CHAPTER IX.
CONTINUATION OF THE TRIP TO REJANG.
After two days' paddling from the mouth of the Rejang, the boats arrived at Sibou, where there is a manufactory for nepa salt. The nepa palm grows down to the edge of the banks, which are washed by a salt tide, and furnishes the Dyak with many necessaries.
The leaves make the thatch to cover the roofs of the houses, or shelter over their boats. Neatly fastened together with split rattans, they form the walls of the house. From the juice of the tree they make a fermented drink something like sweet beer, also brown sugar. The young shoots are eaten in curries and salads. The fruit is salted or pickled. When they have got all these good things out of it, they burn the stem of the palm with some of the leaves, and wash the burnt ashes in water. This water is then boiled until it is evaporated, and some black salt remains at the bottom of the pot. It tastes bitter as well as salt; but the Dyaks prefer it to common salt, and if you ask why, they say, "It is a fat salt." I must now return to my husband's journal. "Arrived at Kenowit. A tribe of Milanows have been induced to settle here lately by the Rajah. Within the last few weeks they have built two long and substantial houses, raised thirty feet from the ground on trunks of trees, some two feet in diameter. There are in all sixty doors, or families. The tribe furnishes three hundred fighting men, and numbers from fifteen hundred to two thousand.
"The bachelors, as with the Dyaks, have a separate dwelling.
"Tanee's tribe, who are returning to Sibou on the Rajah's promise to build a fort at Kenowit, are of the same tribe, and number about three hundred men. They speak the Milanow language, and have the same customs of burial. The men and some of the women are tattooed in the most grotesque patterns. When you look at them closely the invention displayed is truly remarkable; but at a distance they give a dingy, dusky appearance to the men, as if they were daubed with an inky sponge. Nature having denied them beards, they tattoo curly locks along their faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of showing his strength and agility. He piques himself upon having the best sword, of fine Kayan make and native metal, and the strongest arm in his tribe. He sits most of the day sharpening one or another of these swords, feeling and looking along its edge to see that the weapon is in perfect order: then, to prove it, he seeks for a suitable block of wood, as thick as his arm, severs it at a blow, gives a yell, and with a grin of delight returns the weapon to its sheath. His jacket is of scarlet satin; his long hair is confined by a gold-embroidered handkerchief; his chawat is of fine white cloth, very long, and richly embroidered—the ends hang down to his knees, he wears behind an apron of panther's skin, trimmed with red cloth and alligator's teeth, and other charms; this hangs from his loins to his knees, and always affords him a dry seat. Tanee's boat is long, made out of one tree, like our river canoes, but much lighter and faster. His cabin is a raised platform in the centre of the boat, covered with a mat, and hung all round with weapons and trophies of war—Kyan fighting-coats of bear and buffalo hides, having head-pieces adorned with beads or shells, shields and spears all gaily decked with Argus' feathers, or human hair dyed red.
"On Sunday we moved from the boats into Palabun's house, and settled ourselves in part of the verandah. After breakfast I doctored the sick, and then we had the morning service, much to the surprise of the natives, who, however, did not disturb us. They sit round us all day, hearing and asking us questions.... Meanwhile the seven hundred men who came in the flotilla of twenty boats, were busy building the fort. First they pulled down a temporary fort already set up by the Kenowits, and then cut wood to erect a substantial building. Four guns were mounted on the parapet, and there was a house inside for the Malay commandant, and a powder magazine. All the chiefs near Kenowit were assembled when the fort was finished, and had the same kind of address made them as at Sakarran, praising the benefits of peaceful trade instead of the miseries of wasteful war. They all listened with respect. That same afternoon, dismal howlings issued from Palabun's house. His brother, who had left him two years ago with a party of fourteen, to visit a friendly tribe at a distance, had been treacherously murdered. He and his party had been kindly received by their friends, and they had all gone out together on the war-path to seek heads. It is supposed that when they met no one, the hosts had turned on their visitors and taken their heads, rather than return home without any. Palabun vowed vengeance, and the whole tribe go into mourning for three months." (Bishop's Journal.)
A Dyak mourning is not a becoming black costume, made "cheerful," as the dressmakers say, by jet ornaments and bugle trimmings. It consists in the abandonment of all ornament and their usual clothing, and the substitution of a kind of a brown cloth made of the inside bark of trees, which must be as rough and uncomfortable as it is ugly. These people, being Milanows, have peculiar burial customs. They lay the dead in a boat, with all his property and belongings, and send it out to sea; for they imagine that in some way a man's possessions may be of use to him in another world, if no one claims them on earth.
"In this case there was no corpse to bury. The clothes were so disposed on the bier as to represent a figure, and laid beside it were handsome gold cloths and ornaments, gold buttons, krises,[5] and breastplates, and weapons of Javanese manufacture, representing some hundreds of dollars. There were also gongs and two brass guns. Of course the fate of such boat-loads, sent adrift in a tidal river, is generally to be capsized and lost in the water. But if Malays encounter them they do not hesitate to appropriate the effects. Palabun knew this, so he did not send his brother's boat away until our fleet had departed." (Bishop's Journal.)