
went into the water, dived, and searched for ten days until he found the
cave, inside of which there was a house. This was the home of the
crocodile antoh, and was surrounded by men, some of them alive, some half
dead, and many dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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