Chapter VII: Part 7

Aban Liah, our host, was the most apprehensive of all present. He well knew that he had once been all-important in his tribe, and that he had been unfaithful and treacherous to the Government; wherefore, the better to conceal his deadly fear, and revive his courage, he had his large jars of arrack brought out, and ostentatiously cut the dusty stiff rattans which bound down the covers. The first drink was tendered to the interminable Jok Orong, the guest from the Rejang, to whom all desired to show friendship and promise protection to his people should they move into the Baram district. He gulped down the drink quickly, but not so quickly that the crowd had not time enough to stamp and shout in the customary manner so mightily that the house most alarmingly trembled, creaked, and swayed, until caution prompted us to secure safe positions over good, strong beams; no accident happened, however, although a tremendous uproar accompanied the quaffing by each Chief. Before the second round of drinks, Dr. Hose insisted that they should deliver their speeches and protestations of peace while their brains were still unclouded, and as a preliminary the officious Jamma killed a fowl over a bowl of water, and then with a brush of wood cut into a tuft of shavings at one end spattered the blood and water over the audience. Then, still holding the blood-smeared brush in his hand, he launched into a vehement harangue, proclaiming this to be the very greatest of all Peace-makings that had ever been known on the banks of the Tinjar, and that the pig’s liver had shown them clearly and truly the strength and benefit of the Government. When he had nearly shaken off his absurd goggles and his jockey cap had assumed a jaunty air on the back of his head, he handed the bloodied brush over to Juman, who at once jumped to his feet, and in the Kayan language began to tell in a truly sensible way how he and Tama Bulan had been commanded by the Government to bring Tinggi to justice. He then deliberately narrated all the details of the killing, (which must have been pleasant to the ears of Tama Talip, the adopted father of Tinggi,) but gradually he worked himself up to a high pitch of excitement, beating the air with his arms, see-sawing backward and forward, and emphasising the close of each sentence by shouting ‘Bahh! Bahh!’ He asserted that he was but the servant of the Government when he killed Tinggi, and so staunch was his loyalty that, should the Government command him to kill his dear friend Tama Usong, he would hold it to be his duty to obey. His excitement soon over-mastered him, and when he began to indulge in bravado, and offer to engage any one member of Tinggi’s family in single combat, we deemed it high time to pull him down into his seat, and then plied him with congratulations, just as though he had fully rounded off his speech and finished all he wanted to say.

THE WOODEN FIGURES BEHIND THEM HAVE BEEN PLACED NEAR THE PATHWAY LEADING TO THE HOUSE, TO FRIGHTEN AWAY EVIL SPIRITS. THESE FIGURES ARE NOT WORSHIPPED AS IDOLS, NOR ARE OFFERINGS OR SACRIFICES MADE TO THEM, BUT THEY ARE REGARDED TO A CERTAIN EXTENT WITH REVERENCE. INASMUCH AS TO TOUCH THEM OR TREAT THEM DISRESPECTFULLY ENDANGERS THE OFFENDER TO TERRIBLE DREAMS AT NIGHT AND TO BEING SEIZED BY GHOSTLY HANDS, WHICH WILL LEAVE LASTING SCARS.]

While he was on his feet, drinks had been passing around quietly and some of the older men, whose heads were none too strong, began to feel alcoholic effects. Old Aban Anyi, a devoted follower of Tama Usong, and a hero of many battles, who once told me with pride that he had killed many men, any quantity of women, and no end of children, hearing Juman boast that he would kill Tama Usong if he were so ordered by the Government, tried to get on his feet to challenge such braggart talk, but Tama Usong himself grabbed him forcibly by the back of his waist-cloth and thumped him down to his seat again, where he sat mumbling and protesting until soothed and silenced with another drink. The bloody ‘_pla_,’ or wooden brush, was next passed to Aban Liah, but his speech was weak and very apologetic throughout; he asserted that the Government had treated him badly by degrading him just because he did not tell the whereabouts of the murderers, Tinggi and Sidup; indeed, he never knew who the murderers were. Now the fact was that we knew, and all his hearers knew, that he had lied egregiously and persistently about the murderers, and had even concealed them in his own house. All this had been fully proved after the murderers had been killed. It was the sufficing cause of his loss of the Penghulu-ship.

Tama Usong’s turn came next to declare his good will to the people of the Tinjar, and before he began, a large cup of arrack was thrust upon him. The contents of the jars had become, by this time, nearly exhausted; consequently this cupfull had been dipped up from the dregs, and Tama Usong gulped into his mouth several large pasty lumps of fermented rice. In the embarrassment caused by holding the pla (which seems to be essential to public speaking) he blew the kernels of rice accidentally, but directly in his host’s face. The arrack was painfully present in his rambling and incoherent speech, to which no one paid any attention. At its conclusion all the Chiefs drank in turn from the same cup, and the formal part of the programme of the meeting ended.

Having gathered about him a fresh and untried audience, Jok Orong started in again with his endless, life-long tale of woe, which, we knew, only too well, would last until the arrack was utterly exhausted as well as his hearers; we, therefore, left them incontinently, preferring the peace and quiet of the Leppu Anan house, a short distance up-river, to the fingered feast of stewed fat pork with which Aban Liah was about to regale his guests.

