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
Fortunately the Murungs were then preparing for such an observance at the
Bundang kampong higher up the river where I intended to visit. They were
making ready to dispose of the remains of no less a personage than the
mother of our kapala. A water-buffalo would be killed and the festival
would last for a week. In three years there would be another festal
occasion of two weeks' duration, at which a water-buffalo would again be
sacrificed, and when a second period of three years has elapsed the final
celebration of three weeks' duration will be given, with the same
sacrificial offering. Thus the occasions are seen to be of increasing
magnitude and the expenses in this case to be on a rising scale. It was
comparatively a small affair.
About a month later, when I stopped at Buntok, on the Barito, the
controleur of the district told me that an unusually great tiwah feast had
just been concluded in the neighbourhood. He had spent ten days there, the
Dayaks having erected a house for him to stay in. More than two hundred
pigs and nineteen water-buffaloes had been killed. Over three hundred
bodies, or rather remains of bodies, had previously been exhumed and
placed in forty boxes, for the accommodation of which a special house had
been constructed. These, with contents, were burned and the remains
deposited in ten receptacles made of iron-wood, those belonging to one
family being put in the same container.
Some of the Dayaks were much preoccupied with preparations for the Bundang
ceremony, which was postponed again and again. They encouraged me to
participate in the festivities, representing it as a wonderful affair. I
presented them with money to buy a sack of rice for the coming occasion,
and some of them went at once to Puruk Tjahu to purchase it. Having
overcome the usual difficulties in regard to getting prahus and men, and
Mr. Demmini having recovered from a week's illness, I was finally, early
in November, able to move on. Several people from our kampong went the
same day, and it looked as if the feast were really about to take place.
We proceeded with uneventful rapidity up-stream on a lovely day, warm but
not oppressively so, and in the afternoon arrived at Bundang, which is a
pleasant little kampong. The Dayaks here have three small houses and the
Malays have five still smaller. A big water-buffalo, which had been
brought from far away to be sacrificed at the coming ceremonial, was
grazing in a small field near by. The surrounding scenery was attractive,
having in the background a jungle-clad mountain some distance away, which
was called by the same name as the kampong, and which, in the clear air
against the blue sky, completed a charming picture. We found a primitive,
tiny pasang-grahan, inconveniently small for more than one person, and
there was hardly space on which to erect my tent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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