The Pagan Tribes of Borneo / A Description of Their Physical Moral and Intellectual Condition, with Some Discussion of Their Ethnic Relations

by Charles Hose; William McDougall

A village that has been warned of the approach of the foe may send out a party to attempt to ambush the attackers at some difficult passage of the river or the jungle. Scouts are sent out to locate the enemy. Some climb to the tops of tall trees to look for the smoke of the enemy's fires. Having located the enemy, the scouts approach so closely as to be able to count their numbers and observe all their movements; and, keeping in touch with the party, they send messages to their chief. If the defenders succeed in ambushing the attackers and in killing several of them, the latter usually withdraw discouraged, and may for the time give up the attempt. If the defending party should come upon the enemy struggling against a rapid, and especially if the enemy is in difficulties through the upsetting of some of their boats, or in any other way, they may fall upon them in the open bed of the river, and then ensues the comparatively rare event, a stand-up fight in the open. This resolves itself in the main into hand-to-hand duels between pairs of combatants, as in the heroic age. The warriors select their opponents and approach warily; they call upon one another by name, hurling taunts and swaggering boastfully in the heroic style. Each abuses the other's parents, and threatens to use his opponent's skin as a war-coat, or his scrotum as a tobacco-pouch, to take his head and to use his hair as an ornament for a PARANG-handle; or doubt as to the opponent's sex may be insinuated. While this exchange of compliments goes on, the warriors are manoeuvring for favourable positions; each crouches, thrusting forward his left leg, covering himself as completely as possible with his long shield, and dodging to and fro continually. The short javelins and spears are first hurled, and skilfully parried with spear and shield. When a man has expended his stock of javelins and has hurled his spear, he closes in with his PARANG. His enemy seeks to receive the blow of the PARANG on his shield in such a way that the point, entering the wood, may be held fast by it. Feinting and dodging are practised; one man thrusts out his left leg to tempt the other to strike at it and to expose his head in doing so. If one succeeds in catching his enemy's PARANG in his shield, he throws down the shield and dashes upon his now weaponless foe, who takes to his heels, throwing away his shield and relying merely on his swiftness of foot. When one of a pair of combatants is struck down, the other springs upon him and, seizing the long hair of the scalp and yelling in triumph, severs the neck with one or two blows of the PARANG. The warrior who has drawn first blood of the slain foe claims the credit of having taken his head. Such a free fight seldom lasts more than a few minutes. Unless one party quite overwhelms the other in the first few minutes, both draw off, and the fight is seldom renewed.

Since the establishment of the European governments in Borneo, punitive expeditions have been necessary from time to time in order to put a stop to wanton raiding and killing. In this respect the Ibans and some of the Klemantans have been the chief offenders; while the Kayans and Kenyahs have seldom given trouble, after once placing themselves under the established governments. In the Baram river, in which the Kayans form probably a larger proportion of the population than in any other, no such expedition against them has been necessary since they accepted the government of H.H. the Rajah of Sarawak nearly twenty-five years ago.

In organising such an expedition, the European governments, especially that of Sarawak, have usually relied in the main on the services of loyal chiefs and their followers, acting under the control of a European magistrate, and supported usually by a small body of native police or soldiers armed with rifles. There is usually no difficulty in securing the co-operation of any desired number of native allies or volunteers; for in this way alone can the people now find a legitimate outlet for their innate and traditional pugnacity. Sometimes the people to be punished desert their village, hiding themselves in the jungle; and in such cases the burning of their houses is usually deemed sufficient punishment. In cases of more serious crime, such as repeated wanton bloodshed and refusal to yield to the demands of the government, it becomes necessary to apprehend the persons primarily responsible, and, for this purpose, to pursue the fugitives. These sometimes establish themselves on a hill-top surrounded by precipices which can be scaled only by the aid of ladders, and there defy the government forces until the hill is carried by assault, or by siege, or the defenders are enticed to descend. One such hill in the basin of the Rejang (Sarawak), Bukit Batu by name, consists of a mass of porphyry some 1500 feet in height, and several miles in diameter, with very precipitous sides. This has been used again and again as a place of refuge by recalcitrant offenders, being so strong a natural fortress that it has never been possible to carry it by assault. On the last occasion on which Bukit Batu was used in this way, two Iban chiefs established themselves on the hill and defied the government of Sarawak for a period of four years, during which the hill became a place of refuge for all evil-doers and outlaws among the Ibans of the Rejang and neighbouring districts, who built their houses on ledges of the mountain some four hundred feet above the level of the river.