The Leppu Anans are a clan from the Rejang, which not long before had been driven over to the Baram district by a threatened onslaught of the Ibans, who by some underhand means had obtained permission from the Government to attack them with a regularly organized force. Dr. Hose, hearing that this expedition had started, and knowing that the permission had been granted to the Ibans on false pretexts, and inasmuch as in this matter of life and death there was no time to communicate with the Government, instantly sent swift messengers to the homes of the Leppu Anans, telling them to fly for their lives, and promising them protection if they settled on the Tinjar. It was a terrible journey for the poor innocent creatures, loaded down, as they were, with all their household effects and retarded in their haste by the care for the women and children. Many of them, I was told, were so exhausted that they actually crawled and dragged themselves on all fours down the hills which separate the Rejang and Tinjar valleys.

The Ibans, consequently, found the Leppu Anan houses deserted and stripped of everything movable. Whereupon, not to be baulked of all spoils whatever, they attacked some of the friendly houses, the abodes of the very people who, on their journey up-river, had cheerily and kindly wished them success in their head-hunting. To the Bornean a head is a head, whether of friend or foe; so on this occasion the Ibans returned to their homes laden with spoils of their friends and enriched with heads which had not been on the shoulders of those against whom they had set out.

The Leppu Anans, in their new house, although they still harboured the small clan of Lerons who had vowed vengeance on Dr. Hose, nevertheless regarded Dr. Hose as their preserver, and no trouble taken in his behalf could be too great. They are quiet and gentle in their manners and very clean in their persons and about the house. We noticed with much relief that they did not throng about us, asking such inane questions the minute that we had landed, as, ‘When did you arrive?’ or, when helping us to disembark, ‘Did you come in a boat?’—questions which are really not at all unusual even from the very men who have been paddling your boat all day long. Possibly, true etiquette demands such questions among the natives themselves, who, for some occult reason, always desire their actual arrival and departure to pass unnoticed.

These Leppu Anans were intensely interested in my photographs, and literally climbed on each other’s shoulders to see them. In their anxiety to touch the page itself, they nearly crushed the lucky holder of the book. The picture which excited their unstinted admiration is of two Ibans bargaining for the sale of a highly prized Chinese jar; they read the meaning of it at once, explaining it over and over to each other; but opinion was divided as to the balance of trade; some thought the owner was a fool to refuse the pile of silver dollars which the purchaser was offering, while others contended that the man who offered so mean a sum for so fine a jar must have been crazy. (When I showed the photograph to the wife of the man who had posed for me as the owner, she was extremely indignant, protesting that I had no right to represent Angas as such a fool! No sensible man would ever refuse that pile of money for such a common old jar. She felt actually defrauded of all that wealth, and I am sure she looked on me as a thief.)

At noon the next day the Peace-party, which we had left to finish up the ‘seven’ span pig at Aban Liah’s, came up-river, and we all set out together on the last stage of the journey to Tama Aping Buling’s.

It was an exciting day’s travel; the rapids were extremely swift, and the Kayans, Kenyahs, Sibops, Berawans, Leppu Anans, and Lerons became inextricably intermingled in forcing their canoes past dangerous rocks and through narrows where the water rushed with almost irresistible power. Every man of the large assemblage was at the highest tension of excitement in anticipation of the stirring ceremonies close at hand, which after all, in the twinkling of an eye, by the merest accident, or by some trivial flaw in etiquette amid so large a body of hostile clans, might be converted to bloody battle.

When Tama Bulan was forced to leave us and turn back with his sick nephew, he provided, with usual forethought, a small pig, which was to be swiftly forwarded to Tama Aping Buling’s in advance of the Peace-party. In punctillious observance of native customs on such exalted occasions as the present, the pig must be sacrificed on the beach before the Kayans and Kenyahs disembarked. We were positively assured by Aban Liah on leaving his house, that the piglet had been sent on ahead the night before to Tama Aping Buling’s house at Long Dapoi; wherefore, when the Peace-party arrived, everything would be ceremoniously carried out. Our boat, a little in advance of the others, was gliding smoothly on a long stretch of quiet water just above turbulent rapids, when we were met by some men in a canoe from Tama Aping Buling’s; a short excited announcement from them revealed to us that all was not going rightly up-river; accordingly, we changed to their lighter boat, and sped up-stream, leaving our luggage and the Peace-party to follow as they could. The men who poled the canoe could talk but very little of any language but Sibop, so we hardly knew what was amiss until we arrived at the house. On the beach, we were met by Tama Aping Buling himself, almost in tears; before we could get fairly out of the boat, he squatted down, and, in a voice of despair, said, ‘Oh, Tuan Prenta, what shall be done! No pig has been sent to sacrifice when the Kayans arrive. There will be war instead of peace.’ It was even so. That old traitor, Aban Liah, had purposely kept back Tama Bulan’s pig in order that the Peace-making should be a failure, and that his rival, Tama Aping Buling, should get into trouble. Dr. Hose instantly turned and started down-stream to meet the Kayans, and keep them down-river until Aban Liah should either restore the pig or procure another and send it on ahead of them. Aban Liah was serenely imperturbable when accused to his face of the theft of the pig, and of his plot to create trouble; but eventually Dr. Hose’s unsparing denunciation, combined with the sullen threats of the tired Kayans, eager for the comfortable shelter of a house for the night, forced him actually to leave the party, and paddle off down-river to buy or borrow the indispensable little pig.

