Part 5 (1/2)
We arrived a little before noon and found some of the natives busy preparing their midday meal in and around a cool shed on top of a hill from where an extensive view was obtained of the past and present fields of the country. Near by was a watch-tower raised on top of upright logs.
At one side of it four bamboos of different sizes were hanging horizontally over each other, which produced different notes when struck, and probably had been placed there for the purpose of frightening birds away.
The Kenyahs ”take turns” helping each other to harvest, and on this occasion they were a.s.sisting their chief. It was a scene of much animation, as if it were a festival, which in reality the harvesting is to them. The long row of men and women in their best garments, with picturesque sun-shades, cut the spikes one by one, as the custom is, with small knives held in the hollow of their hands. a.s.suredly the food which they received was tempting to hungry souls. The rice, after being cooked, was wrapped in banana leaves, one parcel for each, forty-four in all, and as many more containing dried fish which also had been boiled. The people kindly acceded to my request to have them photographed. They then packed the harvested paddi in big baskets, which they carried on their backs to the storehouse in the kampong the same afternoon. From planting time till the end of the harvest--four or five months--a man is deputed to remain in the kampong to whom fish is forbidden, but who may eat all the rice he wants, with some salt, and as recompense for his services receives a new prahu or clothing.
A few days later, the chief having early in the morning taken omens from a small bird, the inhabitants with few exceptions departed on a tuba-fis.h.i.+ng expedition to the Pipa, a small tributary to the Kayan River farther north. The two kampongs, Long Pelaban and Long Mahan, combined forces, and as so many were going I experienced difficulty in arranging to join the excursion, but finally succeeded in securing prahus and men from the latter place.
We pa.s.sed a small settlement of Punans, former nomads, who had adopted the Dayak mode of living, having learned to cultivate rice and to make prahus.
We found the people of Long Pelaban camped on a stony beach in two long rows of rough shelters, each row containing many families under one common roof of bark. The Long Mahan people had gone farther and camped on a similar beach, and between the two I discovered a pleasant location in the jungle by ascending the high bank of the river. Hardly had we finished putting up our tents when a violent thunder-storm arose, which continued unabated for half an hour, and thereafter with diminished force throughout the night. Many of the Dayaks moved up to our position, and next day the river ran high, so we did not make a start.
In the morning, after a fine bath, as I was about to take breakfast, a large party of visitors from Long Mahan approached. They were unacquainted with the Malay tongue and showed obvious signs of embarra.s.sment, but by distributing a little candy to the children and biscuits to the adults harmony was soon established. Two unusually attractive small girls wearing valuable bead necklaces, who at first had appeared takut (frightened), unconcernedly seated themselves on their heels in front of me. The others perched in a long row on two poles which they laid on the wet ground, all of them preparing to watch me eat breakfast. Among other things the menu included half a dozen small boiled potatoes brought from Tandjong Selor and obtained from Central Java; they usually keep for four or five weeks and are a valuable aid in maintaining good health in the tropics.
The Kenyahs had never seen potatoes before, and one man handed some of the peelings to his wife for inspection, whereupon I gave her a potato, which she peeled carefully, divided, and gave a piece to each of the two children, with whom, however, it did not find favour. I opened a can of milk and another of cream, for I was fresh from Europe and had plenty of provisions. After helping myself from the cans I gave them to the children, who greatly relished what was left in them, but they did not eat greedily, behaving like white children who have not learned from adults to eat hastily. The Kenyahs are very courteous. When a man pa.s.sed my tent opening he generally called aloud, as if announcing his presence.
In visiting the camps I found the Kenyahs, even on an occasion like the present, busily engaged at some occupation, and seldom or never was anybody seen sitting idle. The men were splitting rattan into fine strings, later to be used for many purposes: for plaiting the sheath of the parang; for making bottle-shaped receptacles for rice; for securing the axe to the handle, etc. Women were doing the same work with bamboo, first drying the stalks by standing them upright before a fire. These fine bamboo strings are later used in making winnowing trays and for various kinds of beautifully plaited work. When employed in this way, or on other occasions, the women smoke big cigarettes as nonchalantly as the men.
