The Gardens of the Sun / A naturalist's journal on the mountains and in the forests and swamps of Borneo and the Sulu Archipelago

by F. W. Burbidge

It is very rare that anything like general open fighting now takes place between the native tribes, as was formerly the case, when a party of fighting men would, after marching at night only through the forests for days together, steal up to the house of their foes just before daylight and endeavour to set fire to it, after which the place was surrounded and the men killed as they attempted to escape, the women and children being made prisoners and carried off as additions to the wealth of the victors. Sometimes, however, the besieged were too wary for their foes, and either boldly rushed out and drove them off with loss, or formed ambuscades, into which they unwittingly fell and were annihilated, or perhaps a few would break through and escape to tell the tale. In this way a good many heads and slaves were obtained, but at present the additions to the baskets are more rare, and principally obtained by stealthy murders rather than in warfare. The Muruts and other aboriginals are great believers in omens, and whether on head-hunting or pig-killing expeditions they pay great regard to the cries of birds and animals; and if they meet an alligator or a snake, they at once return and wait for a more propitious season.

In travelling with these natives as guides, their careful attention to omens becomes exceedingly trying to one’s temper, as they will stop immediately if the omens seen or heard be not good ones, and if anything more than ordinary duties are required of them it is astonishing how soon a bad omen will put an end to all further progress for the day. One place where I stayed for several weeks was within half a mile of a large Murut house, and their gongs could be heard very plainly sometimes all night when they were feasting and drinking a peculiar spirit, which is made of rice and tampoe fruit mixed with water and strained off for use after fermentation. These feasts seemed to be held on the occasion of any good fortune befalling the tribe, such as success in hunting pigs or deer. One night they were gong-beating and shouting louder than usual. I asked the native in whose house I slept the reason of this, and he told me that they had been out head-hunting for a fortnight, but had failed to pounce upon any Murut of another tribe; so to end the suspense they had seized one of their own slaves, who had in some way offended them, and had made a scapegoat of him. I visited this house some days afterwards, and smoked a “roko” with the “Orang Capella,” or chief, while three of his lusty followers kept up an incessant din on five gongs which were suspended in the centre of the public apartment. I asked to see his collection of heads, and after a good deal of talking, a few dry old examples were brought; but after we left I was told that they had many more, including the one so recently taken, but that they were afraid to let the fact be known. This tribe had good reasons for secrecy in the matter, since one man had been hung at Labuan for a head-hunting murder a year or two previous to my visit, and another would have suffered the same fate had he not died in jail. They had actually crossed over to the English colony to look out for heads, and ascending a little river on the western side, had shot a man who was coming down in a canoe. The shot, an old nail, struck the shaft of the paddle, and passing through, entered the man’s body, after which they made off, but were captured by the Government and tried for the murder. This identical paddle was one of the first things I saw when I paid my respects to His Excellency the Governor of Labuan, and when the story was narrated to me it did not sound very cheering, seeing that I expected to live among these tribes for some months at least. However, I could never hear of a white man being killed, except by the pirates from Tawi Tawi and Sulu, with one exception, which was of a man who is supposed to have been poisoned by his native mistress. St. John mentions one tribe, however, who are peculiarly addicted to poisoning anyone who may be disliked by them. The nature of the poison used is not exactly known, but it is very generally supposed to be a peculiarly irritating fibre or spiculæ derived from some species of bamboo, the effect of which is to cause a chronic state of sickness and depression, followed by death. Whatever it may be, it is a mechanical rather than a chemical irritant. When one travels in such a lovely island, however, as Borneo undoubtedly is, it is extremely difficult to believe half the tales told of the native tribes, and altogether the proportionate number of robberies and murders is not more than takes place in the most enlightened centre of civilisation in the world. The total population of the island is supposed to be from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000, and when we consider that all these unchristianised natives (excepting those in Sarawak and the Dutch territory) live together with no law—nothing in fact but their own sense of right and wrong, and public opinion to keep them in order—the wonder is that, even according to our own standard, crime is so seldom heard of.