THE OFFER OF FIFTY MEXICAN DOLLARS IS TREATED WITH HAUGHTY REFUSAL. THE TWO MEN POSED THEMSELVES, AFTER MY SUGGESTION, FOR THE SUBJECT OF THE PICTURE.]

They told us afterward that at house after house he was rebuffed, and, although there were plenty of pigs everywhere, not one could he borrow, beg, or steal, so universally disliked was he for his mean, tricky ways. Night came before he finally succeeded in procuring the sacrifice, so that the wearied Kayans were forced to sleep in their canoes, or in huts of boughs which they built on a pebbly island in midstream, and endure a drenching deluge of rain, illumined by such blinding lightning and deafening thunder as only the Tropics know.

The house built by Tama Aping Buling stands on the north bank of the river, just opposite to the mouth of the Dapoi, a large tributary. It is about two hundred feet from the river, on a high bank which slopes gradually to a wide pebbly beach. The house was only recently finished at that time, and had cost interminable labor; many of the piles whereon it was built were at least twenty inches in diameter, and supported the floor fully fifteen feet from the ground. The veranda was broad and well floored with wide, hewn planks, and roofed with shingles of billian wood, not nailed to the rafters, but tied on with strips of rattan. One end of the house was not yet quite finished, and shingles only partially covered it. This incomplete state was not, however, without its uses; it supplied Tama Aping Buling, while showing his house to us, with a chance to make a remark, which, hackneyed and threadbare as it is among them, is always uttered apparently in the belief that it will be received with all the applause of a novel and brilliant idea. With a wave of his hand toward the roofless rafters, Tama Aping explained, ‘This end of the house is occupied by Laki Langit and his children,’ which, interpreted, means, ‘Grandfather Sky and his children—the stars!’ We had heard the witticism so often that it was hard to force a smile,—but we did. Let him among us, who, in describing ‘full dress,’ has never called it ‘war-paint’ or ‘best bib and tucker,’ cast the first reproach at the unsophisticated Borneans.

Early on the following morning the wee pig was sacrificed on the beach and there left in its gore. Such a sacrifice, when made in ratification of a compact, renders the flesh inedible to all participants in the ceremony; hence the diminutive size of the pig. On the present occasion Aban Liah’s enforced pig was so extremely small, that I saw a lean and hungry dog seize it by the head after the sacrifice was over, and, slinging the body over his back, make off toward some tall grass, where he probably devoured the whole carcass at one meal,—possibly, at one gulp.

The sacrifice of the pig was certainly a beginning, but it did not seem to expedite the other ceremonies to be performed in the veranda of the house. The Kayans, never enthusiastic over this Peace-making, (which is not a fraternisation, but only an agreement not to kill each other on unprovoked raids,) were sulking in their huts on the karangans, under the pretext of drying themselves. All the while Tama Aping Buling and his clan, and the other Tinjar Chiefs and their clans, sat wearily waiting in the veranda for the Kayans to appear. There were several false reports that they were coming, and each time the host, Tama Aping, invariably alleged that most important matters needed attention in his private room, and as invariably had to be dragged, trembling, from his little dark sleeping-box, where he was crouching, to attend to the reception of his guests. One cause of Tama Aping’s conduct was dread lest it should leak out that he had been largely instrumental in giving the Government the information which eventually led to the detection of Tinggi and his brother, Sidup, both of whom had been, in point of fact, at one time inmates of his house; should this treachery become known, his own people, even, would turn against him, and his life would not be worth a black bead.

THE SCENE OF THE NOTABLE PEACE-MAKING.]

The forenoon passed; the day wore on to afternoon,—still no Kayans; we began to fear that they had turned back and had given up all idea of peace-making.

Jamma of the flabby, unhealthy lips, talked interminably, and his goggles seemed to grow bigger and his jockey cap dirtier every minute. Tama Talip silently munched betel nut, and squirted the blood-red juice incessantly through a crack in the floor. Aban Liah was depressed in spirit, and sat sullenly twisting an extinguished cigarette between his fingers. We became thoroughly wearied of the whole assemblage, and, unattended, paddled across the river to a grassy point where we could watch for the coming of the Kayans, and, at least for awhile, get rid of the natives. Even this watching became intolerable, and finally we decided to go up the clear Dapoi River a short distance and take a swim. Of course, this was the very time through the perversity of luck, that the Kayans decided to go up to the house, and we, unfortunately, were not on hand. Kilup, one of Tinggi’s brothers, took it upon himself to be the leader of a small Jawa party, and did not even wait for Juman to disembark from his canoe, but ran full speed down to the beach, and with his parang drawn,—a violation of propriety absolutely forbidden in every well-conducted Jawa—actually chopped at Juman’s boat and slashed the palm-leaf covering. They told us afterward that Juman behaved bravely, and sat unmoved in his boat,—his serenity was possibly due to the knowledge that the ‘snappang,’ albeit with the ‘fever-stricken engine,’ was at his side, and that, if necessity arose, its discharge would prove fatal to some one, either to himself or to Kilup. By the time we returned from our bath the excitement had subsided, but none the less, Tama Aping Buling remained secluded in the depths of his private apartments. Dr. Hose at once summoned Kilup before him, and incontinently imposed on him a fine of one tawak,—equivalent to thirty dollars, a really heavy fine. Kilup sat unmoved during his sentence, and then arose slowly and swaggered off to his room, where he was told to remain until sent for, under penalty of another fine, or, possibly, imprisonment in the Baram Fort.

