In consequence of the general state of anarchy in which their unfortunate country is plunged, they live in small fortified villages, surrounded by palisades and deep ditches so as to leave but two gates for a passage.
As in the feudal times, eminences strong by nature are frequently selected for the sites of these settlements, where the Batta, though removed from the more fruitful plains, cultivates his small field of mountain rice in greater security. In some districts, where hostile invasions are less to be feared, he possesses, besides his village residence, a detached hut in a forest clearance near some river navigable by canoes. To be out of the reach of wild animals or inundations, these huts are frequently built on trees whose central branches have been lopped off, while the outer ones have been left standing, so as to afford a grateful shade to the little aërial dwelling.
From this eminence, which the proprietor reaches by a ladder from twenty-five to thirty feet high, he looks down complacently upon his paddy field below, and as he is no sportsman, the undisturbed denizens of the forest afford him many a pastime. Monkeys gambol without fear on the trees around him; long-tailed squirrels leap from bough to bough; elephants bathe in the river; lemurs and fox-bats fly about in the evening; stags feed in the thicket beneath; and the only enemy he seeks to destroy is the Leguan lizard, who, intent on plundering his hen-roost, lies concealed among the reeds on the river’s bank.
The Battas, having frequently suffered by foreign invasions, suspect all strangers of evil intentions, and desire to be as little as possible disturbed by their visits. For this reason, as well as for additional security against hostile incursions, they have no roads nor bridges, and as the villages are generally many miles apart and separated from each other by jungles or woods, this total want of the means of communication presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the traveller. Their distrust of strangers extends even to the members of their own nation, so that Battas of one province cannot enter another without running the risk of being seized as spies and eaten alive.
While two of the great events of human life—birth and marriage—pass almost unnoticed among the Battas, the third and last act of this ‘strange eventful history’ gives rise to ceremonies which one would hardly expect to meet with among a nation of cannibals. When the rajah of a large village dies, his body is kept so long in the house, until the rice which is sown on the day of his death by his son or his brother comes to maturity. When the rice is about to ripen, a buffalo is killed, and its bones sent round to all friends and relations among the rajahs of the neighbourhood as an invitation to the burial, which is to take place on the tenth day after the reception of these strange missives. Every rajah who accepts the invitation is obliged to bring with him a buffalo. The coffin is placed on a bier before the house, and on the arrival of the guests their buffaloes are tied to strong poles close by. The wives, sons, and other near relations of the deceased, now walk seven times with loud lamentations round the buffaloes, after which the oldest or first wife breaks a pot of boiled rice grown from the seed sown on the dying day on the forehead of one of the buffaloes. This is the signal for a frantic explosion of grief among the mourning women, whose piercing cries are accompanied by the incessant beating of drums and brass kettles in the house. After this lugubrious scene, which soon terminates with the real or feigned exhaustion of the actors, each of the rajahs now in his turn walks seven times round the buffalo which he brought with him, and kills it with a stroke of his lance. The coffin is then removed to the burial-place, and placed on the side of the open grave, amid the profound silence of the assembly. Its lid is opened, and the eldest son of the deceased, stepping forward, looks at the corpse, the face of which is turned towards the sun, and, raising his hand to the sky, says, ‘Now, father, thou seest for the last time the sun, which thou wilt never see again.’ After this short but affecting allocution the lid is closed and the coffin lowered into the grave, upon which the company returns to the village, where meantime the slaughtered buffaloes have been made ready for the funeral feast. Their horns, skulls, and jaw-bones, fastened to stakes, are placed as ornaments round the grave, which has no other monument or inscription. On each of the two following days some food is carried to it, a welcome treat for the dogs, and then it is consigned to the neglect which is the ultimate fate of all.
The mystical sowing of rice, and the touching words spoken at the grave, prove that the Battas, though without any fixed religious worship, have still religious feelings, and may serve to confirm the truth of the remark, that there is no nation, however barbarous, which does not show at least some traces of a belief in the Divinity, and reveal, however obscurely, that man has been born for something higher than a mere animal existence.
Among the Dyaks, a name indiscriminately applied to all the wild people on the island of Borneo, we find no less revolting customs than among the Battas of Sumatra. They are hunters of their kind, not merely for the sake of an unnatural feast, but simply for the sake of collecting heads. Skulls are the commonest ornaments of a Dyak house, and the possession of them is the best token of manly courage. A Dyak youth is despised by all the maidens of his village as long as he has not cut off the head of an enemy or waylaid a stranger; returning from a successful chase with one of these ghastly trophies, he is welcomed as a hero. The head is stuck upon a pole, and old and young dance around it, singing and beating gongs. Murder of the most revolting atrocity, which anywhere else would make its perpetrator be considered the enemy of his kind, is thus by a horrible perversity one of the elements of courtship. The same atrocious custom is found among the Harafuras of Celebes, the Nias Islanders, and some other Malay nations of the Indian Archipelago. When the Harafuras go to war, they first steal some heads, boil them, and drink the broth to render themselves invulnerable.
The Minkokas of Celebes limit the custom of taking heads to funeral or festive occasions, more especially on the death of their rajah or chief. When this occurs they sally forth, with a white band across their forehead to notify their object, and destroy alike their enemies and strangers. From twenty to forty heads, according to the rank of the deceased rajah, being procured, buffaloes are killed, rice boiled, and a solemn funeral feast is held, and, whatever time may elapse, the body is not previously buried. The heads, on being cleaned, are hung up in the houses of the three principal persons of the tribe, and regarded with great veneration and respect.
The national weapon of the Dyaks, though not in use among all their tribes, is the Sumpitan, a blow-pipe about five feet long, with an arrow made of wood, thin, light, sharp-pointed, and dipped in the poison of the upas tree. As this is fugacious, the points are generally dipped afresh when wanted. For about twenty yards the aim is so true that no two arrows shot at the same mark will be above an inch or two apart. On a calm day the utmost range may be a hundred yards. Though impregnated with a poison less deadly than the Wourali of the American Indians, yet the shafts of the sumpitan are formidable weapons from the frequency with which they can be discharged, and the skill of those who use them. The arrows are contained in a bamboo case, hung at the side, and at the bottom of this quiver is the poison of the upas. When they face an enemy the box at the side is open, and, whether advancing or retreating, they fire the poisoned missiles with great precision.
The style of building of the Dyaks is very peculiar; most of their villages consisting of a single house, in which from fifteen to twenty families live together, in separate compartments.