Part 10 (2/2)

A further precaution is to stick into the ground round about the house a large number of slips of bamboo. Each slip is some six inches in length, and its sharp, fire-hardened point projects upwards and a little outwards.

If the attacking party is likely to approach by the river, a trap may be arranged at some point where, by reason of rapids or rocks, the boats are likely to be delayed. Here a large tree overhanging the river is chosen for the trap. Stout rattans are made fast to its branches, brought over the branches of a neighbouring tree, and made fast in some spot within reach of a hidden watcher. The stem of the overhanging tree is then cut almost through, so that a few blows of a sword, severing the supporting rattans, may cause the tree to fall upon the pa.s.sing boat.

When a hostile war-party enters a section of a river in which there is a number of villages of one tribe or of friendly tribes, its approach may be signalled throughout the district by the beating of the TAWAK. The same peculiar rhythm is used for this purpose by all the tribes, though it probably has been copied from the Kayans by all the others. It consists in a rapid series of strokes of increasing rate upon the boss, followed by one long deep note, and two shorter ones struck upon the body and once repeated. Whenever this war-alarm is heard in a village, it is repeated, and so pa.s.sed on from village to village. The people working in the farms or in the jungle, or travelling on the river, return at once to their villages on hearing the alarm, and the houses are prepared for defence. When the news of the approach of a hostile party has been spread in this way throughout the river, it has little chance of successfully attacking a house or village, and it will, unless very numerous, content itself with attempting to cut off some of the people returning home from the farms. If the invading party is very strong, it may surround a house whose defenders have been warned of their coming, and attempt to starve them into submission. In the old days it was not uncommon for a strong party of Kayans to descend upon a settlement of the more peaceable coastwise people, and to extort from them a large payment of bra.s.s-ware as the price of their safety. If the unfortunate household submitted to this extortion, the Kayans would keep faith with them, and would ratify a treaty of peace by making the headman of the village blood-brother of their chief.

Some features of the tactics adopted by the Kayans are worthy of more detailed description. If a strong party determines to attack a house in face of an alert defence, they may attempt to storm it in broad daylight by forming several compact bodies of about twenty-five men. Each body protects itself with a roof of s.h.i.+elds held closely together, and the several parties move quickly in upon the house simultaneously from different points, and attempt to carry it by a.s.sault. The defenders of the house would attempt to repel such an attack by hurling heavy bars of iron-wood, sharpened at both ends, in such a way that the bar twirls in the air as it hurtles through it; and this is one of the few occasions on which the blow-pipe is used as a weapon of defence.

A village that has been warned of the approach of the foe may send out a party to attempt to ambush the attackers at some difficult pa.s.sage of the river or the jungle. Scouts are sent out to locate the enemy. Some climb to the tops of tall trees to look for the smoke of the enemy's fires. Having located the enemy, the scouts approach so closely as to be able to count their numbers and observe all their movements; and, keeping in touch with the party, they send messages to their chief. If the defenders succeed in ambus.h.i.+ng the attackers and in killing several of them, the latter usually withdraw discouraged, and may for the time give up the attempt. If the defending party should come upon the enemy struggling against a rapid, and especially if the enemy is in difficulties through the upsetting of some of their boats, or in any other way, they may fall upon them in the open bed of the river, and then ensues the comparatively rare event, a stand-up fight in the open. This resolves itself in the main into hand-to-hand duels between pairs of combatants, as in the heroic age. The warriors select their opponents and approach warily; they call upon one another by name, hurling taunts and swaggering boastfully in the heroic style. Each abuses the other's parents, and threatens to use his opponent's skin as a war-coat, or his s.c.r.o.t.u.m as a tobacco-pouch, to take his head and to use his hair as an ornament for a PARANG-handle; or doubt as to the opponent's s.e.x may be insinuated. While this exchange of compliments goes on, the warriors are manoeuvring for favourable positions; each crouches, thrusting forward his left leg, covering himself as completely as possible with his long s.h.i.+eld, and dodging to and fro continually. The short javelins and spears are first hurled, and skilfully parried with spear and s.h.i.+eld. When a man has expended his stock of javelins and has hurled his spear, he closes in with his PARANG. His enemy seeks to receive the blow of the PARANG on his s.h.i.+eld in such a way that the point, entering the wood, may be held fast by it. Feinting and dodging are practised; one man thrusts out his left leg to tempt the other to strike at it and to expose his head in doing so. If one succeeds in catching his enemy's PARANG in his s.h.i.+eld, he throws down the s.h.i.+eld and dashes upon his now weaponless foe, who takes to his heels, throwing away his s.h.i.+eld and relying merely on his swiftness of foot. When one of a pair of combatants is struck down, the other springs upon him and, seizing the long hair of the scalp and yelling in triumph, severs the neck with one or two blows of the PARANG. The warrior who has drawn first blood of the slain foe claims the credit of having taken his head. Such a free fight seldom lasts more than a few minutes. Unless one party quite overwhelms the other in the first few minutes, both draw off, and the fight is seldom renewed.