The Kadyans are a tribe of peaceable and well-disposed aboriginals, who, living along the coast near to the capital, have mixed a good deal with the Malays and speak their language. It is not uncommon, however, to find the older and more intelligent men of this tribe well acquainted with several dialects of the interior, such as Murut, Dusun, and the Brunei dialect, used by the common natives of the capital. They are mostly Mahomedans, and so are more respected by their Malay rulers than are other of the aboriginals. They form thrifty little colonies on most of the rivers near Brunei, and many have settled in Labuan, where they cultivate their rice fields, and occasionally bring fruit or fish to the markets. They are for the most part a clean and healthy race, and form a great contrast with their neighbours who live in a more irregular manner, and are often troubled with skin diseases, this being in a measure owing to the want of cleanliness and of a regular diet. There cannot be any doubt but that Islam is a great blessing to many Eastern races, especially so far as cleanliness and temperance are concerned.

The Kadyans are very quick in selecting rich bits of forest and in raising fine crops of rice, which forms the main portion of their food. Rice and fish from the river or sea, fruits from their gardens or the forest, and a few simple vegetables are all the food they require. They also collect gutta and caoutchouc, camphor and rattans, from the forest, and the sale of these in Labuan, or to the Chinese traders who visit the coast, enables them to obtain cloth, muskets and ammunition, tobacco, and any other little necessaries or luxuries of Chinese or European manufacture which they may require. Although less active than the Muruts, yet there are some fine men among them, and their women, as a class, are perhaps the most refined and intelligent of all the aboriginals, some, when young, being singularly attractive. The boys are also bright fellows, with a keener sense of humour than is common in other tribes. They live a free and easy life, contented and happy, and I could not help contrasting the peace and plenty enjoyed by these people with the squalor and misery in which the poor of civilised lands are often plunged. Here, in these sunny wilds, an all-bounteous Nature, with a minimum of labour, supplies their every want, and it would be difficult to find another country where man is more truly the “monarch of all he surveys”—more truly independent on his fellow-man than here in Borneo. Although these people are nominally Mahomedans, still their women enjoy the greatest freedom and are never secluded, as is the custom of the Malays of the coast, indeed, many Kadyan houses consist of one very large room only, there being no private apartment of any kind. This is a rather singular trait of these people, since even the Muruts and the Dusan have one side of their houses partitioned off so as to allow of a separate private room for each family, the other half being open from end to end and free to guests or strangers. The Kadyans take but one wife, and are apparently good husbands and affectionate parents; large families, however, are exceptional. This question of increase of population in the island is one I could not profess to explain. Here is a rich and fertile island larger than Great Britain and Ireland, with an entire population scarcely exceeding that of London. In the old times inter-tribal warfare may have operated as a check, and even now whole villages are sometimes carried off by epidemics, such as cholera or small-pox, yet when we consider that there are practically none of the checks on marriage itself as with us, and the readiness with which food is obtainable in plenty, the easy and natural way, indeed, in which these people live, it is a puzzle that they seem scarcely able to hold their own.

In the case of the North American Indians or the Maories of New Zealand, there is the competition of the white races, but here they are not crowded out by a stronger type, nevertheless, the population is supposed to be less than was formerly the case. If a Kadyan youth wishes to marry, he has only to select a site for his house, and clear the ground around it for a garden. He may take an unoccupied plot anywhere, and there is no ground-rent to pay, it is freehold so soon as he has in a manner “staked his claim,” by cutting down the brush and burning the trees, in which the other “lads of the village” will assist him. The ground is cleared towards the end of the dry season, and with the commencement of the first rains a few seeds of Indian corn, cucumbers, betel pepper, &c., are sown, and yams, kaladi, sweet potatoes, together with cocoa-nuts, and banana suckers from his father’s or a friend’s garden, are planted. Then timbers, rattans, and nipa leaves for thatch are obtained, and, with the assistance of his friends, a good roomy house will spring up, if not quite mushroom-like in a night, at the least in a week or ten days. A dollar or two, or the jungle produce he could collect in less than a month, will enable him to obtain the few articles of furniture, cooking utensils, &c., which he requires, together with a new “sarong” or two for himself and his bride. And she, the dusky beauty, will have made a few neatly worked palm-leaf sleeping mats and other needful trifles, and doubtless looks forward to her wedding with as much pleasure as her fairer sister of the West. The actual ceremony of marriage is here very simple. A payment has to be made by the bridegroom to his father-in-law, and this varies in proportion to the charms or other good marketable qualities of the girl—an ordinary girl being worth as much as a good buffalo, or say, £4; as much as £20, however, is sometimes demanded for the “belle of the village,” but in addition to the first cost such beauties are apt to give their husbands a good deal of trouble afterwards, unless, indeed, they be of Cato-like temperament. Marriages may be dissolved for the merest trifles by either party, but if by the woman herself, part of the money or goods paid to her parents is refunded. In the case of the Mahomedans, a woman retains all her real and personal property after divorcement. A native, in whose house I stayed several weeks, told me that his wife had been married to another Kadyan before he married her. “And did her husband die?” I enquired. “Oh, no,” he answered. “Then why did she leave him?” “She did not like him,” was the rejoinder. And such cases of mutual separation are far from uncommon.

