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
At the end of the gallery stood the large, newly made casket, which was
open, the corpse covered with cloth resting inside. It was an oblong,
heavy box supposed to represent a rhinoceros, though nothing positively
indicated this except the large head of this animal at one end, which,
though rudely made, was cut with considerable artistic skill. The family
sat around the casket, one man smoking tobacco, the women wailing and
occasionally lifting the cover to look at the face of the corpse. One babi
(pig) that had belonged to the deceased had been killed and was served
with rice. In the afternoon, having partaken of food, a number of men
carried the heavy burden on their shoulders down to the river, preceded by
two women belonging to the family. It was placed on two prahus, which were
lashed together, and then taken down the river to be buried. After the
death of a relative women mourners cut off about two centimetres from the
end of the hair; the men cut an equal portion from the front.
Later in the afternoon the gong announced another death, that of a child.
On this account some sixty Malays who were camped here, bound for the utan
higher up the river, in search of rubber and damar, delayed their
departure as did some Kenyahs who were on their way to Apo Kayan, and the
people of the kampong did not go to their ladangs. The following day the
sound of the gong was again heard, but this time it was occasioned by the
fact that an adept had taken augurs from the flight of the red hawk, and
to him it was given that illness would cease.
It was difficult to hold the busy Dayaks in the kampong. At this time, the
beginning of May, their attention was absorbed in harvesting the paddi.
Every day they started up the river to their ladangs a few miles distant,
returning in the evening with their crops. I decided to visit these
fields, taking my cameras with me. In years gone by the kampong people
have gradually cleared the jungle from a large tract of country, but part
of this clearing was still covered by logs that had not been burned. Over
these hundreds and hundreds of fallen trees, down steep little galleys and
up again, a path led to the present fields higher up in the hills, very
easy walking for bare feet, but difficult when they are encased in leather
shoes. For over an hour and a half we balanced along the prostrate trunks,
into some of which steps had been cut, but, arduous as was the ascent, we
naturally found the descent in the evening a more hazardous undertaking;
yet all emerged from the ordeal with sound limbs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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