CHAPTER XXIV
THE CULT OF SKULLS IN SARAWAK
A good deal has been written on the subject of head-hunting in Borneo, and Ling Roth has collected together the available information about the practice in Sarawak.
There can be little doubt that one of the chief incentives to procure heads was to please the women. Among some tribes it was said to be an indispensable necessity for a young man to procure a skull before he could marry, and the possession of a head decapitated by himself seemed to be a fairly general method employed by a young man to ingratiate himself with the maiden of his choice. The fact of a young man being sufficiently brave and energetic to go head-hunting would promise well for his ability to protect a wife. This is, at all events, one sufficiently rational reason for the custom, and there may be others as yet not even guessed at.
The pride women feel in their men-folk who have taken heads is not confined to these people of Borneo; formerly amongst the western tribe of Torres Straits a young man who had taken a skull would very soon receive a proposal of marriage from some eligible young woman.
Some tribes believe that the persons whose heads they take will become their slaves in the next world. In this case head-collecting would mean for them a wise precaution for the future.
A desire for reprisal of injuries, the vendetta or blood feud is a very common reason for going on the war-path and bringing home the appropriate trophies.
The following incident was recorded in the Sarawak Gazette (vol. xxv., 1895, p. 91): A low-class Kayan named Boi Wan at Long Lama had taken a head from the Kayan graveyard and hung it up near his farm, and another Kayan named Jelivan said he had killed a man under the house, but this was a false statement, no one having been killed. The reason for these two men acting in this way was that they might wear hornbills’ feathers, and have their hands tattooed, which is allowed by Kayan custom only to those who have taken a head. These two men caused a great deal of trouble, and the neighbourhood was in a very disturbed state. The Resident fined each man fifty dollars, and made them put the head in the grave whence it had been stolen.
It is the custom amongst the Kayans and Kenyahs that, before the people can go out of mourning for a chief or for one of a chief’s near relations, either a new head must be taken or an old one, or some portion of one must be obtained.
If the people obtain an old head from some friendly community they go through the same ceremony as if they had recently taken the head of an enemy. The head, by-the-by, is always given, never sold. A head that has once been given in this way, or even only lent, is seldom returned to the place from which it has been taken. If a skull should be returned it is generally put under the house or in some separate shed. Kayans and Kenyahs, however, generally take skulls back into the house.
As Rajah Brooke will not permit the taking of a fresh head to enable a community to go out of mourning, and as there is sometimes great difficulty in borrowing a skull, or even a portion of one, the dilemma has been overcome and custom satisfied, I have been informed, by the village borrowing a skull from the collection kept at certain Government forts for this purpose. These skulls are labelled A, B, C, etc., and a record kept of each borrowing transaction. When all the ceremonies are over the skull has to be returned to the fort, where it is available for another occasion.