There are several kinds of crocodiles, broad and long snouted. In the Perak Museum is a specimen nearly twenty-five feet in length, but the longest that has been caught in Sarawak, and authentically measured, was nineteen feet. The Government gives a reward for killing these pests, which is paid upon some 250 to 300 annually brought to the police station at Kuching. More are killed in the various districts of which no record is kept.
Sharks of several species abound, but cases of injury by these are very rare.
Saw-fish are also common, and with their long spiny saws are dangerous creatures. A fisherman was killed by one of these at the mouth of the Sadong; he was in a small canoe when the fish, which he had cut at with his knife, struck him a blow on his neck with its saw, from which he died almost immediately.
Excellent fish are abundant, such as mackerel and herring, considerably larger than the English varieties, pomfret, barbel, soles, mullets, etc., and some of beautiful colours; also crabs, prawns, and oysters. The dugong (Malay duyong), the sea-cow, is rare in Sarawak, but common in North Borneo, as is also the whale; in Sarawak the latter are occasionally stranded on the beach. Turtles abound; these are preserved for the sake of their eggs, which are considered a great delicacy.
We will now consider the races that occupy Sarawak territory; and the following brief ethnological notes with regard to those of Indonesian stock will be all that is necessary for the purposes of this book; to attempt anything like an accurate classification of the many tribes and sub-tribes which differentiate the heterogeneous population of the country would be beyond its scope, even were it possible to trace the divergence of the cognate tribes from the original stock, and of the sub-tribes from the tribes. That there may have been earlier inhabitants of Borneo than those now existing in the island is possible. Traces of neolithic man have been found, but these may be due to the first settlers having brought with them stone weapons cherished as charms. Of paleolithic man not a trace has been discovered.[[17]] To attempt to determine the flow of mankind into the country, or to decide which of the tribes of Indonesian stock now found in Sarawak was the first to occupy the soil, is to undertake an impossible task.[[18]] It may be accepted that the most barbarous peoples, the Ukits, Bukitans, Punans, and other fast vanishing tribes, were the earliest inhabitants of whom we know anything, and that they were immigrants. But whence they came we know not. These tribes are all more or less related in language and customs, and in Borneo difference in names does not always denote any essential racial distinction.
UKIT CHIEF, WIFE AND CHILD.
A PUNAN.
As an instance of this we have the Lugats, of whom only a very few are left, the Lisums, the Bliuns, a tribe that has quite died out, the Segalangs, and the Seru Dayaks of the Kalaka, a tribe which is fast disappearing. The above sub-tribes take their name from rivers widely apart, and though their names differ they are of the same race, sub-tribes of the Ukits. Their tradition is that three or four hundred years ago the Ukits lived in the Lugat (now the Gat) river, a branch of the Baleh (hence we have the Lugats now living in the Anap), but they were driven out by the Kayans. Some went to the Lisum river (hence we have the Lisums), and some to Kapit, where they built strong houses on the site of the present fort, but these they were eventually forced to evacuate, and again they migrated down river, first to Tujong, near the Kanowit, and afterwards farther down again to Bunut, by Benatang. From Bunut they were driven out by their implacable foes, and they dispersed to Segalang (in the Rejang delta), to Bliun (in the Kanowit), and to Seru in the Kalaka.[[19]] This tradition is supported by the strong evidence of language, and there is little reason for disregarding it. After being driven out of Lugat, some of the Ukits went over to the Kapuas, where, as in the Baleh, to which river some eventually returned, they are still known as Ukits. The Bliuns, Segalangs, and Serus became civilised owing to contact with the Malays and Melanaus. The Ukits, Bukitans, and Punans, with the exception of the Punan Bah of Balui, are the wildest of all the races in the island. The Ukits are light in complexion; tall and well knit, and better looking than other inland tribes. Formerly they did not reside in houses, or cultivate the soil, but roamed about in the jungle, and subsisted on wild fruit and the animals they killed. But some of these have begun to erect poor dwellings, and do a little elementary farming. They are expert with the blow-pipe, and in the manufacture of the upas-poison, with which the points of their needle-like arrows are tinged. But it is quite open to question whether these poor savages may not be a degenerate race, driven from their homes and from comparative civilisation by more powerful races that followed and hunted them from their farms to the jungle. Beccari (op. cit. p. 363) says that they "are savages in the true name of the word, but they are neither degraded nor inferior races in the series of mankind. Their primitive condition depends more than anything else on their nomadic or wandering life, and on the ease with which they live on the produce of the forests, and on that of the chase which the sumpitan (blow-pipe) procures for them. This has no doubt contributed to keep them from associating with their fellow-beings, and from settling in villages or erecting permanent houses. I believe that these, although they must be considered as the remnants of an ancient Bornean people, are not descended from autochthonous savages, but are rather the present-day representatives of a race which has become savage." And Beccari is of opinion "that it is difficult to deny that Borneo has had older and perhaps more primitive inhabitants." The natives have legends of former races having occupied the land; the most powerful were, according to the Punans, the Antu-Jalan, who lived in the Balui, around the mouth of the Belaga, where the fort of that name now stands. They disappeared, but have now returned in the persons of the white men. So the Punans believe, and other tribes hug other myths. These savage people are, or rather were, the bitter enemies of the Dayaks, and a terror to them. Silently and unperceived, they would steal on their hereditary enemies whilst these latter were collecting jungle produce, or employed on their farms, and wound them to death with their poisoned arrows.