Continuing the journey next day, we found it a laborious undertaking over many small rapids. The water had already subsided, so we had to wade most of the day, dragging the prahus, a task which we found rather fatiguing, as the stones are difficult to step on in the water and very hot out of it. The river was narrow, but here and there widened out into pools. Many ”bring” were erected over the stream, and I noticed that they were smaller than those I had seen before, but the arrangements for beating the tuba were far more elaborate.
On the river bank, as we approached the main camping-place, piles of the light-brown root were often seen, resembling stacks of wood. The gathering of these roots, I learned, was accomplished in one day. Our men had helped in the work and they also put up a couple of ”bring” near our camp for our own use. Early in the afternoon two rather solid structures, built like bridges across the small river, were erected; on these the beating of the tuba was to take place next morning. In the middle, lengthwise, was placed a long, narrow excavated log, longer than the bridge itself, for the use of the beaters.
In the evening a large tree crashed to earth not far from my camp, and at a later hour another, still nearer, thunderously broke with its fall the silence of night. At two o'clock in the morning the beating of tuba began, to the accompaniment of shouts and outcries, and though the noise was considerable and unusual I did not find it intolerable, but fell asleep again. I arose early, and after partaking of some excellent Dayak rice I walked down to view the proceedings, and found the scene engrossing. Men and women stood close together on each side of the long trough, crus.h.i.+ng the tuba with sticks in a similar manner to that adopted when pounding rice. The trough had at one end a small compartment, open like the rest, but the sides had been smoothed with an axe and when beaten served the purpose of a gong. The bark was pounded into small pieces and then thrown to one side upon large palm leaves which covered the bridge.
Boarding a prahu, I next visited Amban Klesau's bridge, a little lower down, which was larger and more pretentious, with tall poles erected on it, and from the top hung ornamental wood shavings. The end of the trough here had actually been carved into a semblance of the head of ”an animal which lives in the ground,” probably representing a supernatural being usually called nagah. The owner himself was beating it with a stick on both sides of the head, and this made more noise than the pounding of the fifty men and women who stood working at the trough. At times they walked in single file around it.
The pounding was finished in the forenoon, and all went a little farther down the river to take the fire omen at a place where the river widened out into a pool. A man with many tail-feathers from the rhinoceros hornbill (_buceros rhinoceros_) stuck into his rattan cap seated himself on a crude platform which had been built on upright poles over the water.
Some long pieces of tuba-root were lying there, and he squatted on his heels facing the princ.i.p.al men who were sitting on the bank south of him.
A few minutes later the chief of Long Mahan made his way out to the platform over some logs which loosely bridged the s.p.a.ce to the bank of the river, and attempted the fire-making, but after two unsuccessful attempts he retired. Several other prominent men came and tried, followed by the man with the tail-feathers in his cap, but he also failed; whereupon they all stepped ash.o.r.e, taking the fire-making implements and some of the roots with them, in order to see whether they would have better luck on land. The brother of the chief now came forward and made two attempts, with no more success than the others. Urged to try again, he finally succeeded; the a.s.semblage silently remained seated for a few minutes, when some men went forth and beat tuba with short sticks, then threw water upon it, and as a final procedure cast the bark into the river and again beat it. From the group of the most important people an old man then waded into the water and cast adrift burning wood shavings which floated down-stream.
In the meantime the Long Mahan people had gone to throw the bark into the river from their elaborate bridge, and those of Long Pelaban went to their establishments. The finely pounded bark soon began to float down the river from the bridges as it might were there a tannery in the neighbourhood.
