Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania

by Jewett C. Gilson

Safe it is to say that the native tribes will not accomplish this result, for they are among the most debased and disgusting savages on the face of the earth. Many of these tribes are Malays governed by chiefs, or dattoes. Some of the tribes near the coast carry on a crude sort of farming, which is encouraged by the Chinese merchants who buy their produce. Some of the interior tribes just live, being both lazy and vicious. For food, there is an abundance of bananas and meat. As to the meat, it makes little or no difference about the kind; any animal whose flesh has become putrid is relished.

The most interesting natives of Borneo, however, are the Dyaks, the people from whom the Moros of the Philippine Islands are descended. They are perhaps the most intelligent, but certainly the most troublesome peoples. They are best known as the "head-hunters" of Borneo. Among themselves, the one who has killed the greatest number of people is the greatest man of the tribe, and the heads of his victims are the testimony to his greatness. So the head-hunters kill just for the pleasure of killing, and the heads of their victims are kept as trophies. Not all Dyak tribes are head-hunters, however.

When they are not off on head-hunting expeditions, the Dyaks are very industrious farmers. They are fond of ornaments. The men of some of the tribes wear richly embroidered jackets; the women may wear waists made of fine rattan strung with metal beads and ornaments. They may even wear crowns of burnished metal; at all events, they are certain to wear earrings of astonishing size—perhaps three or four inches across and made of solid brass. To hold these pieces of native jewelry the lobes of the ears, after they have been pierced, are stretched until they form loops two inches or more in length.

The men also are fond of earrings and similar ornaments, but a real Dyak swell does not consider himself properly in style until his front teeth are filed away so that they are notched and shut together like the teeth of a steel trap. Moreover, he cannot hope to obtain a wife unless he has at least one head as a trophy.

In hunting, the Dyak often makes use of the blow-gun. This weapon, for short distances, is about as sure and true as a rifle. It is a wooden tube four or five feet in length, the bore of which is made very straight and smooth. The arrow, or dart, fits the bore of the tube. To make sure of the game the tip of the dart is dipped in a most deadly poison; so that, if it merely breaks the skin of the animal at which it is shot, it makes a wound that is quickly fatal.

Unlike most of the natives of the tropical Indies, instead of living in villages, the Dyaks frequently live in communal houses. Sometimes twenty or more families live in the same house, which is not unlike the communal houses of the American Indian, except that it is surrounded by a broad veranda.

Hunting honey in the forests is one of the native sports. The forests of certain parts of Borneo seem to be alive with wild bees. As a result, honey and wax are very abundant. The honey-bear gets a good share of the wild honey, for his shaggy hide is proof against the stings of the bees. The Dyak hunter has no shaggy coating to protect him; so he goes about robbing the bees in a more scientific manner.

The bees seem to prefer the mengalis tree, which has so many angles and hollow places about its trunk that to build the comb is an easy matter. Not infrequently there may be fifty or more swarms in a single tree. When a bee-tree is to be robbed, great piles of a certain plant or weed are collected and put in such a position that the smoke will be carried against the nesting-places of the swarms. The piles are then fired. The smoke neither kills the bees nor does it drive them off; it merely stupefies them. When the humming of the bees is hushed, comb and honey are easily removed. A considerable part of the wax is exported, but thousands of tons are wasted.

Hunting in the forests of Borneo has its unpleasant features, for the leeches are almost as numerous as the leaves of the trees. They are big, fat, ugly-looking slugs, but they can stretch their bodies into a small, thin form. When waiting for a victim they lengthen and sway their threadlike bodies to and fro, ready to launch out at the first opportunity. So gently do they commence their work that the pricking sensation is felt only when they are gorged with blood and begin to loosen their hold.

The gathering of edible birds' nests, built by a kind of swallow, is quite an industry, and is confined to the rocky-cliff sections of certain parts of the coast where cover abounds. This species of swallow is smaller than the common swallow and builds its nest either in the dark limestone caverns or in the crevices and nooks of the overhanging cliffs. The chief material used in constructing the nest is a glutinous saliva produced by the bird itself. The Chinese are very fond of the nests, and Chinese merchants buy most of them.