The Kayans were very naturally greatly incensed at such treatment; certainly they had a right to expect a little more hospitality after their dolorous night in the soaking rain.

By way of precaution against too much zeal in the approaching sham fight, we made the Tinjar people place about half-way down the veranda a high, square platform, used ordinarily as a sleeping-shelf for guests; this would tend to keep the two forces apart and check too quick an onslaught. When this was done, Tama Liri was deputed to go down to the river and conduct the Kayans to the veranda. It is an inexcusable breach of decorum for any strangers outside the house, to pass in front of a Chief’s door, before ascending to the veranda; guests, therefore, from down-river should enter at the down-river end of the house, and _vice versâ_. Tama Liri knew this as well as he knew his name; but, solely to stir up more trouble, he conducted the Kayans who came from down-river to the up-river end of the house, which involved a direct insult to Tama Aping Buling. Of course, the Kayans remonstrated, but too late; and then, to retrieve the insult, had to tramp almost the whole length of the house in the mud and slime beneath the veranda; this added fresh fuel to the fire already burning in their breasts.

The Lerons, Sibops, Berawans, and Leppu Anans gathered at the up-river end of the veranda, to await the entrance of the Kayans, and we placed ourselves midway, so as to be on hand to moderate, if possible, too realistic a sham fight.

The Kayans and Kenyahs came quietly up the notched log, and halted in a close crowd until the last man had fairly entered the veranda. Standing thus within the house of one who had always been an enemy, and confronting their deadly foes, it is no wonder that they were trembling with excitement; their eyes were glancing suspiciously in all directions to detect any signs of treachery or the sight of concealed weapons. Suddenly, with one impulse, they began yelling, stamping, waving their arms, and leaping in the air. Immediately the Tinjar people joined in; in a second the whole veranda from end to end became a perfect pandemonium of shrieking, frenzied, gymnastic savages. Not a step did they advance toward each other, although everywhere there were furious, threatening gestures.

This appalling scene was kept up for fully a minute, and then the frightful turbulence gradually quieted down. Dr. Hose at once seized Juman by the arm and led him, followed by his people, right in among their bitter enemies; then glancing round quickly to see that no one had a weapon in hand, instantly proposed that they should all once more jump and stamp together, and he himself led off with a resounding stamp and a terrific shout. Juman followed, then another and another, until, in a trice, once more the house was trembling beneath them, and the rafters echoing; but this time friends and foes were almost shoulder to shoulder. The inanity, I think, of the proceeding slowly dawned on them; the shouting did not last as long as before; it became more and more feeble; at last it ceased suddenly, and they all sat down. Little by little the ice of mutual distrust began to thaw; here and there men who had been mortal foes were sitting cheek by jowl, engaged in friendly conversation.

At this stage, it was the host’s clear duty to bring out his arrack; his guests might at once have pledged each other, and friendship might have been cemented; but Tama Aping Buling was in his sleeping-room, probably buried beneath a pile of mats.

Speeches were made by Jamma, Aban Liah, and Juman, but they lacked earnestness and cordiality, and, at their conclusion, the pigs whose livers were to foretell the issue of this Peace-making and the futurity of the participants, were dragged into the centre of the assembly. As each one was brought in, it was harangued by the Dayongs, and adjured to tell the truth and to intercede with the Spirits to drive out all animosity from the people of the two rivers. The largest pig was reserved as the ‘Government’s pig,’ and had been selected on account of its size and beauty, but it did not turn out to be exactly what the Government would have chosen as its fittest representative. It was an albino, with lack-lustre, whitish eyes and a pale, mottled snout; it lay so still that I half expected it was about to cheat the sacrifice by dying a natural death. Of course, it fell to Dr. Hose’s lot to exhort this pig _ante mortem_ to proclaim truthfully _post mortem_, by infallible omens in its liver, whether or not the Government’s course was right; but he gave the natives clearly to understand that, whatever the omens might be, they would not in the least influence him in the management of Government affairs; and that he followed the custom merely to please them. Thereupon, he prodded the pale-eyed and anæmic pig with his foot, to arouse its earnest attention, but no responsive grunt nor indignant squeal came from that cadaverous representative of the Government; it lay imperturbably still and blinked. As soon as his words ceased, the pig was dragged to one side, its throat cut, and its liver at once dexterously extracted. When this organ, which proved to be unusually large, was passed round among the Chiefs and among those who were skilled in the interpretation of auguries, it was pronounced with one accord to be in its every aspect most favourable; but, in an unlucky moment, just as it was about to be taken away, some one, inquisitively, lifted one of the lobes to examine the under surface, and instantly a convulsive horror and shuddering recoil ran through the whole assemblage,—a large, foul abscess was disclosed!

Once before, on this expedition, had the natives been shocked by a fateful foreboding of death, and now, for a second time, in yet clearer terms, had this death-warrant been delivered. On the first occasion, at Tama Liri’s house, their horrified eyes had noted a deep scar, and now with inexpressible dismay they beheld a corroding ulcer.