These people, unlike the Muruts of the Limbang, had plenty of rice and other food, the produce of their padi fields and gardens. In some parts of the island it is extremely difficult to purchase food of any kind, the natives possessing only barely enough for their own wants. Here, however, one could obtain fowls, eggs, rice, and vegetables in abundance. The prices may be interesting. For excellent fowls, from fivepence to eightpence was charged; eggs fivepence per dozen; vegetables enough for two or three days’ supply for twopence; while lodging, fire-wood, and plenty of jungle fruit in season, may be had for nothing. Dollars and cents were current here, but cloth, especially grey shirting and a stout black fabric, were also readily received in exchange at a slight advance on Labuan prices. The men here were willing to act either as guides or carriers for tenpence to a shilling per diem.

When I returned to the house at night from the forest, I generally found a liberal share of the jungle fruit which had been brought home by the men laid on my mats; and after dinner my own men and the villagers would drop in for a chat by the light of a flickering dammar torch. Twenty or thirty dusky figures smoking or eating betel-nut had a curious effect in the badly lighted hut.

All through the fast month these people never eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset, but they make up for this between sunset and sunrise, the women being busy cooking rice and fish nearly all night. At the end of the month, too, a great feast was held, at which all in the village and neighbourhood met and smoked the “roko” of peace, all old feuds and wrongs being for the nonce forgiven or forgotten. Everyone came dressed in their best head-cloths and sarongs, being armed with their war parangs, and altogether forming an animated and brightly coloured assemblage. This feast was held at night, and for several days previous the women had been busy bringing in fire-wood and cleaning rice. On the day on which this gathering was held the culinary operations were on an extended scale, and, at the appointed meal time, great heaps of rice, vegetables, fish, and fruit, were piled on fresh banana leaves right down the centre of the house. A dignified green-coated old hadji graced the repast with his presence, and he was pleased to kill the fowl for my own dinner, according to native rite, and evidently liked being noticed as a traveller, for his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure when I asked him of his voyage to Mecca. He complained very much of the insults, losses, and hardships, to which pilgrims were exposed, but his appetite was evidently as good as ever, since the clearance of rice and fish he made around him at dinner was something startling to see.

These people had but few domesticated animals. The Muruts had plenty of dirty, half-starved black pigs running about the jungle near their house, and a few goats. They had also a peculiar race of small, brown dogs, resembling terriers, which are very useful in pig hunting. The Kadyans had cats wonderfully like our own, but with abnormal tails. Poultry are represented only by cocks and hens. Some of the wild birds of the forests are domesticated as pets, the most common being Java and little red sparrows; a beautiful little green ground pigeon; paroquets of two kinds, one very small like a love-bird, the other having two long blue attenuated feathers in its tail. Mino birds are not unfrequently tamed, and they may be taught to speak words or phrases quite readily. Some of the larger hornbills, the “rhinoceros” variety especially, are also tamed, and are most amusing creatures. There was one in a house where I stayed a week or two, and a more voracious bird I never saw. At night it would perch itself on a stick below the house and croak for hours together, but with daylight in the morning it would enter the house to beg for food, and the quantities it could consume during the day were surprisingly large. Everything edible seemed equally welcome—rice, fruit, vegetables, and even the entire bodies of small birds which my boy had been skinning as specimens were gulped down with apparent relish. Any trifles thrown towards it were sure of being caught in its great bill, and then thrown again in the air and caught previous to their being swallowed.

The Kadyans have an ingenious way of capturing the little green or puni pigeons (Chalcophaps indica) with a bamboo call, by which their soft cooing notes are exactly imitated. These birds are gregarious, and just before breeding-time they arrive in large quantities.