It is probable that eight hundred or a thousand years ago the greater portion of Sarawak, perhaps the whole of it, was occupied by a weak, agricultural people, who are now represented by the Land Dayak, Sĕbop, Malang, Kanauit, Mĕlanau, Narom, Kadayan, Kajaman, Lelak, Long Kiput, Batu Blah, Long Pata, Barawan, Kalabit, Dusun, and Murut. For this group Hose and I propose the term Kalamantan.
From the measurements we have made of some of these tribes there is no doubt that they were not all originally of one stock. Some are distinctly narrow-headed, others are inclined to be broad-headed. As Hose and myself propose dealing at some length elsewhere with the problem of the ethnology of Sarawak, I will not here anticipate our discussion further than to state that I believe it can be demonstrated that among this primitive population, as indeed in most, if not in all, of the larger islands of the Malay Archipelago, there are two stocks, one of which is distinctly narrow-headed, and to which we may restrict the name of Indonesian; the other being broad-headed, and to which the term Proto-Malay may conveniently be applied.
Hose states that the Muruts, according to their own traditions, migrated from the Philippines. They are essentially of Indonesian stock, as are also, I believe, the Land Dayaks. Probably it will be ultimately shown that this dual element existed in very early times in the country, but it has been blurred by intermarriage and by contact with immigrant peoples, some of whom belonged to one or other or even a mixture of these two stocks.
I do not intend to refer to even the main tribes of this group of peoples; but I must allude to the Land Dayaks in order to emphasise their distinctness from the Iban or Sea Dayaks.
My acquaintance with the Land Dayaks is of the slightest, and I have had no opportunity of measuring any of them. Hose has given a Land Dayak woman’s skull to the Cambridge Museum; its cranial index is 71·3. Apparently they belong to a native stock that has been crossed with Indo-Javan races; but they are not related in any way to the Iban. They occupy the western end of the Raj as far as the Upper Sadong River; they also extend into Dutch Borneo.
Brooke Low, who knew them well, gives a very favourable account of these people, and this opinion has been confirmed by other travellers. They are described as amiable, honest, grateful, moral, and hospitable. Crimes of violence, other than head-hunting, are unknown. It is uncertain whether the custom of head-hunting was indigenous to them, or adopted from the Iban; probably it was an older custom than the arrival of the Iban, but which had gradually increased until it was stopped by Rajah Brooke. The Land Dayaks, alone in Sarawak, permanently kept the heads in a separate house, which also served as the bachelors’ quarters.
The following account of the dealings of the Malays with the Land Dayaks, which I have taken from The Sarawak Gazette (Vol. xxiv., 1894, p. 98), proves that the latter are rather easily imposed upon.
The Sarawak Malay can as a rule get on very fairly well with the Land Dayak—better, perhaps, than he can with the Sea Dayaks up coast; he can “pèjal,” that is, he can force his wares upon those who really have no use for them, or who are not particularly in want of the goods hawked by the Malay pedlar. Whilst the Land Dayak is turning over his mind as to whether he will purchase or not, the seller sits patiently by smoking and singing the praises of his wares. A Land Dayak usually takes a considerable time in forming his mind in making a purchase, but time is of no particular object to either party, and the bargain is completed. The pedlar having obtained the customary cent. per cent. packs up his baggage and departs to the next house or village as the case may be.
But the present Malay system of trading with the Land Dayaks is rotten to the core. Land Dayak bintings, or villages, are perpetually being visited, and the commonest articles of trade thrust upon them at exorbitant rates, which they could purchase ever so much cheaper at any of the numerous Chinese shops scattered through the river, and which are easily accessible in a day’s journey, even from the remotest Land Dayak habitation; such commodities as waist cloths (chawats) and petticoats (jamu) trimmed with a little Turkey-red cloth are sold previous to the rice harvest to be repaid in padi at many times their respective values; nor does it end here, the purchaser being expected to deliver his payment at the house of the Malay merchant, entailing perhaps a long journey on foot or miles of boat travelling, and again he is expected to fully provide for those traders stopping in his house, such necessaries as rice, firewood, provisions, and the like, which he does without the slightest grumbling.