Presently white foam began to form in large sheets, in places twenty-five centimetres thick and looking much like snow, a peculiar sight between the dark walls of tropical jungle. Above the first little rapid, where the water was congested, a portion of the foam remained like snow-drift, while most of it continued to advance and spread itself over the first long pool. Here both men and women were busily engaged catching fish with hand-nets, some wading up to their necks, others constantly diving underneath and coming up covered with light foam.
The insignificant number of fish caught--nearly all of the same kind--was surprising and disappointing. Even small fish were eagerly sought. There was little animation, especially at the beginning of the sport, and no spears were used. Several tons of bark must have been utilized, at least eight or ten times as much as at the Isau River, and I regretted that they should have so little reward for their trouble. Five days were spent in travel, two days in making ”bring” and gathering tuba, and they had pounded tuba for eight hours, since two o'clock in the morning. After all these exertions many prahus must have returned without fish. Possibly the fish had been practically exterminated by the tuba poisoning of former years. One man told me that many fish remain dead at the bottom, which partly accounts for the scanty result.
I was desirous of having Chonggat remain here for a week of collecting, but no Kenyah was willing to stay with him, all being deterred through fear of Punan head-hunters, who, on this river, not so long ago, had killed some rubber-gatherers from Sarawak. Besides, they also antic.i.p.ated revenge on the part of Kayans, eleven of whom had been killed by the Kenyahs in Apo Kayan one and a half years previously. According to their own reports and that of the Chinese interpreter, the heads of six men and five women had been taken after a successful attack on the two prahus in which the Kayans (Oma-Lakan) travelled. The Kenyahs (Oma-Kulit) who had committed the outrage had been apprehended by the Company, as the government is called by the natives. The brother of the chief of Long Pelaban, who was with us fis.h.i.+ng, three months previously had returned from Samarinda, where he had spent one year in prison for having been implicated in a minor way in this crime, while the main offenders were serving labor terms of six years in Sorabaia, Java.
This report was confirmed by a Dutch officer whom I met a month later and who came from Apo Kayan. The attacking Kenyahs were eighty in number, of whom ten were punished. The affair took place in 1912 at a distance of six hours, going down-stream, from Long Naw.a.n.g. Though head-hunters are known to travel wide and far, and distant Apo Kayan is not too remote for them, nevertheless to me, as well as to Chonggat, the risks seemed unfounded; however, there remained no alternative but for all of us to return to Long Pelaban.
CHAPTER X
IN FOG AND DARKNESS--A RAID BY ANTS--DEPARTURE FROM LONG PELABAN--AN EXCITING Pa.s.sAGE--RETURN TO TANDJONG SELOR
During April and the first half of May the weather was warm with very little rain, though at times thunder was heard at a distance. But during the second half of May thunder and lightning in the evening was the usual occurrence, with an occasional thunder-clap at close quarters. At night it rained continually though not heavily, but this was accompanied by a dense fog which did not clear away until nine o'clock in the morning. When the dark clouds gathered about sunset, it was not with exactly cheerful feelings that I antic.i.p.ated the coming night. My tent stood at a little distance from the rest of the camp, for the reason that solitude at times has its charms. When the lamp outside the tent door was extinguished, and all was enveloped in darkness and fog to an overwhelming degree, a feeling of loneliness and desolation stole over me, though it soon left me when I thought of the glories of the coming day, when all the rain would be forgotten.
Shortly after sunset one evening scores of thousands of ants descended upon me while supper was in progress. In the dim light afforded by the lamp I had not perceived their approach until I felt them around my feet.
Upon looking about, I discovered to my astonishment that the floor, which had a covering of closely set bamboo stalks, was black with ants and that regiments of them were busily climbing up my bed. Coming in such immense numbers and unannounced, their appearance was startling. Outside the soil seemed to move. Twice before I had received visits from these ants but had prevented their entering the tent by pouring hot water over them. The pain caused by their bite is severe, although of short duration, and they are therefore feared by the Dayaks and Malays.