When a skull is given to a friend the following ceremony has to be gone through. A living chicken is waved over the man who takes down the head, over the ladder, the basket or framework that contains the head, as well as over the skull itself. The owner talks to the fowl, telling it to explain to the head that they are parting with it to friends who will treat it even better than it was treated in its own house. That the new owners will feast it, and it must not consider itself to be slighted in the least degree. All then present join in a war-whoop.
A piece of iron is taken, an old parang blade, or a spear-head, or anything made of iron, and the head and wings of the chicken are torn off with the iron, which thus becomes covered with blood. The hand of the owner of the skull, who is generally the chief or headman of the house, is next smeared with the bloody iron. This ceremony is called urip, that is, “life,” and has for its object the prevention of harm coming to the original owner. Finally, some of the wing feathers of the fowl are pulled out, and stuck into the framework or basket containing the remaining skulls.
The skull is brought into the house of mourning with all the ceremony that would ensue if the head had been captured on the war-path, and the urip rite is again performed.
After the sprinkling ceremony everybody in the house and all relations in neighbouring houses take off their old mourning clothes, which are usually made of bark cloth; they then wash themselves and put on clean clothes. They also shave the hair round the crown and make themselves smart. Every “door,” that is every family, kills a pig or a fowl, and all eat, drink, and are merry. Very often after this ceremony the head is taken out of the house, and hung up at the grave of the deceased chief.
After a good harvest, or after a successful head-hunting expedition, or when one or more skulls are added to the collection, a cube of cooked fat pork, with a skewer of wood thrust through it to keep it in position, is placed in the nose of each skull, and borak, the spirit made from rice, is put into a small bamboo receptacle about an inch and a half long, which is placed by the skull. Wooden hooks (kawit) are hung up near the skulls, with the idea that they will help the head-hunters to obtain more skulls on their forays. It is an example of sympathetic magic, the object of the wooden hooks being to hook in fresh heads.
I cannot refrain from mentioning what strikes one as being, to say the least of it, an illogical action on the part of the Sarawak Government. Head-hunting is rigorously put down, and rightly so; but when the Government organises a punitive expedition, say, to punish a recalcitrant head-hunting chief, the natives (generally Iban) comprising the Government force are always allowed to keep what heads they can secure. This is their perquisite. Surely it would be a more dignified position not to allow a single head to be taken away by anyone in the Raj under any pretext whatever, and to remunerate the punitive force in some more direct manner.
PLATE XXX
SKULL TROPHY IN A KAYAN HOUSE
SKULL TROPHIES IN ABAN ABIT’S HOUSE AT LONG TISAM, BARAWAN TRIBE