A head feast consists in a general meeting of the tribe in the man’s house who gives the entertainment. He prepares for it two or three months before it takes place, collecting fish, fowls, eggs, plantains, and other fruits, and in manufacturing an intoxicating drink from rice. When all these things are ready, poles are cut of various lengths, one for each of the heads that may be there to be rejoiced over; there are also fantastically-shaped wooden birds, which undergo various evolutions in the house; and, after the feast is over, are placed on the top of the before-mentioned poles, with their heads turned in the direction of the enemies’ country. The people, dressed in their best clothes, collect in the house, and commence the feast by all the youthful portion of the community engaging in cock-fighting—real cock-fights, too often with very formidable steel spurs. They are very partial to this amusement, and will go far and pay much for a good bird, and will bet heavily on a well-known cock.
After some hours engaged in this amusement, they commence drinking and eating, a part of the ceremony which does not entice the European stranger, nor can the peculiar smell increase his appetite. It is an extraordinary accumulation of food: fowls roasted with their feathers on, and then torn joint from joint; eggs black from age, decayed fruit, rice of all colours and kinds, strong-smelling fish, almost approaching a state of rottenness; and their drink having the appearance and the thickness of curds, in which they mix pepper and other ingredients. It has a sickening effect upon them, and they swallow it more as a duty than because they relish it. Before they have added any extraneous matter it is not unpleasant, having something of the taste of spruce beer.
They have then several processions, each headed by chiefs marching with grave countenances, and followed by a youthful crowd. Their movements are not graceful while parading about a house, as they put their bodies into the stiffest postures. The women also, adorned with trappings and beads of every colour, walk up and down, scattering yellow rice about the house and on the heads of the men. The feast lasts three days and nights, and winds up by their becoming amicably intoxicated, always excepting the women, who do not drink, but take care of their drunken husbands and relatives. This feast is intended as an offering to Batara, on account of their success against enemies, and as a thanksgiving for a plentiful harvest. To fail in this testimony of gratitude would be grievous in their eyes. The Sea Dayaks follow the custom of Pamali, or taboo, and believe in omens.[1]
Head-hunting.—This practice has no doubt obtained among the Dayaks from the earliest times, and when carried on by the interior tribes very few lives were lost; but it much retarded the progress of the country, as it rendered life and property insecure. The Sakarang and Seribas, within the memory of living men, were a quiet, inoffensive people, paying taxes to their Malay chiefs, and suffering much from their oppressive practices,—even their children being seized and sold into slavery. When the Malay communities quarrelled they summoned their Dayak followers around them, and led them on expeditions against each other. This accustomed the aborigines to the sea; and being found hard-working and willing men, the Malays and Lanun pirates took them out in their marauding expeditions, dividing the plunder—the heads of the killed for the Dayaks, the goods and captives for themselves.
Gradually they began to feel their own strength and superiority of numbers. In their later expeditions the Malays have followed rather than led. The longing these Dayaks have acquired for head-hunting is surprising. They say, “The white men read books, we hunt for heads instead.” Until the Sarawak Government curbed their proceedings they were known to coast down as far as Pontianak, and occasionally they had been met forty miles out at sea in their rattan-tied boats, some of them seventy feet in length. In rough weather most of the crew jump overboard and hold on to the sides while the rest bale the boat out. They say, when this occurs in places suspected to be frequented by sharks, they each tie a bundle of the tuba plant round their ancles to drive the devouring fish away. The juice of the tuba is the one used to intoxicate fish.
About thirteen years ago, I heard the Natuna people give an account of a horrible transaction that took place in one of their islands. A party of Seribas Dayaks were cruising about among the little isles near, and had destroyed several women and many fishermen, when they were observed, towards evening, creeping into a deep and narrow inlet to remain during the night. The islanders quietly assembled and surprised their enemies, killing all but seven, who were taken prisoners—six men and one lad. The former they roasted over a slow fire, and they declared that the bold fellows died without uttering a cry of pain, but defying them to the last; the lad, who stood trembling by, uncertain of his fate, was sent back to the coast with a message to his countrymen, that if they ever came there again, they would be all treated in the same way. This fearful warning was sufficient to deter their seeking heads again in that direction.
Parties of two and three sometimes went away for months on an inland incursion, taking nothing with them but salt wrapped up in their waist-cloths, with which they seasoned the young shoots, and leaves, and palm cabbages, found in the forests; and when they returned home, they were as thin as scarecrows. It is this kind of cat-like warfare which causes them to be formidable enemies both to the Chinese and the Malays, who never feel themselves safe from a Dayak enemy. They have been known to keep watch in a well up to their chins in water, with a covering of a few leaves over their heads to endeavour to cut off the first person who might come to draw water. At night they would drift down on a log, and cut the rattan cable of trading prahus, while others of their party would keep watch on the bank, knowing well where the stream would take the boat ashore; and when aground they kill the men and plunder the goods.
An atrocious case happened many years ago up the Batang Lupar, where a young man started on an expedition by himself to seek for a head from a neighbouring tribe. In a few days he came back with the desired prize. His relatives questioned him how it was he had been away so few days, as they had never been able to do the same journey in double the time. He replied gravely that the spirits of the woods had assisted him.
About a month afterwards a headless trunk was discovered near one of their farms, and on inquiry being made, it was found to be the body of an old woman of their own tribe, not very distantly related to the young fellow himself. He was only fined by the chief of the tribe, and the head taken from him and buried.
If a large party intended starting under a leader of any note, they waited till he had first built a hut not far from the village, and listened for an omen from the cry of the birds. As soon as a good one was heard, they started; and when a certain distance from home, stopped and held a consultation, in which they decided on the mode of attack, and how the heads, captives, and plunder should be divided. Large rivers intervening did not deter them, as they could always build boats, tying them together with rattans, each being capable of holding about thirty men. On their return they hid the planks in the jungle, to be used on a future occasion.