At daylight the next morning we started in two praus for Ceram. As we left the rajah’s house the beauties of the villages gathered on the bank, and, while we were embarking, chanted a song of hope that we should have “a pleasant voyage over the sea, and soon return in safety.” The tifa and gongs began the monotonous din, the rowers shouted and tugged at their oars, and the high peaks of Saparua slowly sank beneath the horizon. For a time no land was in sight, and I could but note how perfectly we were repeating the experience of the earliest navigators of the Mediterranean along the shores of Phœnicia and Greece.
Ceram is the largest island in the Moluccas. Its length is one hundred and sixty-two geographical miles, but its greatest breadth is only forty. Its area is computed to be about five thousand geographical square miles, which makes it rank next to Celebes in the whole archipelago. It is divided into three peninsulas by two deep bays on its southern coast. The most eastern of these great inlets of the sea is called Elpaputi Bay, which separates the western end of the island from the eastward. The western third is again divided into two unequal peninsulas by the bay of Tanuno. The westernmost is called Howamowel, or “Little Ceram,” and is connected with the middle peninsula, Kaibobo, by an isthmus less than a mile broad. Kaibobo is again connected with the eastern two-thirds of the island by an isthmus about three miles broad. The whole island is really but one great mountain-chain, which sends off many transverse ranges and spurs, and the only low land it contains is east of the bay of Amahai, along its southern shore. In the western peninsula the mountains do not have any considerable height, but in the middle one some peaks attain an elevation of five thousand or six thousand feet, and in the middle part of the eastern peninsula Mount Nusaheli is supposed to rise more than three thousand metres (nine thousand eight hundred and forty-two English feet) above the sea. Over all these elevations stretches one continuous and unbroken forest. So great a part of the whole island is unknown that various and widely-different estimates of its population have been made.[32] Some of its peaks now became visible through the mist, and soon we were in Elpaputi Bay, and, changing our course toward the east, entered a small inlet called the bay of Amahai. At the head of this bay is the small village of the same name, containing a population of thirteen hundred souls. The controleur stationed here told us of the “Alfura”[33] who dwelt among the neighboring mountains; and, that I might have the opportunity of seeing these wild savages, the Resident kindly sent a number of the coast people to invite them to come down and perform their war-dance before us. In a few hours a party of about twenty appeared. Only eight or ten were able-bodied men; the others were women, children, and old men. In height and general appearance they closely resemble the Malays, and evidently form merely a subdivision of the Malay race. Their peculiar characteristics are the darker color of their skins and of their hair, which, instead of being lank like that of the Malays, is crisp, but not woolly like that of the Papuans. They wear it so very long, that they may properly be said to have large and bushy heads. When in full dress, however, this abundance of hair is confined by a red handkerchief, obtained from the natives on the coast, and ornamented with parts of a small shell, the Nassa, in place of beads. Their clothing is a strip of the inner bark of a tree beaten with stones until it becomes white and opaque, and appears much like white, rough paper. This garment is three or four inches wide and about three feet long. It passes round the waist and covers the loins in such a way that one end hangs down in front as far as the knee. On the arm, above the elbow, some wore a large ring, apparently made from the stalk of a sea-fan, Gorgonia. To this were fastened bunches of long, narrow green leaves, striped with yellow. Similar ornaments were fastened to the elbows and to the strip of bark at the waist. Each of the warriors was armed with a parang or cleaver, which he raised high in the right hand, while on his left arm was a shield three or four feet long but only four or five inches wide, which he held before him as if to ward off an imaginary blow. Their dance was merely a series of short leaps forward and backward, and occasionally whirling quickly round as if to defend themselves from a sudden attack in the rear. Their only musical instrument was a rude tifa, which was accompanied by a monotonous song from the women, children, and old men. At first the time of the music was slow, but by degrees it grew quicker and louder, until all sang as fast and loud as they could. The dancing warriors became more excited, and flourished their cleavers and leaped to and fro with all their might, until, as one of our company remarked, their eyes were like fire. It was easy to understand that in such a state of temporary madness they would no more hesitate to cleave off a head than to cut down a bamboo. They are far-famed “head-hunters.” It is a custom that has become a law among them that every young man must at least cut off one human head before he can marry. Heads, therefore, are in great demand, and perhaps our realization of this fact made these frenzied savages appear the more shocking specimens of humanity. The head of a child will meet the inexorable demands of this bloody law, but the head of a woman is preferred, because it is supposed she can more easily defend herself or escape; for the same reason the head of a man is held in higher estimation, and the head of a white man is a proof of the greatest bravery, and therefore the most glorious trophy.