Dr. Hose, in solemn tones, again repeated the true interpretation of the blood-curdling portent:—_a faithless, scheming Chief_, who was secretly hostile to the Rajah and to his people, would _very shortly die a miserable, inevitable death_! Again the liver was passed round the awe-stricken circle; in vain they summoned their best ingenuity in suggesting a less dreadful interpretation, but it was only too clear that Dr. Hose’s words bore every impress of truth.

Old Aban Liah, of whose hostility to the Government there had been such recent proofs, sat a little outside the circle, and when the liver with its death-warrant was passed over to him, he waved it aside, and in tones that reminded me vividly of Shylock, and almost in Shylock’s very words, said, tremulously, ‘Let me go away; I am not well;’ and then added, apologetically: ‘the smell of this beastly, warm, raw flesh has made me ill. I must go.’ And he got up, with dazed looks, and went with uncertain steps to his room.

An hour or two later, in the evening, some of his friends came and begged me to go see him. To my surprise, I found him in a high fever and semi-delirious. I directed them to wrap him up warmly, to produce a sweat, and advised them to remove him to his own home as soon as possible. I supposed that he would be all right in the morning, when the effects of the feasting at his house the day before had passed off. I never dreamed that his illness would have a fatal termination.

Neither Aban Liah’s sudden illness, nor his absence, interfered with the Peace-making. Kilup was summoned from his room, and in the presence of the assembled tribes he was given such a vehement rating by the Government that he probably remembers it to this hour, and he was furthermore warned that even threatening language was punishable.

Still no arrack was broached, nor feast spread. At the slightest noise or excitement, off sped Tama Aping Buling to his room, and there remained in seclusion until all was again quiet. He had, in truth, more cause for alarm than the others; his wife, his children, and all the women of the household were dependent on him for protection in any outbreak of hostility; his guests had to look but after their own safety; these guests were now peaceable, but in a flash they might become mortal foes in deadly conflict.

Old Jamma was always to the fore, talking incessantly and making effusive attempts to ingratiate himself with everybody; but if all present shared my feelings, his thick, everted lips, and eyes distorted behind those prodigious goggles, would have checked every throb of sympathy. Furthermore, he had unaccountably changed his jockey cap for a war-cap of Tiger skin, with which he fairly terrified the Kayans. A skin of the great tiger is something so terrible to many of the natives that they dare not even touch it; an oath bound by a tiger’s tooth or tiger’s skin is one of their most solemn pledges. The Kenyahs and Sibops are the only tribes who may touch a Tiger’s skin with impunity.

It was not until afternoon had deepened into night that the feast and the arrack were brought out. The roar that went up when Juman drained the first cup could have been heard certainly for a mile, and the stamping was stupendous. In fact, under the weight of the three hundred jumping men, the floor sagged fully six inches, and the huge piles, whereon the house was built, swerved and sank deeper into the earth. Thus it went on, one toast after another, and roar upon roar; then they made speeches fervid with alcohol. Jamma talked rank, open treason when his tongue was loosened, and claimed the whole Tinjar River as a direct inheritance from his Uncle, Aban Jau; the Rajah had no right to be there, and the Government obstructed instead of helped the people. Very little attention, however, was paid to him, either by the assemblage, or by Dr. Hose, a neglect which cut him deeply; he ached to be of sufficient importance to receive a rebuke from the Government, but Dr. Hose merely replied, ‘We must all bear in mind the source whence these silly remarks come; I think you’ll all agree that they are not of the slightest consequence.’

The drinking, the stamping, and the shouting were kept up throughout the night, and, to our great content, the Kayan guests behaved well and restrained themselves within bounds. Jamma and his clan were the only flagrant offenders, talking treason and indulging in threats.

A smell of fermented arrack, stale fumes of rank tobacco, maudlin gabble from drunken men, the snarling and yelping of dogs, the clucking and cackling of poultry, the wailing of children, and the crying of babies, pervaded the world into which we awoke in Tama Aping Buling’s house the morning after the great Peace-making carouse.

Suddenly, above all sounds, arose repeated, piercing shrieks from terror-stricken women, excited shouting of men, slamming of doors, and the clatter of bare feet fleeing over the loose, rattling boards of the veranda. The master of the house flung himself, trembling, into our room and breathlessly announced that one of his men, overcome by the night’s debauch, had gone ‘amok’—as he said,—and, armed with parang and shield, had sworn to hack in pieces all whom he met; he was now rushing from room to room slashing right and left at the terrified and fugitive inmates. Two or three brave men had climbed to the loft above the partitions between the private rooms, and, with poles, were trying to beat down and disarm the maniac and lasso him with loops of rattan.