Since the establishment of the European governments in Borneo, punitive expeditions have been necessary from time to time in order to put a stop to wanton raiding and killing. In this respect the Ibans and some of the Klemantans have been the chief offenders; while the Kayans and Kenyahs have seldom given trouble, after once placing themselves under the established governments. In the Baram river, in which the Kayans form probably a larger proportion of the population than in any other, no such expedition against them has been necessary since they accepted the government of H.H. the Rajah of Sarawak nearly twenty-five years ago.

In organising such an expedition, the European governments, especially that of Sarawak, have usually relied in the main on the services of loyal chiefs and their followers, acting under the control of a European magistrate, and supported usually by a small body of native police or soldiers armed with rifles. There is usually no difficulty in securing the co-operation of any desired number of native allies or volunteers; for in this way alone can the people now find a legitimate outlet for their innate and traditional pugnacity. Sometimes the people to be punished desert their village, hiding themselves in the jungle; and in such cases the burning of their houses is usually deemed sufficient punishment. In cases of more serious crime, such as repeated wanton bloodshed and refusal to yield to the demands of the government, it becomes necessary to apprehend the persons primarily responsible, and, for this purpose, to pursue the fugitives. These sometimes establish themselves on a hill-top surrounded by precipices which can be scaled only by the aid of ladders, and there defy the government forces until the hill is carried by a.s.sault, or by siege, or the defenders are enticed to descend. One such hill in the basin of the Rejang (Sarawak), Bukit Batu by name, consists of a ma.s.s of porphyry some 1500 feet in height, and several miles in diameter, with very precipitous sides. This has been used again and again as a place of refuge by recalcitrant offenders, being so strong a natural fortress that it has never been possible to carry it by a.s.sault. On the last occasion on which Bukit Batu was used in this way, two Iban chiefs established themselves on the hill and defied the government of Sarawak for a period of four years, during which the hill became a place of refuge for all evil-doers and outlaws among the Ibans of the Rejang and neighbouring districts, who built their houses on ledges of the mountain some four hundred feet above the level of the river.

The punitive expedition that we briefly describe in Chapter XXII. was but a small affair compared with some, in which as many as 10,000 or 12,000 men have mustered under the government flag. So large a number is seldom necessary or desired by the government; but when contingents from all the loyal communities of a large district eagerly offer their services, it is difficult to deny any of them permission to take part. Kenyahs and Kayans will co-operate harmoniously, and also Klemantans; but the former distrust the Sea Dayaks and will not join forces with any large number of them.

The modes of warfare of the other tribes are similar in most respects to that of the Kayans described above; but some peculiarities are worthy of note.

Kenyah warfare is very similar to Kayan, save in so far as their more impetuous temper renders their tactics more das.h.i.+ng. While the Kayans endeavour to make as many captives as possible, the Kenyahs attach little value to them. While Kayans never attack communities of their own tribe, such ”civil war” is not unknown among the Kenyahs, whose tribal cohesion is less intimate in many respects. From these two differences it results that the Kenyah war-parties are generally smaller than those of the Kayans, more quick-moving, and more p.r.o.ne to attack groups of the enemy encountered on farms or on the river. Like the Ibans, the Kenyahs make peace more readily than the Kayans, who nurse their grievances and seek redress after long intervals of time.

The Ibans conduct their warfare less systematically, and with far less discipline than the Kayans and Kenyahs. An attack upon a house or village by Bans is usually made in very large force; the party is more of the nature of a rabble than of an army; each man acts independently. They seek above all things to take heads, to which they attach an extravagant value, unlike the Kayans and Kenyahs who seek heads primarily for the service of their funeral rites; and they not infrequently attack a house and kill a large number of its inmates in a perfectly wanton manner, and for no other motive that the desire to obtain heads. This pa.s.sion for heads leads them sometimes into acts of gross treachery and brutality. The Ibans being great wanderers, small parties of them, engaged perhaps in working jungle produce, will settle for some weeks in a household of Klemantans, and, after being received hospitably, and sometimes even after contracting marriages with members of the household, will seize an opportunity, when most of the men of the house are from home, to take the heads of all the men, women, and children who remain, and to flee with them to their own distant homes.

