Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

by Alfred C. Haddon

He asked Hose what was the matter. Hose replied he had fever every alternate day. The medicine-man asked if Hose had a headache, and other details of his illness.

The Punan then requested the spirits not to allow the sickness to be too bad. He sang, or rather crooned, and occasionally breathed loudly, and wiped his head and hair and smoked a cigarette. Next he took the blade of a parang, and so held it that the shadow of the iron fell on Hose, and he attentively regarded the shadow. Again he blew, sang and smoked, looked at Hose, felt his abdomen, and stroked it, singing all the while and calling on the sickness to come out.

Once or twice he put his hands together so as to form a tube, through which he blew the abdomen. He next covered his own ears with his hands and blew on the pit of Hose’s stomach. Again he stopped his ears and sucked at Hose’s abdomen through a small tube made of the stem of the wild ginger; he had previously scratched the place with his finger-nail, and he sucked so hard as to make the skin rise in the tube. By a clumsy sleight of hand he brought a small ball of wax, from which projected a few hairs, out of the tube, this he pretended he had extracted from Hose’s body. After having shown it round he carefully dropped the pellet of wax and the tube through the floor.

On Hose saying he had a headache the medicine-man pricked Hose’s temples with his nails and proceeded as before. By this time the operator was perspiring profusely.

Again he sang and examined the parang. Next he paid attention to Hose’s legs, and stroked them from the knee to the ankle; then he covered his head with a cloth and bent over the legs, pricked the skin with his nails and sucked hard through a tube as before, again producing a pellet of wax.

Once more he repeated the process on the leg, looked at the parang, sang, blew on the leg, and stated that Hose would be well on the morrow. The whole operation was again repeated.

After an interval the same operation recommenced. The man called on the different spirits by name: “Who has done this? Has ⸺ done it? Has ⸺ done it?” When he had exhausted the enumeration of the spirits he looked into the parang and saw that Hose’s soul was better.

A fresh supply of ginger stems was placed in front of the doctor; he then took a hat, put it on, and pretended to cry. Once more he put a cloth over his head, which he scratched, and then looked through a tube of ginger at Hose’s abdomen, and pricked it slightly above the navel. He looked inside the tube, smelt and tasted it, and applied it to the sternum. After sucking the tube for a short time he produced a small ball of wax from the ginger tube, which he examined and showed round; then he burst into song and dropped the wax and tube through the flooring.

The whole process was again repeated. After this the patient thought he had had enough of it, so he proclaimed himself much better, and we retired to rest.

The medicine-man was evidently very much in earnest, and he did not at all like Hose murmuring to me from time to time what was going on, nor was he too well pleased at my taking notes; but he performed his part with due seriousness and thoroughness. We clearly saw the man’s finger-nails were coated with the wax, and under cover of the cloth a pellet could easily be transferred to the tube of ginger. There is in the stem of the wild ginger an inner tube, which can readily be pushed up and down the outer sheath. First the medicine-man pushed the inner tube down and inserted the pellet of wax in the larger aperture, with his finger he pushed up from below the inner tube, and this ejected the pellet from the stem of the ginger. The whole contrivance was very simple, and could not impose on any but the most credulous.