Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

by Alfred C. Haddon

In this manner is a bird “owned,” and on hearing the prayer the bird assumes all responsibility and takes the petitioners under its protection.

Our friends landed on the steep bank of the river, and, cutting down some undergrowth, whittled a couple of sticks, so that they had a frilled appearance. A match was struck, and as soon as the shavings flamed, they asked the fire to tell the bird to inform the gods of the message, which was then repeated.

An unexpected episode of this sort is very refreshing. Here was illustration of that religious spirit which is so universally distributed among mankind. Our men were encouraged by the knowledge of divine sanction, and, moreover, their petition was unaccompanied by sacrifice, gifts, or promises; the human words were simply wafted godwards by the smoke. It is easy to call this paganism, to sneer at it as superstition, but such practices are essentially religious ceremonies, and of a refined character too, which require no intermediary between the spiritual powers and the ordinary individual.

We resumed our way, and shortly entered a small river which Hose has named the Scott-Keltie River, in honour of the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. In the muddy banks at its mouth are immense quantities of leaves, which give the alluvium a very characteristic laminated appearance. When consolidated and turned into rock, these beds will form ligneous shales, or earthy coal beds, such as we constantly find in various geological formations.

We landed a short distance up this stream, and ran our boat high and dry in a creek. Hose then left us, and we started on our way; our party consisted of Aris, my Malay “boy,” three Iban fortmen, three Naroms (a branch of the Mĕlanaus), and four Sĕbops from Long Aiah Kechil, McDougall, and myself.

At first we walked for an hour or so on the alluvial plain through plantations, some of which were abandoned and overgrown; then we struck the Scott-Keltie River, and waded some distance along its rocky and gravelly bed; later we forded it several times, as our direct route through the jungle cut across its sinuosities.

Our path for some distance lay through “New Jungle,” but as we ascended we passed into “Old Jungle.” In the earlier part of the day there was a good deal of rain; when this ceased there was an aftermath of continual dripping off the trees, and all the undergrowth was reeking wet, but this was of little moment, as we wore woollen garments, and the heat of the atmosphere and the continual exercise prevented our getting a chill. There was the usual profusion of fallen, rotting trees, over, under, and along which we had to pass. The soil was the yellow, slippery clay that is met with in so many places in Sarawak. This laterite, as it is called by geologists, is widely spread over the tropics. When our feet slipped we clutched at what was nearest to hand, sometimes it was a thorny climber, or perhaps a rotten sapling that looked strong enough, but which was as weak as touchwood, owing to its being permeated by corroding fungi. Our caps and clothes were continually caught by the fine thorny filaments of a species of ratan or by other prickly plants.

Several men always preceded me to cut down the lianas and other impeding vegetation, and they also served to collect on their legs some of the land leeches, which, reaching out from the leaves of low shrubs, seek whom they may devour. At every halt we overhauled ourselves, and pulled off these tough, elastic worms.

We soon reached a ridge-like spur of the mountain, on each side of which we could hear a river rushing over its stony bed. This spur had very steep sides owing to the cutting down of the streams, but it was covered with deep vegetation, which acted as a kind of umbrella, and so prevented the heavy rains from denuding it down to a low watershed between the two streams.

About three o’clock we went a little way down to the Scott-Keltie River, and followed it up as far as a fine waterfall, some three hundred or four hundred feet in height. Here we built a hut, and after a bathe and a good meal felt very comfortable, and all except myself passed a good night. Fortunately there was no rain.