A man who runs amok both expects and desires to be killed, but endeavors to slaughter beforehand as many victims as possible. Dr. Hose caught up a long and heavy pestle used for husking rice, and we all hurried out in the veranda, armed with our revolvers, to assist in the capture of this most dangerous ruffian; and, since he desired to be killed, we were quite ready to gratify him. Just as we came opposite the room from which the maniac had driven the occupants, frantic with terror, the man himself rushed forth directly in front of Dr. Hose, but the latter was ready for him with a greeting which was as well-directed and cordial as it was unexpected. By one waive of the long pestle, his shield was instantly thrust aside, and there followed a disconcerting and most demoralising prod full in the pit of the stomach. All his valiant ‘amok’ collapsed, and, with eyes rolling in his head, he staggered back through the doorway and plumped down, with a flop, on the floor. Instantly the men overhead, with their rattan loops, had him encircled round the waist, and a vigorous pull suspended him in mid-air from a cross-beam; with their poles they knocked the weapons from his hands, and then, like a spider with a fly, they had him quickly swathed with rattans and bound hand and foot. The next thing was to take him to his own room, and leave him thus confined until he had recovered his senses. But while they were carrying him thither, the ever-officious, and withal treacherous, Jamma, staggered impetuously forward, and, vehemently insisting that the maniac should be set free, actually began to grapple with the carriers. In a twinkling, his wrist was seized by Dr. Hose, and he was whirled round; then, after executing an astonishing and dizzy pirouette, he lost his balance and went skimming along the floor, until, with a reverberating thump, his head struck the wall, and he lay motionless. Some friends ran to him and propped him up. He made no attempt to rise, but only blinked his bloodshot eyes, denuded for once of the goggles, and kept gasping, panting forth: ‘Why did the Government strike me? Why did the Government strike me?’ Finding his question unanswered, he lapsed into silence, and put in practice the ingenious idea of feigning death, wherein he was much helped by a sudden rush of alcoholic fumes to his head. His nephew and a few devoted friends lost not an instant’s time in laying out the corpse, and, seated beside the limp body, immediately struck up a funeral wail over his sad, untimely demise. It really seemed possible that the man might be dead, so, at Dr. Hose’s request, I examined him, but no trace of injury could I find on the corpse but a severe, darkly coloured bruise on its forehead; when, however, this bruise was bathed with arnica, I noticed that it wholly disappeared, and the discoloration was transferred to the absorbent cotton, and that the skin presented an unbroken surface. When I attempted to examine his eyes, the wrinkled resistance of the lids showed me his inflexible determination to remain dead.

Disgusted with the whole household, we had our luggage incontinently carried down to the boats; then, after speeding the Kayans and Kenyahs, now in a benign and peaceful mood, on their homeward journey, the Great, Historic, Ceremonial Peace-making came to an end. It had been a veritable and a notable success throughout; old scores had been settled by exchange of Usut and by the Jawa, and return visits had been planned; barring Aban Liah’s antagonism and illness, Kilup’s bad behavior, and the incident with Jamma just related, everything had gone off more smoothly than we had any reason to expect, considering the undisciplined, grown-up children with whom we had to deal. We were, nevertheless, truly glad to be rid of the responsibility of a party so large, and of material so inflammable.

We decided to continue our journey, and ascend the Dapoi River, to visit some Punans,—a nomadic tribe, who had recently encamped near the head-waters of the stream.

Just as we were pushing off in our canoe, a wild figure, with arms waving, and face distorted with malignant rage, dashed down the log-walk to the beach; there it turned and faced the house. It was Jamma, the corpse. Snatching off his war-cap of Tiger skin, he waved it, backward and forward above his head with frantic gestures, toward the house. We did not care to wait for the upshot of these remarkable antics, but pursued our tranquil course up the Dapoi, inhaling peace and repose beneath the over-arching boughs festooned with ferns and orchids.

Late in the afternoon, we landed at the house of Tama Balan Deng, a Sibop Chief, who received us kindly, and most hospitably gave up to us his own room, wherein throughout every minute of the entire night we were the objects of awestruck curiosity to his whole household, the larger part of whom had never before seen a white man; they sat immovably huddled together at one side of the room, and were the last objects that we saw on going to sleep, and when we awoke at dawn they were noiselessly creeping away.

Early in the day, to our surprise, Tama Aping Buling arrived in his canoe, in a state of painful excitement over Jamma’s conduct of the day before, whose antics were now explained. As soon as we had left, the old rascal, tired of being a corpse, fell into a violent rage with the universe, and had stormed down to the beach, and there had cursed with his awful Tiger skin cap every bit of timber in the house, together with all its inmates, big and little, old and young, and all the Kayans, root and branch, who had been in it, and ended up with the white men who had half-killed him. The house, as I said above, had just been built, at a cost of infinite labor and great expense; but after such a blood-curdling curse had been launched at it, to Tama Aping Buling’s superstitious mind, the domicile was for ever banned and ruined. The object of the poor fellow’s hurried visit was to ask Dr. Hose if he did not think it best that the whole structure should be immediately destroyed; it took much serious argument from Dr. Hose to dissuade the disconsolate Tama Aping from the determination to empty his house of all movables and then set fire to it.

This account of Jamma’s malevolence did not exhaust Tama Aping’s budget. He brought the latest news of Aban Liah, whom we had last seen stricken down by the dreadful omen in the pig’s liver. The most skilful Dayongs had been summoned to keep the soul of the old Berawan Chief from wholly deserting his body, and, at last reports, they had grave doubts as to their success in finding whither it had temporarily flown, unless several additional parang blades and three or four more bolts of cloth were given to them, wherewith they could bribe the Spirits who were luring far away the soul of Aban Liah; they were sorely afraid that, in spite of all their exertions, the soul would evade them and slip off to Bulun Matai. We despatched the necessary spiritual bribes, and then continued our journey to the home of the Punans.