So strong is this morbid desire of the Ibans to obtain human heads, that a war-party will sometimes rob the tombs of the villages of other tribes and, after smoking the stolen heads of the corpses, will bring them home in triumph with glowing accounts of the stout resistance offered by the victims. Their att.i.tude in this matter is well expressed by a saying current among them, namely, ”Why should we eat the hard caked rice from the edge of the pot when there's plenty of soft rice in the centre?” The Iban women urge on the men to the taking of heads; they make much of those who bring them home, and sometimes a girl will taunt her suitor by saying that he has not been brave enough to take a head; and in some cases of murder by Sea Dayaks, the murderer has no doubt been egged on in this way.

Nevertheless, we repeat that there is no ground for the oft-reprinted a.s.sertion that the taking of a head is a necessary prelude to marriage.[62] Like other tribesmen Ibans do not bring home the heads of their companions who have fallen in battle; but while men of other tribes are content to drag the corpses of their fallen friends into some obscure spot and to cover them with branches, Ibans frequently cut off the heads and bury them at a distance from the scene of battle, in order to prevent their being taken by the enemy.

The Ibans use a rather greater variety of weapons than the Kayans, in that they have spears whose blades bear barbs which prevent the withdrawal of the blade from the body of the enemy without great violence.

The Klemantan tribes are on the whole far less warlike than Kayans, Kenyahs, and Ibans. Their offensive warfare is usually on a small scale, and is undertaken primarily for revenge. Their warlike ambition is easily satisfied by the taking of a single head, or even by a mere hostile demonstration against the enemy's house. Nevertheless, like all the other tribes, except the Punans, the Klemantans need a human head to terminate a period of mourning.

We venture to append to this chapter a few speculations on the origin and history of head-hunting. From what we have said above it is clear that the Ibans are the only tribe to which one can apply the epithet head-hunters with the usual connotation of the word, namely, that head-hunting is pursued as a form of sport. But although the Ibans are the most inveterate head-hunters, it is probable that they adopted the practice some few generations ago only (perhaps a century and a half or even less) in imitation of Kayans or other tribes among whom it had been established for a longer period. The rapid growth of the practice among the Ibans was no doubt largely due to the influence of the Malays, who had been taught by Arabs and others the arts of piracy, and with whom the Ibans were a.s.sociated in the piratical enterprises that gave the waters around Borneo a sinister notoriety during the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the settlements of Ibans were practically confined to the rivers of the southern part of Sarawak; and there the Malays of Bruni and of other coast settlements enlisted them as crews for their pirate s.h.i.+ps. In these piratical expeditions the Malays a.s.signed the heads of their victims as the booty of their Iban allies, while they kept for themselves the forms of property of greater cash value. The Malays were thus interested in encouraging in the Ibans the pa.s.sion for head-hunting which, since the suppression of piracy, has found vent in the irregular warfare and treacherous acts described above. It was through their a.s.sociation with the Malays in these piratical expeditions that the Ibans became known to Europeans as the Sea Dayaks.

It seems not impossible that the practice of taking the heads of fallen enemies arose by extension of the custom of taking the hair for the ornamentation of the s.h.i.+eld and sword-hilt. It seems possible that human hair was first applied to s.h.i.+elds in order to complete the representation of a terrible human face, which, as we have seen, is commonly painted on the s.h.i.+eld, and which is said to be valued as an aid to confusing and terrifying the foe. It is perhaps a difficulty in the way of this view that the use of human hair to ornament the s.h.i.+eld is peculiar to the Kenyahs and some of the Klemantans (the latter probably having imitated the former in this), and does not occur among the Kayans. The Kenyahs themselves preserve the tradition of the origin of the taking of heads; and the suggestion is further borne out by the legend of TOKONG, which is widely known, but is probably of Kenyah origin (see Chapter XVII.), according to which the frog admonished a great Kenyah chief that he should cease to take only the hair of the fallen foe, but should take their heads also.

