Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo / A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles

by Edwin Herbert Gomes

This observance, according to ancient custom, could not be held until the head of an enemy had been obtained. It brings out the darker and fiercer side of the Dyak nature. They would fight with Death if they could, and rescue their dead friends from his clutches. But as they cannot do this, they rejoice in taking vengeance upon the living and killing someone, so that their relatives in Hades may have the satisfaction of saying: “My death has been avenged. A life has been paid for my life.” In these days, when the Dyaks live under a strong and just Government, it is very seldom that this observance can be carried out according to ancient custom; now they have either to dispense with the newly-procured human head or omit the observance altogether.

The dead man is not forgotten. Periodical mournings (sabak) at intervals of two or three months are held in his memory, and the professional wailer calls on the dead man and weeps over him. The relatives work themselves up into a frenzy of sorrow on these occasions, and many of them are often seen weeping sadly. The Dyaks believe that the dead hear their cries, and that a bond of sympathy unites them with those on earth.

A year or two after the death the Gawai Antu is held. This feast is held in honour of all those that have died since the last Gawai Antu was held. Small, curiously-shaped baskets, supposed to represent the different implements a man or woman uses in work when alive, are made and placed on the different graves. Thus they furnish the dead with the means of livelihood in Hades. This feast ends all mourning for the dead, and after it has been held there are no more periodical mournings.

But even after all mourning has ceased the Dyak still believes that his dead friends and relatives live and visit the earth. Before going forth on an expedition against the enemy, the dead are invoked, and are begged to help their friends on earth, so that they may be successful against their foes. In times of peril and of need the dead are called upon; and on the hilltops or in the solitudes of the jungle a man often goes by himself and spends the night in the hope that the spirit of some dead relative may visit him, and in a dream tell him of some charm by means of which he may overcome difficulties and become rich and great.

Burial is the usual, but not the only, mode of disposing of the dead. Manangs, or witch-doctors, are never buried, but their coffins are hung up in the cemetery. Among some tribes a young child dying before he has any teeth is put in a jar instead of a coffin, and this is tied to the branch of some tree in the burial-ground.

The Dyak believes in a future life, but it is simply a prolongation of the present state of things in a new sphere. Even the journey from this world to the land of spirits is much like the journey from one part of the country to another. The traveller must be provided with food and money for his journey, which may take a longer or a shorter time, dependent to a great extent on the liberality of his friends here on earth and to the kindness of those whose houses he passes in his journey to the spirit world.

If the dead man has been able while in this terrestrial sphere to provide for himself assistance in the world of spirits, then his life in the other world will be an easy one. The spirits of the enemies whose heads he has taken become his slaves in the other world, and the man who has succeeded in killing many enemies lives in Hades a life of ease.

I have given the general belief among the Sea Dyaks about the future existence. But occasionally other conceptions are met with. The idea of metempsychosis is not unknown, and I have met a Dyak who treated a snake with the greatest kindness, because he said it had been revealed to him in a dream that the spirit of his grandfather dwelt in that snake.

Some Dyaks speak of a series of spirit worlds through which their souls must pass before they become finally extinct. Some Dyaks say they have to die three times; others say seven times; but all seem to agree in the idea that after these successive dyings they practically cease to exist, and are absorbed into air and fog. They do not believe in an endless life, because perhaps they lack the mental capacity to conceive of such a thing.