“The islanders quietly assembled and surprised their enemies, killing all but seven, who were taken prisoners—six men and one lad. The former they roasted over a slow fire, and they declared that the bold fellows died without uttering a cry of pain, but defying them to the last; the lad, who stood trembling by, uncertain of his fate, was sent back to the coast, with a message to his countrymen that, if ever they came there again, they would all be treated in the same way. This fearful warning was sufficient to deter their seeking heads again in that direction.
“Parties of two and three sometimes went away for months on an inland incursion, taking nothing with them but salt wrapped up in their waist-cloths, with which they seasoned the young shoots and leaves, and palm cabbages found in the forests; and when they returned home, they were as thin as scare-crows.
“It is this kind of cat-like warfare which causes them to be formidable enemies both to the Chinese and the Malays, who never felt themselves safe from a Dyak enemy. They have been known to keep watch in a well up to their chins in water, with a covering of a few leaves over their heads, to endeavor to cut off the first person who might come to draw water. At night they would drift down on a log, and cut the rattan cable of trading prahus, while others of their party would keep watch on the bank, knowing well where the stream would take the boat ashore; and when aground they kill the men and plunder the goods.”
In war Dyaks have often proved themselves to be valiant soldiers. Mr. Brooke relates that when he was attacking the fort of a hostile chief having with him a mixed force of Malays and Dyaks, the latter were; by far the better soldiers. The former advanced to thirty or forty yards of the house, i. e. just beyond the range of the Sumpitan arrows, which were being blown from the fort, and ensconced themselves behind trees and stumps, where they could fire without exposing themselves to the deadly darts. The Dyaks, however, dashed boldly at the house, clambering up the posts on which it was built, carrying their weapons with them, hacking at the breaches which had previously been made with shot, and trying to force their way into the fort.
At last, one Dyak succeeded in getting into the house, and remained there for about five minutes, when he was obliged to retreat and slide to the ground down the post. After much fighting, the Dyaks managed to set fire to the building at both ends, thus forcing the inmates to rush out among their enemies. Scarcely any of them escaped, some perishing in the flames, others being badly wounded, and the rest being taken prisoners.
The victorious Dyaks were mad with excitement, and rushed about with furious shouts, carrying heads in their hands, and insensible to the wounds which many of them had received. One lad came yelling by, having a head in one hand, and with the other holding on one side of his face. An enemy’s sword had nearly sliced off the whole of that side of his face, but he was almost unconscious of the fact, and his excitement prevented him from feeling any pain. In a few minutes, however, he fainted from loss of blood, and, in spite of the terrible wound which he had received, eventually recovered.
Sometimes the Dyaks are exceedingly cruel to their captives, not being content with merely taking their heads, but killing them slowly by torture. Generally, however, the competition for heads is so keen that a man who has overcome an enemy has no time for torturing him, and is obliged to content himself with getting off the head as fast as he can.
Some of these forts are most perilous places to attack. The approaches are guarded with “ranjows,” i. e. slips of bamboo sharpened at the end and stuck in the ground. Ranjows are troublesome enough on open ground, but when they are stuck among leaves, grass, and herbage, they become terrible weapons, and impede very effectually the advance of the attacking force.
Then the Dyaks set various ingenious traps. They place bent bows near the path, so constructed that as soon as a man comes opposite them, the string is liberated, and an arrow is tolerably sure to transfix both his legs. Sometimes they bend a young tree down, and lay a javelin, so that when the tree is freed, it strikes the end of the javelin and urges it onward with terrific violence, just like the mangonel of olden times. They dig numberless pitfalls of no very great size in depth, but each having a sharp bamboo stuck upright in the centre, so that any on who falls into the pit must inevitably be impaled.
The forts themselves have been much modified since the introduction of fire-arms, the stockades which surround them being made of the hardest wood, about two feet in thickness, and capable of resisting the fire of any small arms. In fact, nothing but artillery is of much use against one of these forts. Many of them are furnished with a sally-port through which, when the place becomes untenable, the defenders quietly escape, just as is done with the pahs of New Zealand.