“The Dutch will not allow them,” the latter replied.
“So that you only abandon the practice because it is prohibited. Don’t you consider head-hunting an abominable occupation?”
“Who can say? Perhaps according to my views it is not,” was the phlegmatic reply, proving that the perception of its horror had not greatly impressed him.
While they were conversing in this strain the night crept on and day at last reappeared, to the great delight of our travellers.
They examined the kotta carefully and found nothing but the decapitated body of their late companion. A small pool of blood was discovered at a little distance from it, while at one of the openings in the palisades some bloody finger-marks appeared on the wood-work. They therefore concluded that the enemy had also suffered loss, although to the utter disappointment of the Swiss no bodies could be found.
“Do you think those blackguards got off scot free?” Schlickeisen asked earnestly.
“Certainly not,” Johannes answered, “for I could follow traces of blood as far as the river, where they took to their rangkan. We shall have to examine the ground more thoroughly. But you must not forget that the natives of the Dutch Indies consider it the greatest disgrace to leave the bodies of their fallen brethren behind.”
After having examined the kotta the deserters passed outside through one of the openings to scour the neighborhood. In [[108]]their explorations they reached a spot the long grass of which was trodden down. When Schlickeisen had cut a way through the thick creepers and bushes he found two bodies dressed in full war costume, with their coats of mail made of rattan chain and caps of monkey skin on their heads, their shields in their left hands and their naked mandauws in their right. According to Dalim they were Poenans, a Dayak tribe belonging to the interior of Borneo, near the sources of the Kahajan-Doesson and Kotei rivers. Both of these men must have destroyed many victims judging by the tufts of human hair which ornamented the blades and handles of their mandauws. They were young men still, and yet Dalim averred that one of them had killed four and the other seven people, facts which were proved by the number of red rattan rings round the sheaths of their mandauws.
The weapons and coats of mail of the dead were appropriated by the two Dayaks, and their bodies were then thrown into the river as an offering to Djata, the Chief of the Crocodiles. Their own fallen companion they washed carefully and painted his forehead and nails, after which they and the Europeans dug a grave and buried him, putting his head in position above his trunk. They placed a mandauw in his hand and deposited his lance beside him in the grave. Each of them then strewed a handful of raw rice over the body, saying,
“Djetoh akam,” (this is for you).