A DYAK FEAST.
(See [pages 1145], [1146].)
CHAPTER CXVIII.
BORNEO—Continued.
ARCHITECTURE—MANUFACTURES.
AERIAL HOUSES — THE LONG HOUSE AND ITS ARRANGEMENTS — THE ORANG-KAYA’S ROOM — STRUCTURE OF THE FLOORING — REASONS FOR THE DYAK ARCHITECTURE — THE NIPA PALM AND ITS USES — THE ATAPS — SALT AND SUGAR MANUFACTURE — ERECTION OF THE FIRST POST — VARIOUS MODES OF PROCURING FIRE — CONSTRUCTION OF THE DYAK BRIDGE — A NARROW ESCAPE — MANUFACTURES — THE ADZE AXE OF THE DYAKS — ITS ANALOGY WITH THE BANYAI AXE — SMELTING AND FORGING IRON — BASKET MAKING — THE DYAK MAT — SPLITTING THE RATTAN — THE BORNEAN KNIFE, AND MODE OF USING IT — THE SACRED JARS AND THEIR PROPERTIES.
The architecture of the Dyaks is very peculiar. The reader may find a [Dyak village] represented on page 1153.
In the first place, the houses are all built on posts, some of them twenty feet in height, and the mode of access to them is by climbing up a notched pole, which answers the purpose of a ladder. The chief dwelling in every village, and indeed practically the village itself, is the long house, which is of wonderfully large dimensions. One of these houses, measured by Mr. St. John, was more than five hundred and thirty feet long, and was inhabited by nearly five hundred people.
Throughout the entire length of the house runs the broad veranda or common room, which is open to all the members, and at the side are rooms partitioned off for the different families, as many as sixty or seventy such rooms being sometimes seen in one long house. Although the veranda is common ground to all the tribe, and in it the members go through their various sedentary occupations, each family occupies by tacit consent the portion of the veranda opposite their own rooms.
These rooms are strictly private, and none except the members of the family, or their intimate friends, would think of entering them. The chief or Orang-kaya of the long house has a much larger room than the others, and the space in front of his room is considered to be devoted to the use of the lesser chiefs and councillors, and, although free to all the inhabitants, is frequented almost entirely by the old men and warriors of known courage.
One of the rooms inhabited by the Orang-kaya was visited by Mr. Boyle, and was not an attractive apartment. On each side of the entrance there was a piece of furniture somewhat resembling an old English plate-rack, upon the lower shelf of which was placed a flat stone. In spite of the heat, which was terrific, a large fire was burning on the stone, and on the range above were wood, rice, pots, and other utensils. There was no chimney to the house, but a sort of flap in the roof was lifted up, and kept open by a notched stick. This flap answered both for window and chimney, and when it was closed the room was in total darkness, beside being at once filled with smoke.
The height of the chamber was barely seven feet, and the space was rendered still more limited by the weapons, girdles, mats, mosquito curtains, strings of boars’ tusks, aprons, and other property, that hung from the rafters. The sides were adorned with a quantity of English and Dutch crockery, each piece being in a separate rattan basket and suspended from the wall. The house being an old one, the smell was abominable; and the Orang-kaya’s chamber was, on the whole, a singularly uncomfortable residence.
A number of fire-places, varying according to the population of the house, are arranged along the veranda, and, as a general rule, one of the primitive ladders already mentioned is placed at either end, so that when a visitor enters the house, he sees throughout its entire length, the range of his eye being only interrupted by the posts, which after supporting the floor pass upward and serve also to support the roof. Outside this veranda extends another, called the outer veranda. It has no roof, and is exposed to the blazing sunbeams. It is used, not as a habitation, but as a kind of storehouse and drying ground.