Four days afterward, when we left the Dapoi and again turned into the Tinjar, we stopped at the scene of the Great Peace making, and there we learned the end of Aban Liah’s tragic story. The fate foretold so clearly by the liver of the Government’s albino pig had been fulfilled. The conscience-stricken soul of the faithless Aban Liah had, indeed, departed to the Fields of the Dead. From the moment that he saw that ulcerous liver, and realized its plain indication to himself he sickened, became delirious, and within forty-eight hours was dead!

There happened to be in one of the boats of our party an old woman, a distant relative of Aban Liah, and when the news of his death was first shouted to us from a boat which we met on the river, this old creature withdrew a short distance from the bank, and, squatting down on the sand, proceeded to emit a solo of heart-rending wails for the dead, rehearsing his good qualities in a jerky and descending chromatic scale, beginning at high C and ending when her breath gave out; then, after a deep inspiration, the wailing strain was resumed. All the while she was glancing around to see the effect it had upon us, and also to see what was going on up and down the river while she was busy in sorrowing for the defunct; she knew, quite as well as we, what a thorough-paced old rascal he was, and how far better it was for all his household that he was dead and out of the way. When she had reeled off a due amount of profound sorrow, she re-embarked, and was as chatty and gay as possible until we reached the dead Chief’s house; there it behooved her to roar again for appearance’s sake. We went up to the house of mourning to pay our respects to the household and be witness to their grief. At the hour of our arrival, there happened to be a lull in the wailing, but the appearance of visitors of such august importance at once demanded a resumption, not only of gong-beating, but also of the recitation of the estimable, noble character of the departed. The obtrusive old Jamma was again to the fore, all animosity forgotten in his eagerness to display his extreme grief; out of respect for the dead he had discarded his jockey cap and goggles. Several other Chiefs from neighbouring houses and ourselves were led to places of honor in front of the bier, whereon lay Aban Liah, sealed up in a coffin hewn out of Durian wood. The bier was draped with some cotton cloth, which we recognized as that which we had sent as a bribe to the Spirits, and on posts at the four corners were hung the Chief’s most valuable beads, his parang, shield, and spear, and a number of musical instruments; it was expected that he would hold a high position among the minstrels and warriors in Bulun Matai. As soon as the chief men had conducted us to our places, they squatted beside us, and, covering their faces with their hands to hide the scalding tears that did not flow, they began to moan and groan in a style which was, perhaps, quite as symbolical to them of true sorrow as black crape and nodding plumes are to us.

At this moment, the women of the dead man’s immediate family issued from his private room, clad in high-pointed yellow hoods of bark-cloth, which flowing down enveloped them from head to foot; they gathered about the head of the coffin, and wailed to the accompaniment of several deep-toned gongs. This same rite had been repeated for every visitor who had come to the Chief’s house since his death; they were in good practice. All members of the household were in their dirtiest and most worn-out habiliments; every ornament had been discarded; girdles of beads had been replaced by belts of twisted rattan, and weights made of pebbles wrapped in bark-cloth had been substituted for metal ear-rings; many of the men and some of the women had smeared themselves with soot from the cooking-pots, and no one had bathed in the river since the demise of the Chief, four or five days before. They were certainly repulsive in appearance. This wailing lasted but a scant five minutes, and then the women retired, and the men withdrew their hands from their eyes; of course, not a tear had been shed. With the elasticity of youth,—for they are all mere children,—they were at once interested in hearing of the expedition we were about to make to the summit of a mountain near by, and were laughing and joking over the Ghosts and Sprites that we were sure to meet in that mysterious moss-jungle continually shrouded in mists.

It is the custom among the Berawans to keep a corpse in the house for several months, varying the length of time in accordance with the rank or wealth of the deceased; sometimes the body may have to remain unburied until after the harvest. On the third or fourth day after death, the body is squeezed into a large jar, which has been carefully cut apart at its largest diameter, so that the body does not have to be forced through the narrow neck. It is in the lower half that the corpse is placed in a cramped, squatting position; the upper half is then fitted on tightly, and the crack sealed up with resinous gum. The jar is then placed in a corner of the veranda, and a pipe of hollow bamboo is inserted to drain off to the ground below the fluids resulting from decomposition. It occasionally happens that gases accumulate inside the jar, and cannot escape through the tube, owing to a stoppage, and then an explosion follows.

The Berawans believe that shortly after death the spirits of the dead return from Bulun Matai, to see that their relatives and friends are displaying the due amount of grief by performing the proper ceremonies. Should a spirit find that it has been neglected and forgotten, it curses the culprits, and they become blind, deaf, or lame. If all has been done to show befitting grief and respect,—if the mourners have been on a raid and secured a nice head wherewith to decorate the grave or the household hearth,—then the spirit retires to the nether world, never again to return.

