Tattooing is practised among many of the tribes, and prevails in inverse ratio to their civilization, those who are furthest from civilization being most profusely tattooed, and those who are brought in contact with it having almost entirely abandoned the practice. The men of some tribes are nearly covered with tattooed patterns, while those of other tribes have stars on their breasts and armlets and bracelets on their legs and arms. The Kanowit Dyaks, who belong to the great Malanau tribe, are tattooed from the breast to the knees with a pattern that has the effect of scale armor, and many of them tattoo their chins and chests so as to look as if they had real beards and moustaches. The tattoo of the women is often more elaborate than that of the men, as we shall presently see.
It is worthy of notice that, as a rule, the Sea Dyaks do not use the tattoo. They have an idea that it is a sign of cowardice, and are very much surprised that English sailors, whose courage they can but respect, will allow themselves to be tattooed with the anchors, true lovers’ knots, ships in full sail, entwined initials, and other figures with which a British sailor loves to disfigure himself. In consequence of this feeling many verbal skirmishes have been waged between the Sea Dyaks and the English seamen. The tribes among whom tattooing reaches its greatest development are mostly those of the Malaccan division, such as the Kanowits, who are mightily despised by the regular Land and Sea Dyaks, and are only tolerated by them as being the means of affording a constant supply of heads.
The Dyaks are exceedingly fertile in their invention of ear ornaments. Most savages content themselves with making one hole in the lobe of the ear, and often enlarge it so that a man’s hand could be passed through the orifice. But the Dyaks go much further in their ideas of adornment.
In common with other savages, they make an enormous hole in the lobe of the ear, increase it by inserting a series of gradually enlarged plugs, and drag it down as far as the shoulder by hanging leaden weights to it. But they also bore a series of holes all round the edge of the ear, and fill them with various ornaments. The favorite plan is, to have a series of brass rings, and to insert them in the holes of the ear, the smallest being at the top, and the lowest, which is large enough to be a bracelet, at the bottom. This decoration prevails chiefly among the Sea Dyaks, and there is a sort of proverb which warns the hearer to beware of a man who wears many earrings.
Often the Dyaks do not content themselves with wearing rings in their ears, but fill the apertures with such a miscellany of objects that they have been described as “châtelaines,” rather than earrings. One young man, the son of a chief, wore only one large ring in each ear, but from this ring depended a number of brass chains, to which were suspended various ornaments. To one ear were thus hung two boar’s tusks, one alligator’s tooth, part of a hornbill’s beak, three small brass rings, and two little bells.
Many of the men wear one large earring in the lobe, and bore a hole in the top of the ear, through which is passed a canine tooth of the tiger-cat.
These ornaments are only worn when the Dyak puts on his dress of ceremony, and at other times the holes in the ears are kept from closing by plugs of wood. And, as the effect of the brass is always to cause ulcerating sores, the ordinary appearance of a Dyak’s ears is not very pleasing. Some of them have a curious fashion of boring one hole at the top of the ear and another at the bottom, and tying to it a brass plate, to which are suspended the jingling ornaments of which these savages are so fond.
The Dyaks are so fully impressed with the idea that nature is meant to be improved by art, that they cannot even allow their teeth to retain their natural shape and color. As a general rule, the men file their front teeth into sharp points, while others improve upon nature still farther by scooping out the front face of each tooth and rendering it concave.
Having thus rendered the shape of the tooth as unlike its natural form as possible, the next process is evidently to change the color as completely as the shape, and to turn them from white to black. The habit of betel-eating has much to do with the darkening of the teeth, but besides, there is a mode by which the Dyaks deliberately stain their teeth black. The method by which the dye is produced and applied is well told by Mr. Boyle, in his “Adventures among the Dyaks”:—
“We made inquiries about the means employed for blackening the teeth, a custom which is universal in the far East. The old medicine man was finally persuaded to show us the process, and very curious it appeared.