A second plausible view of the origin of head-taking is that it arose out of the custom of slaying slaves on the death of a chief, in order that they might accompany and serve him on his journey to the other world. We have pointed out several reasons for believing that this practice was formerly general, and that it has fallen into desuetude, but is hardly yet quite extinct. It is obvious that since the soul of the dead man is regarded as hovering in the neighbourhood of the body for some little time after its death, it would be felt that the despatch of a companion soul was not a matter of immediate urgency; and considerations of economy might well lead the mourners to prefer capturing and killing members of some hostile community to slaying one or more of their slaves, highly valued and sometimes affectionately regarded as they are. It would then be felt that the relatives of the deceased should continue to display signs of mourning until they should have discharged this last duty to their departed friend. The next step would be to supplant the practice of capturing a member of a hostile community, and bringing him home to be slain, by the simpler, less troublesome, and more merciful one of slaying the enemy on the field of combat and bringing home only his head. In this way we may, with some plausibility, seek to account for the origin of the practice of taking heads, and of the tradition that the taking of a head is necessary for the termination of a period of mourning. This second suggestion is strongly supported by the fact that Kayans, Kenyahs, and Klemantans occasionally, on returning home from a successful raid, will carry one of the newly taken heads to the tomb of the chief for whom they are mourning, and will hang it upon, or deposit it within, the tomb beside the coffin. The head used for this purpose is thickly covered with leaves (DAUN ISANG) tied tightly about it. It is possible that this thick covering was first applied in order to disguise the fact that the head is that of an enemy, and that the sacrifice of the life of a domestic slave, originally demanded by custom and piety, has been avoided by this process of subst.i.tution.

We have suggested above two different origins of the custom of taking the heads of enemies. These two possibilities are by no means mutually exclusive, and we are inclined to think that both subst.i.tutive processes may have co-operated in bringing about this custom.

It seems probable that the taking of heads was introduced to Borneo by Kayans when they entered the island, probably some few centuries ago, and that the Klemantans and other tribes, like the Ibans, have adopted the custom from their example.

We will conclude this chapter by questioning yet another of the stories, the frequent repet.i.tion of which has given the tribes of the interior the reputation of being savages of the worst type, namely, the story that it is the practice of Kayans to torture the captives taken in battle. This evil repute is, we have no doubt, largely due to the fact that very few Europeans have acquired any intimate first-hand acquaintance with the Kayans or Kenyahs; and that too often the stories told by Sea Dayaks have been uncritically accepted; for the Sea Dayaks have been bitterly hostile to the Kayans ever since the tribes have been in contact; and the Iban is a great romancer. It will be found that many of the alleged instances of torture by Kayans have been described by Sea Dayaks; and we think there is good reason for hesitating to accept any of these. But we would point out that, if some of these accounts have been founded on fact, the Sea Dayak victims, or their companions, have in all probability provoked the Kayans to severe, reprisals by their atrocious behaviour, and may be fairly said to have deserved their fate.

It is true that Kayans have been guilty of leaving a slave or captive bound upon a tomb until he has died from exposure to the sun. We know also of one instance in which a Murut slave, having treacherously murdered the only son of a great Kayan chief in the Baram, at the instigation of Bruni Malays, was killed by a mult.i.tude of small stabs by the infuriated Kayan women, on being brought captive to the house.

But such occurrences as these by no means justify the statement that it is the practice of Kayans to torture their captives; and we have heard of no well-attested instances that give any colour to it. As we have said above, Kayans commonly treat their captives so kindly that they soon become content to remain in the households of their captors. The Kayan feeling about torture is well ill.u.s.trated by the fact that the Kayan village responsible for the exposure of the slave mentioned above was looked at askance by other Kayans. The spot was regarded with horror by them, and they regard as a consequence of this act the failure of the line of the chief of that village to perpetuate itself.

We have to admit that some of the Klemantans cannot be so whole-heartedly defended against the charge of torturing their captives. But we believe that it is not regularly practised by any Klemantan tribe, but rather only on occasions which in some way evoke an exceptional degree of emotional excitement. Thus, in one instance known to us, the Orang Bukit of the Bruni territory, having lost the most highly respected of their chiefs, purchased a slave in Bruni to serve as the funereal victim, and, having shut him in a wicker cage, killed him with a mult.i.tude of stabs, some eight hundred persons taking part in the act. But even this act was, it must be observed, of the nature of a pious and religious rite rather than an act of wanton cruelty.

We cannot leave this subject without this last word. If we are quite frank, we shall have to admit that, even though the worst accounts of Kayan cruelty were substantially true, such behaviour would not in the least justify the belief that the Kayans are innately more cruel than ourselves. If we are tempted to take this view, let us remember that, after our own race had professed Christianity for many generations, the authority of Church and State publicly decreed and systematically inflicted in cold blood tortures far more hideous and atrocious than any the Kayan imagination has ever conceived.

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