“Superstition soon added its ready impulse to the general movement. The aged warrior could not rest in his grave till his relations had taken a head in his name; the maiden disdained the weak-hearted suitor whose hand was not yet stained with some cowardly murder.
“Bitterly did the Malay Pangerans of Kuching regret the folly which had disseminated this frenzy. They themselves had fostered the bloodthirsty superstition in furtherance of their political ends, but it had grown beyond their control, and the country was one red field of battle and murder. Pretexts for war were neither sought nor expected; the possession of a human head, no matter how obtained, was the sole happiness coveted throughout the land.”
It was in order to stop this terrible custom that Sir James Brooke undertook his rule. The sultan of Bruni, in despair at the state of things, and utterly unable to check the increasing rage for head hunting, ceded the territory to him, hoping that the Englishman, with his small forces, would succeed where he himself with all his soldiers had failed. Although these tribes were nominally his subjects, they never thought of obeying him, and the only sign of their subjection was a small tribute very irregularly paid. The sultan was right in his conjecture, and we know how the Englishman, with his steady, unflinching rule, succeeded in abolishing head hunting as an acknowledged practice, and, by his system of inflicting heavy fines on any one who took a head, gradually and steadily put an end to the practice. For several years the Dyaks could not understand the prohibition, and the English rajah and his officers were continually pestered with requests from Dyaks to be allowed to go and take heads. An old man, for example, had lost his wife, and begged piteously to be allowed to take just one head, so that she might rest quietly in her grave. Then a young man would come, who had been rejected by a Dyak damsel, lay his case before the authorities, and beseech them to permit him to take a head, and so to win the hand of the disdainful lady. One man, after meeting with the usual refusal, proposed a compromise, and asked whether he might not go and take the head of a Pakarran, because Pakarrans really could not be considered as men. In fact, as Mr. Brooke well remarks, the Dyaks behaved just like children crying after sugar-plums. No plan could have been devised which was more effective than that which was carried out by the English rajah. Whenever a party of Dyaks started surreptitiously off on a head hunting expedition, a force was always despatched after them, in order to cut them off and bring them to justice, when they were fined heavily. If they succeeded in procuring heads, their trophies were taken away from them, and they were fined still more heavily. Those who refused to submit to the punishment were declared to be enemies to the government, and their houses were burnt down. Dyaks of more peaceful tribes were always employed in such expeditions, as, owing to the feuds which had existed for so long, they had been exasperated by the numerous murders which had been perpetrated by the more warlike tribes. The English rule, unlike that of the Malay sultan, was irrespective of persons, and the highest chiefs were punished as swiftly and surely as the lowest of the people. On one occasion, a quarrel arose between two parties of Dyaks, one of which, commanded by a chief named Jannah, was entirely in the wrong, having first trespassed on the property of the other party, and then got up a quarrel because they had hurt themselves against the spiked bamboos, which were planted by way of fences. In the fight that ensued Jannah himself shot the other chief; but he gained little by his act. As soon as the facts were known, Mr. Brooke sent a large force against him, and he was fined nearly two hundred pounds. He and his party took to the bush, but they were soon starved out, and had to submit. The other chiefs were delighted at the result, and were accustomed ever afterward to check those who wished to go head hunting by telling them to remember Jannah and his two hundred pounds. It is rather curious that this high-handed proceeding inspired Jannah with the greatest respect and affection for Mr. Brooke, for whom he afterward entertained a sincere friendship. He asserted that the three years subsequent to this episode in his life had been marked by very much better harvests than he had before obtained from his land, and attributed his prosperity to his friendship for the white man.
One ingenious portion of the system was, that a large share of the fines was distributed among chiefs who had abstained from head-hunting. This plan had a double effect; it proved to the Dyaks that they were not fined for the benefit of the English, and it induced them to be always on the look-out for those who were going to hunt after heads.
It has been mentioned that the heads are wanted to “open the mourning” after the death of any person. This phrase requires some little explanation. When a chief loses a relative, he closes some stream during the time of mourning. This is done by driving spears into the bank, on either side, and fastening bamboos to them across the stream. No one is allowed to pass this obstruction until the mourning is over, an event which cannot take place, according to Dyak custom, until a head had been obtained.
When he has brought home the required trophy, he leaves it at the head house to be prepared, while he makes ready for the feast with which a new head is received. He takes some plants, the juice of which has a stupifying quality, pounds them, and throws them into the river. The fish come floating to the surface, and are then captured by means of barbed spears, which are flung at them from the bank. The spears are very light, their shafts being made of bamboo, so that they always float, and enable the thrower to recover both the spear and the fish which it has struck. The spears and poles which closed the stream are removed in order to allow the fishermen to use their weapons, and thus, by the arrival of the coveted head, the stream is again thrown open.
One of these [fish spears] is shown on page 1129. It is five feet in length, and the shaft, which is three-quarters of an inch in diameter, is made of hollow bamboo, and is exceedingly light. The four prongs are made of iron, and very slightly barbed. Owing to the manner in which they are lashed to the shaft, they are very elastic, so that their slight barbs are perfectly capable of retaining the fish. With the natural love of ornament which distinguishes the Dyaks, the owner of this spear has decorated it with several broad belts of split rattan, plaited in a very artistic manner. One was placed just below the head of the spear, another was placed at the centre of gravity, so as to guide the hand at once to the “balance” of the weapon, and the third was near the butt. Of the three, however, only the central belt remained when the spear reached me.
Owing to the enormous demand for heads, quantity rather than quality was the chief requisite, so that at the time when Sir James Brooke undertook the task of putting down the practice of head hunting, no practical distinction was made between the head of a stalwart warrior and that of a tender girl. A head was a head; the body to which it belonged was of no consequence.
The rage for heads was so great that in one head house an Englishman, who happened to know something of comparative anatomy, espied a head which seemed scarcely human, and which, on examination, turned out to be that of an orang-outan. The proprietors of the head house at first indignantly denied that any imposture had been practised, and adhered to the human origin of the head. At last, however, they were obliged to yield to a certain degree, but they only said that the head in question was that of an Antu or goblin, which had infested the village for a considerable time, and had at last been killed.
One exception was made in the value of these trophies, the head of a white man being beyond all price, and being so valued that a Dyak who had obtained one would not place it in the common head house, but would build a special house to contain it. One of these Dyak warriors was seen exposing himself to great danger in his anxiety to secure a white man’s head. A boatman had been killed, and one of the Dyak murderers was observed dragging up the hill the body of the slain man, hacking with his knife at the neck so as to secure the head, regardless of the fact that he was likely to be shot in the endeavor.