The punitive expedition that we briefly describe in Chapter XXII. was but a small affair compared with some, in which as many as 10,000 or 12,000 men have mustered under the government flag. So large a number is seldom necessary or desired by the government; but when contingents from all the loyal communities of a large district eagerly offer their services, it is difficult to deny any of them permission to take part. Kenyahs and Kayans will co-operate harmoniously, and also Klemantans; but the former distrust the Sea Dayaks and will not join forces with any large number of them.

The modes of warfare of the other tribes are similar in most respects to that of the Kayans described above; but some peculiarities are worthy of note.

Kenyah warfare is very similar to Kayan, save in so far as their more impetuous temper renders their tactics more dashing. While the Kayans endeavour to make as many captives as possible, the Kenyahs attach little value to them. While Kayans never attack communities of their own tribe, such "civil war" is not unknown among the Kenyahs, whose tribal cohesion is less intimate in many respects. From these two differences it results that the Kenyah war-parties are generally smaller than those of the Kayans, more quick-moving, and more prone to attack groups of the enemy encountered on farms or on the river. Like the Ibans, the Kenyahs make peace more readily than the Kayans, who nurse their grievances and seek redress after long intervals of time.

The Ibans conduct their warfare less systematically, and with far less discipline than the Kayans and Kenyahs. An attack upon a house or village by Bans is usually made in very large force; the party is more of the nature of a rabble than of an army; each man acts independently. They seek above all things to take heads, to which they attach an extravagant value, unlike the Kayans and Kenyahs who seek heads primarily for the service of their funeral rites; and they not infrequently attack a house and kill a large number of its inmates in a perfectly wanton manner, and for no other motive that the desire to obtain heads. This passion for heads leads them sometimes into acts of gross treachery and brutality. The Ibans being great wanderers, small parties of them, engaged perhaps in working jungle produce, will settle for some weeks in a household of Klemantans, and, after being received hospitably, and sometimes even after contracting marriages with members of the household, will seize an opportunity, when most of the men of the house are from home, to take the heads of all the men, women, and children who remain, and to flee with them to their own distant homes.

So strong is this morbid desire of the Ibans to obtain human heads, that a war-party will sometimes rob the tombs of the villages of other tribes and, after smoking the stolen heads of the corpses, will bring them home in triumph with glowing accounts of the stout resistance offered by the victims. Their attitude in this matter is well expressed by a saying current among them, namely, "Why should we eat the hard caked rice from the edge of the pot when there's plenty of soft rice in the centre?" The Iban women urge on the men to the taking of heads; they make much of those who bring them home, and sometimes a girl will taunt her suitor by saying that he has not been brave enough to take a head; and in some cases of murder by Sea Dayaks, the murderer has no doubt been egged on in this way.

Nevertheless, we repeat that there is no ground for the oft-reprinted assertion that the taking of a head is a necessary prelude to marriage.[62] Like other tribesmen Ibans do not bring home the heads of their companions who have fallen in battle; but while men of other tribes are content to drag the corpses of their fallen friends into some obscure spot and to cover them with branches, Ibans frequently cut off the heads and bury them at a distance from the scene of battle, in order to prevent their being taken by the enemy.

The Ibans use a rather greater variety of weapons than the Kayans, in that they have spears whose blades bear barbs which prevent the withdrawal of the blade from the body of the enemy without great violence.