It was stated to have been found, with several others, three generations ago in the bed of the Lelak Lake by an old woman. One of the other specimens is said to have been exactly like the blade of a biliong, or axe. Unfortunately the other specimens were in a house that was accidentally burnt, and they were consequently lost, or at all events they were not carried away, as it is against custom to remove into a new house objects that have been burnt in this way. This implement is believed to be the front tooth of the lower jaw of Baling Go.
There was great difficulty in obtaining this specimen, but the old man who owned it brightened up considerably when Hose offered him a black silk chawat (loin cloth) to die in. It is the ambition of up-river natives to die respectably, and a man never feels easy at the thought of death until he has laid by an expensive chawat in which he can take his departure with becoming credit.
We also saw hanging up with the siap five abnormally curved boars’ tusks, some crystals, and other objects, including one or two stone hooks. The latter were evidently mainly, if not entirely, artificially shaped; it was difficult to imagine their use, as it seemed impossible that they could ever have been employed as fish-hooks.
I was naturally very anxious to obtain a couple of these hooks, or one and a boar’s tusk; the latter was precisely like the artificially deformed boars’ tusks that are such valuable objects in Fiji and New Guinea, and of which I had recently collected several in Torres Straits. Insuperable difficulties were made; the several objects belonged to different people, and some of these were absent. I then had to play my trump card by asking Hose to offer a crystal sphere that I always carried with me for emergencies. When I handed the glass ball round it was fondled and passed from one to another; the old men especially admired it immensely, and exhibited no surprise when they were informed by Hose that it was Baling Go’s eyeball! One rhumous-eyed old gentleman directly it was passed to him rubbed his bleared eyes with it. It was evident that here was something they thoroughly appreciated. Hose told the men that I valued this very highly, but he would ask me to part with it as a favour, and that they were to give him two hooks or a hook and a boar’s tusk for it. Nothing, however, could then be decided, as the owners of the hooks had first to be consulted and squared. In order to show how keen a man Hose is when on the scent for anything new, I cannot refrain from mentioning the fact that he was weakened from fever, and suffering from a bad sore throat, and yet he commenced these tedious negotiations at 4.30 a.m.
A few days after our return to Claudetown we heard that one hook would be given for the glass ball. Although the price was relatively heavy, I agreed, as in trading one has usually to pay disproportionately for the first specimen, or even for the first few, after then the price falls considerably. When the barter was concluded we were informed that its origin was unknown, but the hook had been in the family for three generations, and that it was used in the ceremony that takes place before going on the war-path, and that it assists in obtaining another head where one had been previously obtained. In fact, it had the same function as the wooden hooks associated with skulls in the verandahs of the houses, the hook acts symbolically and by telepathy hooks in other heads.
Fig. 39. Magical Stone Hook
About three-fourths natural size
Another type of implement of which Hose has obtained specimens is cylindrical and more or less oval in section, with an oblique polished face at one end, which may be either flat or more or less concave ([Fig. 38, D], is 173 mm. in length). They were obtained from the Sĕbops and Muriks, who do not know their use, nor have they a name for them; like the old adze-heads, they were hung up along with other siap. My impression is they were formerly used for extracting the pith from the sago palm.
Stone implements have long been known from the Malay Peninsula and from most of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, including Borneo. Mr. A. Hart Everett found one “embedded at the bottom of a bed of river gravel exposed in a section on the left bank of the Upper Sarawak River. Sir Charles Lyell pronounced it to be of Neolithic type.” This specimen is now in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford.