We stayed at one little sago station, where the natives were preparing the raw product. The process is very simple. The trees are cut down just as they attain maturity, the time being known by the production of the branched inflorescence. The leaves are removed, and then the trunks, which are ten to fifteen feet long, and as thick as a man’s body, are split longitudinally into two halves. A man then cuts out the pith, with which the whole centre of the trunk is filled. This requires some skill. The implement employed for the purpose is an axe, formed of a bamboo-stem, fixed in a stout wooden handle, and lashed with rattan. By repeated strokes of this instrument the pith and fibres are scooped out in thin layers, care being taken to cut it out as free from lumps as possible. The pulped pith is then carried in baskets to a washing apparatus. This consists of a rudely-constructed vat, elevated on piles, beside a river or brook, whence fresh and clean water is plentifully obtainable.
From the vat a spout conducts the water into a trough below. The bottom of the vat is covered with a mat or bark-strainer. The pith is now placed in the vat, and trodden, water being occasionally poured over it during the progress, and the result is that the fine sago starch is washed through, and settles in the bottom of the trough below, the coarse particles and other impurities being retained by the strainers, at the bottom of the treading-vat. After the fine sago has been allowed time to settle in the trough, the water is run off, and the white putty-looking mass below is packed up in bags, and sold to the Chinamen, by whom it is again washed and dried, previous to its being shipped to the Singapore market. Two species of sago palm grow here, forming stout-stemmed trees, thirty or forty feet in height. They are readily distinguished by the one having smooth bases to the sheathing leaf-stalks, while the other has the leaf-sheaths set with stout black spines. The smooth variety is most abundant. The dried leaf-sheaths of this palm are utilised in the manufacture of neat baskets, being neatly sown together with strips of rattan, and fitted with lids. Rattans are much used in house building, the largest timbers being secured by their aid only.
It is singular that pegs or nails are never used by the Malays, except in boat-building; and the neatness and ingenuity with which rattan is used by these people is wonderful. In one of the Kadyan villages, on the Lawas, I saw a violin, the back, front, and sides of which were actually stitched together with slender strips of rattan. It had been copied from a European model, and had a much better tone than one would expect to find under the circumstances.
The musical instruments made and used by the Malays and aboriginal Borneans are inferior to those of Burmah and Siam, or even to those used by the Javanese. The pentatonic scale is employed, and the music is monotonous and plaintive in its character. This is especially true of the women’s songs, which are mostly of a dirge-like kind. I remember a Kadyan girl used to sing sometimes during my first visit to the Lawas, and the effect at night more especially was extremely weird and melancholy. She had a rich mellow voice, rising and falling in minor cadences, and dying away sweetly tremulous as a silver bell. This poor girl’s life, however, ended suddenly. She usually walked through the clearing every day into the forest beyond to fetch in fire-wood. One day she did not return as usual, and a search was made for her along the paths in the neighbourhood without success. Some men who were returning from gutta collecting, however, found her lying beneath a large tree, and beside her was a large branch, recently broken off. It was supposed that this branch had accidentally fallen, and struck her, so causing her death.
Modifications of the “cheng,” or calabash pipes, are made both by the Kayans, on the Baram river, and also by the Dusun villagers, near Kina Balu. There are distinct differences between the instruments as made by each tribe. That from the Baram consists of seven pipes; six arranged in a circle around a long central one, all seven being furnished with a free reed at the base, where they are inserted in a calabash-gourd. Holes are cut in the six outer pipes for fingering; the central pipe is, however, an open or drone-pipe, the tone being intensified by fixing a loose cap of bamboo on the upper end. It is played by blowing air into the neck of the gourd, or by drawing the breath according to the effects desired. The Dusun pipes are formed of eight pipes, four short, and equal in length, and four long and unequal. Reeds are cut at the lower end in all the pipes, but the fingering is performed on the ends of the four equal short pipes, there being no holes cut in the pipes for this purpose, as in the Kayan instrument.
I brought home examples of both varieties; and these are now in the Veitchian Museum at Chelsea. Two or three varieties of flutes are made, also an instrument resembling the old wooden flageolet, so common in England before the advent of the tin whistle.
McNair, in his work on Perak, mentions a curiosity, in the shape of an aëolian flute, formed of a bamboo, in which holes are cut, so as to produce musical sounds when acted on by the wind. An instrument like the Jew’s harp is made of a single strip of bamboo; and a curious stringed instrument is made of a joint of large yellow bamboo, the nine or ten open strings of which produce notes similar to those of a banjo, when twanged with the fingers. A specimen of this instrument may be seen in the Veitchian Museum at Chelsea, together with one of similar design but of much more complicated and finer make from Madagascar. Wooden drums, formed of hollow tree-trunks, and having goat or deer-skin tightly stretched over the ends, are common, and of various sizes. The old war-drums were made thus; but this instrument is now nearly obsolete, being to a great extent replaced by metal gongs, of native manufacture certainly; but doubtless the idea was copied from the Chinese.
Nearly every trading prahu or boat carries one of these gongs; and the Muruts are very fond of such music, and keep up an incessant din on these instruments at their festivals. Sets of eight or ten small such are often fixed in a rattan and bamboo frame, and beaten with two sticks, dulcimer fashion; and I have seen similar contrivances formed of iron bars; and even strips of dry hard bamboo wood in the Sulu isles, the scale in this case being similar to our own.
It is very uncommon to hear performers playing in concert, unless in the case of gong-beating; indeed, music is at a low ebb throughout the island. The songs of the boatman, on the other hand, are often pleasing and melodious. A good many of their songs are Mahomedan prayers, or chants; but occasionally the theme is on secular, and often very amusing subjects. It is common for one man to strike up a song, improvising his subject as he sings, and then all the crew laughingly join in the chorus. They keep time to the music in paddling; and I always encouraged my boatmen to sing, as it relieves the monotony of the bump, bump of the paddles against the side of the vessel, which becomes very tedious after the first hour or two. One always has to be prepared for squalls when on the sea. They are especially common at night, after very hot days. You see a black cloud lowering on the horizon. Then a cool breeze fans your cheek. You at once strike all sail. The breeze gets stronger and stronger, until you find yourself rocking about on a rough “choppy” sea, amid a hurricane of wind and rain.
Thunder and lightning are especially common during the wet monsoon. The mountains behind “Thunder and Lightning Bay,” to the north of the capital, are often perfectly illuminated by lightning flashes; and at times the thunder is deafening to hear. As to the lightning latent flashes of electricity are visible most nights throughout the year; and it is not uncommon to see a continuous play of lightning on the horizon, especially after very sultry days. At times the sea is so highly phosphorescent, that the boat leaves a wake of bright light in the water, and the paddles look as though moving through a caldron of molten silver. This phenomenon is most commonly observable after calm sultry weather.