A low retreating forehead throws the face of the Orang Sletar forwards, though the jaw is rather perpendicular than projecting.[66]
Such are the Orang Binua originally, or at present, in contact with the small and isolated possessions of the British in the Malayan peninsula.
Of the proper Malays I have said next to nothing. Excellent works give full accounts of them;[67] whilst it is not through them that the true ethnological problems are to be worked.
I believe that when we reach Borneo, the equivalents to the Orang Binua, or the original populations[211] in opposition to the Mahometan Malays, become referable to a fresh type, and that instead of being darker than the true Malays they are often lighter. At any rate, one thing is certain, viz., that, whether the skin be brown, blackish, or fair, the language belongs to the same stock.
Again—although in one area the darker tribes may preponderate, it is not to the absolute exclusion of the fairer. The Dyaks of Borneo are, generally speaking, light-complexioned; yet, there is special evidence to the existence of dark tribes in that island. On the other hand there is equal evidence to the existence of families lighter-skinned than the true Malays in the peninsula. Nevertheless, as a general rule, the departure from the type of that population is towards darkness of colour on the continent, and towards lightness in Borneo.
With what physical conditions these differences coincide is not always easy to be discerned. In the South Sea Islands, where in one and the same Archipelago, we find some tribes tall and fair, whereas others are dark and ill-featured, it has been remarked by Captain Beechy that this contrast of complexion coincides with the geological structure of the soil. The lower and more coralline the island, the blacker the islanders; the more elevated and volcanic, the lighter. In Africa, it is the low alluvia of rivers that favour[212] the Negro configuration. Mountains or table-lands, on the other hand, give us red or yellow skins, rather than sable.
The Dyaks, then, are light-coloured Pagans, speaking languages allied to the Malay; little touched by Arabic, and less by Hindú influences; with manners and customs that, more or less, re-appear amongst the Battas (or ruder tribes of Sumatra), and the so-called Harafuras of Celebes—and not only here but elsewhere. In other words, in all the islands, where Indian and Arabic civilization have not succeeded in wholly changing the primitive character, analogues of the Orang Binua are to be found; their greatest differences being those of stature and complexion—differences upon which good judges have laid great stress; but differences which will probably be found to coincide with certain geological conditions in the way of physical, and with a lower level of civilization in the way of moral causes—these moral causes having indirectly a physical action.
The Dyaks, in general, use the sumpitan, or blow-pipe, about five feet long; out of which some tribes shoot simple, others poisoned arrows. The utmost distance that the sumpitan carries is about one hundred yards. At twenty it is sure in its aim. The differences between the Dyak weapon, and one in use with the Arawaks[213] of Guiana is but trifling—perhaps it amounts to nothing at all.
Some Dyak tribes tattoo their bodies; others do not.
Before a Dyak youth marries he must lay at the feet of the bride-elect the head of an enemy. This makes head-hunting a normal item of Dyak courtship.