In former days, on the death of any influential Chief, if his people were either too lazy or too cowardly to go head-hunting, a male or female slave was purchased and sacrificed in honor of the dead. From near and far, friends were invited to take part in the high ceremony. When the poor wretch of a slave was thrust into a cage of bamboo and rattan, he knew perfectly well the death by torture to which he was destined. In this cage he was confined for a week or more, until all the guests had assembled and a feast was prepared. On the appointed day, after every one had feasted and a blood-thirsty instinct had been stimulated to a high pitch by arrack, each one in turn thrust a spear into the slave. No one was allowed to give a fatal thrust until every one to the last man had felt the delight of drawing blood from living, human flesh. We were told by the Berawans that the slaves often survived six or seven hundred wounds, until death from loss of blood set them free. The corpse of the victim was then taken to the grave of the Chief, and the head cut off and placed on a pole overhanging the grave. Frequently, some of the guests worked themselves into such a blood-thirsty frenzy that they bit pieces from the body, and were vehemently applauded when they swallowed the raw morsel at a gulp.

It is, probably, in conformity with the same idea of a head-hunt in honor of the memory of the deceased, that the tribe of Malanaus, on their return from a burial, engage in a mock battle with those who remained behind to guard the house, and throw at them mud and imitation javelins made of light pith.

The body of Aban Liah, although a Berawan, was not placed in a jar, but, as I have said, in a coffin, and would be kept in the house, so they told us, for three months, until the end of the harvest. The people darkly hinted at the absolute necessity of their obtaining, at that time, a fresh human head. But Dr. Hose warned them of the sure consequences following every violation of the solemn compact and rites of peace which they had just concluded.

We left them in their grief, and set out on our trip to the summit of Mt. Dulit, one of the lofty range that forms the watershed between the Rejang and the Baram Rivers. When we turned into the little stream that flows down the side of the mountain, we noticed lying on one of the banks the huge, stately Durian tree, (worth a livelihood to a whole household on account of its much-prized fruit,) which had been already cut down just to make a monumental support for the coffin of the good-for-nothing old Aban Liah. The giant pole was to be elaborately carved and painted, and, when the Chief’s body was ready to be placed in position, this huge trunk would be erected near the bank of the river, a little below his house.

Whatever might have been its origin, it is not now easy to determine what emotion it is which prompts the Borneans to decorate elaborately the depositories of their dead; at first glance, it seems as if it must be affectionate remembrance and a devotion to the habitation of the soul even after the soul has left it. But, certainly among the Borneans, demonstrative affection is, I should say, an exceedingly rare trait; their lives are almost as purely individual and selfish as are the examples Nature sets before them at every turn in the jungle. During the time that a child is still nursing at the mother’s breast, there is that instinctive, protective parental affection observable in all mating animals; but after the child is weaned and is able to toddle, it is allowed to ramble pretty much where it will, and to take its educational bumps and tumbles without parental worry. Mother Nature provides the only clothes it wears, and, after her own healing, scarifying fashion, darns and patches the rents and tears that they may receive. Among the young boys and girls there is a sort of playmate affection, whenever self-sacrifice is not necessary, and where the one who plans the game or sport always expects to be and is the principal player. Between adults, be they the nearest of kin or be they even lovers, I think I am safe in saying that there is no such thing as unselfish love; a youth would never think of resigning a comfortable place in a boat to his father, or to his mother, or to his sister, or even to his sweetheart. When a man comes back from a long, and perhaps dangerous, expedition, he does not fall into the arms of his family amid tears of joy and welcome; but he walks up the notched log and stalks along the public veranda, looking neither to the right nor to the left until he deposits his burden opposite his own door, and there he sits down, lights a cigarette, and tries to act and look as if he had just come in from the rice-field after a day’s work.[14] There is not a greeting of any kind whatsoever exchanged on either side; but after a while, and little by little, an admiring group of men and boys gather round, and slowly he unbends, telling scraps of news about friends or foes in the country whence he is come, until at last he is haranguing the people and acting ‘Sir Oracle’ in the centre of a circle of gaping mouths and unwinking eyes. It is the same were he about to start off on an expedition; no kerchiefs are waved to him nor do eyes stream with tears as his canoe pushes off from the shore; he goes down to the boat with his parcels in just the same matter-of-fact manner as if he were only going to cross the river for fire-wood. I have seen Bornean mothers, fathers, and sweethearts, part from those who ought to have been dear to them, and who were about to set out on distant expeditions of a peaceful nature, or on long war expeditions of a dangerous nature, but I remember only one solitary instance where there were any tears or the slightest show of reluctance at parting; that one instance was the parting of a sister from a brother who had come over on a visit to the house into which she had married quite recently. The woman in this case did really show a downright love for her snaggle-toothed and hideous brother; she hung upon his neck, sobbing and wailing, trying her best to hold him back, and pleading with him not to go; he patted her on the shoulder, seemed very self-conscious and exceedingly bored; finally, extricating himself rather rudely from her arms, he stalked toward the notched log and descended, looking straight in front of him. Possibly it was, on the woman’s part, more homesickness than love for her brother. From the Arctics to the Tropics, be it ever so humdrum, there’s no place like home.

THE CORPSE WAS PLACED IN A SQUATTING POSITION IN A DEEP PIT, HOLLOWED OUT AT THE UPPER END OF THE COLUMN AND COVERED OVER WITH A LARGE TRIANGULAR SLAB OF WOOD, CUT FROM THE ROOT OF A BUTTRESS TREE. THE ORNAMENTATION IS COMPOSED OF WHITE CHINA BOWLS AND PLATES, FASTENED ON WITH GUTTA-PERCHA]