On the north coast, near Sawai Bay, the Dutch, a few years ago, had a war with these natives, and when they had driven them to the mountains, they found in their huts between two and three times as many human skulls as it is probable there were people in the whole village, men, women, and children taken together. When a man is afraid to go out on such a hunt alone, he invites or hires two or three others to assist him, and all lie in wait near a neighboring village until some one chances to pass by, when they spring out and dispatch their victim, and escape. This, of course, creates a deadly enmity between each tribe and every other near it; and the whole interior of the eastern half of the island, where this head-hunting prevails, is one unchanging scene of endless, bloody strife. The same custom prevails over the greater part of the interior of Borneo among many tribes known as Dyaks, the Malay word for “savage.” There only the heads of men are valued, and new ones must be obtained to celebrate every birth and funeral, as well as marriage. I have seen a necklace of human teeth made in that island by those people. Small holes had been drilled in several scores of them, which were then strung on a wire long enough to pass two or three times round the neck of the hero who wore it. When a head is secured, the brains are taken out, and it is placed over a fire to be smoked and dried. During this process, the muscles of the face contract and change the features until they assume a most ghastly grimace.
The dance being finished, we conversed with them as well as we could about their customs, for none of them could speak but a few words in Malay. On the piece of paper-like bark which hangs down in front, each warrior makes a circle when he cuts off a head. Some had one or two of these circles; but one man had four, and I gave him to understand that I knew what they meant by drawing my hand four times across my throat, and then holding up the fingers of one hand, and instantly he hopped about as delighted as a child, thinking that of course I was regarding him as the bravest of the brave, while I looked at him in mute astonishment, and tried to realize what a hardened villain he was. Our North American savages are civilized men compared to these fiends in human form.
A DYAK OR HEAD-HUNTER OF BORNEO.
From Amahai we sailed westward across Elpaputi Bay to the peninsula already described as rejoicing in the melodious name of Kaibobo. Here, at a small village, a native of Amboina had established himself, and commenced planting cocoa-trees, which we found thriving most satisfactorily, even better than in the gardens I had previously visited on Amboina. At the present prices this is the most profitable product that can be raised in the Moluccas, and the good result of this trial shows what enormous quantities might be shipped yearly from this single great island of Ceram, if foreigners or natives would devote themselves to its culture.
Near by were two villagers of Alfura, who had been induced to abandon their old habits of roaming among the mountains and make for themselves a fixed dwelling-place. The rajah of each place came to the village where we landed, to acknowledge his allegiance to the Dutch Government. From that place we proceeded southward along the eastern shore of the peninsula. While we were in the bay, the opposite shore sheltered us from the heavy southeasterly swell that now rolled in before a driving rain-storm, and made our round-bottomed praus roll and pitch so that the rowers could scarcely use their oars. At length, near night, we came to anchor off a village that the Resident was obliged to visit. It was situated on a straight, open beach, which descended so abruptly beneath the sea, that the high swell never once broke before finding itself suddenly stopped in its rapid course; it rose up in one huge wall that reeled forward and fell on the steep shore with a roar like heavy thunder. Although I was born by the shore of the open sea, and had seen boats land in all kinds of weather, I never saw the most daring sailors attempt it through such a surf as was breaking before us. Every few moments the water would rebound from the sand until it rose twice and a half as high as the natives standing near it, at least fifteen feet. One of our number could not conceal his timidity, and declared that every one of us would be drowned if we should attempt to land at that time. The Resident, however, said he should try it, and I assured him he should not go alone; and the others concluded not to allow themselves to be left behind. More than two hundred natives had now gathered on the beach. They soon made a rude skid or wide ladder, with large poles on the sides, and small green ones with the bark torn off for the rounds. This was laid down when the wave was forming, and a heavy prau pushed on to it as the wave broke, and a broad sheet of surf partially buoyed her up. As this wave receded, she was successfully launched. We were now ordered to change from our boat into that one, and at once we ran in toward the shore over the heavy rollers. Other natives now appeared on the beach with a huge coil of rattan an inch or more in diameter, and, two or three of them seizing one end, ran down and plunged headlong into a high wave as coolly and as unhesitatingly as a diver would leap from the side of a boat in a quiet bay. The end of the rattan was fastened firmly to the front part of our boat; the other was carried up a long way on the beach, and the natives ranged themselves in two rows, each grasping it with one hand as if ready to haul in the leviathan himself, when the warning should be given. A number of heavy seas now rolled in and broke, but the natives, by means of their paddles, kept us from being swept forward or backward. A smaller swell is coming in now. Every native gives a wild yell, and those on the shore haul in the rattan with all their might, and away we dart on the crest of a wave with the swiftness of an arrow. We are now in the midst of the surf, and our boat is on the skid, but away we glide at the speed of a locomotive, and already we are high upon the bank before the next wave can come in.
