A very amusing entertainment then began, consisting of wrestling by the young men, who were encouraged by the blians to take it up and entered the game with much enthusiasm, one or two pairs constantly dancing round and round until one became the victor. The participants of their own accord had divested themselves of their holiday chavats and put on small ones for wrestling. With the left hand the antagonist takes hold of the descending portion of the chavat in the back, while with the right he grasps the encircling chavat in front. They wrestled with much earnestness but no anger. When the game was continued the following morning the young men presented a sorry spectacle. Rain had fallen during the night, and the vanquished generally landed heavily on their backs in the mud-holes, the wrestlers joining in the general laugh at their expense. To encourage them I had promised every victor twenty cents, which added much to the interest.
Having concluded their task of feeding the antohs the blians climbed down the ladder and began a march in single file round the dángei hut, each carrying one of the implements of daily life: a spear, a small parang, an axe, an empty rattan bag in which the bamboos are enclosed when the woman fetches water, or in which vegetables, etc., are conveyed, and another bag of the same material suitable for transporting babi. Four of the women carried the small knife which is woman's special instrument, though also employed by the men. When the eight blians on this, the eighth day, had marched sixteen times around the dángei they ascended the ladder again. Shortly afterward a man standing on the gallery pushed over the flimsy place of worship—a signal that the end of the feast had come. On the previous day a few visitors had departed and others left daily.
The feast had brought together from other parts about 200 Oma-Sulings and Long-Glats. The women of both tribes showed strikingly fine manners, especially those belonging to the higher class, which was well represented. Some were expensively dressed, though in genuine barbaric fashion as indicated by the ornaments sewn upon their skirts, which consisted of hundreds of florins and ringits. It should be conceded, however, that with the innate artistic sense of the Dayaks, the coins, all scrupulously clean, had been employed to best advantage in pretty designs, and the damsels were strong enough to carry the extra burden.
The climax had been passed and little more was going on, the ninth day being given over to the amusement of daubing each other with black paste. On the tenth day they all went away to a small river in the neighbourhood, where they took their meals, cooking paddi in bamboo, also fish in the same manner. This proceeding is called násam, and the pemáli (tabu) is now all over. During the days immediately following the people may go to the ladang, but are obliged to sleep in the kampong, and they must not undertake long journeys. When the feast ended the blians placed four eggs in the clefts of four upright bamboo sticks as sacrifice to antoh. Such eggs are gathered from hens that are sitting, and those which have become stale in unoccupied nests are also used. If there are not enough such eggs, fresh ones are taken.
CHAPTER XXII
DAYAK DOGS—A FUNERAL ON THE MAHAKAM—OUR RETURN JOURNEY—AGAIN AT LONG TJEHAN—IN SEARCH OF A UNIQUE ORCHID—A BURIAL CAVE
Every night while we were camped here, and frequently in the day, as if controlled by magic, the numerous dogs belonging to the Dayaks suddenly began to howl in chorus. It is more ludicrous than disagreeable and is a phenomenon common to all kampongs, though I never before had experienced these manifestations in such regularity and perfection of concerted action. One or two howls are heard and immediately all canines of the kampong and neighbouring ladangs join, perhaps more than a hundred in one chorus. At a distance the noise resembles the acclamations of a vast crowd of people. The Penihings and Oma-Sulings treat man's faithful companion well, the former even with affection; and the dogs, which are of the usual type, yellowish in colour, with pointed muzzle, erect ears, and upstanding tail, are in fine condition. A trait peculiar to the Dayak variety is that he never barks at strangers, permitting them to walk on the galleries or even in the rooms without interference. Groups of these intelligent animals are always to be seen before the house and on the gallery, often in terrific fights among themselves, but never offensive to strangers.
They certainly serve the Dayaks well by holding the pig or other animal at bay until the men can come up and kill it with spear. Some of them are afraid of bear, others attack them. They are very eager to board the prahus when their owners depart to the ladangs, thinking that it means a chase of the wild pig. Equally eager are they to get into the room at night, or at any time when the owner has left them outside. Doors are cleverly opened by them, but when securely locked the dogs sometimes, in their impatience, gnaw holes in the lower part of the door which look like the work of rodents, though none that I saw was large enough to admit a canine of their size. One day a big live pig was brought in from the utan over the shoulder of a strong man, its legs tied together, and as a compliment to me the brute was tethered to a pole by one leg, while the dogs, about fifty, barked at and harassed it. This, I was told, is the way they formerly were trained. As in a bull-fight, so here my sympathy was naturally with the animal, which managed to bite a dog severely in the side and shook another vigorously by the tail. Finally some young boys gave it a merciful death with spears.
A woman blian died after an illness of five days, and the next forenoon a coffin was made from an old prahu. She had not been ill long, so the preparations for the funeral were brief. Early in the afternoon wailing was heard from the gallery, and a few minutes later the cortège emerged on its way to the river bank, taking a short cut over the slope between the trees, walking fast because they feared that if they lingered other people might become ill. There were only seven or eight members of the procession; most of whom acted as pall-bearers, and all were poor people. They deposited their burden on the bank, kneeling around it for a few minutes and crying mournfully. A hen had been killed at the house, but no food was offered to antoh at the place of embarkation, as had been expected by some of their neighbours.
Covered with a large white cloth, the coffin was hurriedly taken down from the embankment and placed in a prahu, which they immediately proceeded to paddle down-stream where the burial was to take place in the utan some distance away. The reddish-brown waters of the Mahakam, nearly always at flood, flowed swiftly between the walls of dark jungle on either side and shone in the early afternoon sun, under a pale-blue sky, with beautiful, small, distant white clouds. Three mourners remained behind, one man standing, gazing after the craft. Then, as the prahu, now very small to the eye, approached the distant bend of the river, in a few seconds to disappear from sight, the man who had been standing in deep reflection went down to the water followed by the two women, each of whom slipped off her only garment in their usual dexterous way, and all proceeded to bathe, thus washing away all odours or other effects of contact with the corpse, which might render them liable to attack from the antoh that had killed the woman blian.