Their priests have little or no knowledge of medicine, but trust, in most cases, to their occult sciences. In ordinary sickness the relatives are attentive, but not so, as I have said, when there is a sweeping epidemic, as small-pox; in such cases they think it to be useless striving against so formidable a spirit. When cholera was in the country, the Dayaks lost comparatively few, as they healed those taken with it by rubbing and warmth; but the Malays appeared to have done everything they should not have done—drinking, when in health, nothing but hot water, taking no exercise, and only eating a little rice; the consequence was they were too weak to strive against the complaint when seized. The most successful system practised by the natives appears to be to rub the stomach and limbs with cajput oil (kayu putih oil), and administer a strong dose of spirits immediately the first symptoms are perceived. It is said a few drops of the oil are also given with success. When the cholera, after committing great ravages in the capital, appeared among the Muruts and Bisayas of Limbang, they all fled from their villages, retiring to the hills and the depths of the forest; their loss was very slight.
The women manufacture a coarse cloth; making and dyeing their own yarn, beating out the cotton with small sticks, and, by means of a spinning-wheel, running it off very quickly. The yarn is not so fine as what they can buy of English manufacture, but it is stronger, and keeps its colour remarkably well; and no cloth wears better than Dayak cloth.
Their agricultural pursuits are limited in number, and with little labour the soil yields sufficient crops to supply their wants. They plant rice once a year; those who live on dry and high land have also cotton and tobacco. They grow enough sugar-cane for their own eating, not for making sugar; and they are so eager for gain, that it would not be difficult to induce them to plant crops requiring only ordinary superintendence. They sow the cotton-seed after the rice harvest. Their agricultural instruments are strong swords, made by themselves from imported iron, used for cutting grass or young jungle; and a kind of small axe and adze in one, by turning the iron in its socket. This instrument they use in shaping out planks for boats, and for felling the larger trees; and, in their hands, it brings down the timber as fast as an English axe would in the hands of a backwoodsman. One method they adopt for getting rid of old jungle is this:—first of all, they clear away the underwood and the branches near the ground, then with their axes they cut the larger trees more than half through; at last, choosing some giant of the forest, they fell it completely: in its fall it drags all the others after it, as they are connected together by twining creepers of great size and strength. It is a dangerous practice, and requires care to avoid the wide-spread fall, that comes to the earth with an awful crash.
They obtain bees’-wax from the nests built on the tapang tree, and climb the loftiest heights in search of it, upon small sticks, which they drive as they advance up the noble stem that rises above a hundred feet free of branches, and whose girth varies from fifteen to five-and-twenty feet. Once these pegs are driven in, their outer ends are connected by a stout rattan, which, with the tree, forms a kind of ladder.
It requires cool and deliberate courage to take a bee-hive at so great an elevation, where, in case of being attacked by the bees, the almost naked man would fall and be dashed to atoms. They depend upon the flambeaux they carry up with them, as, when the man disturbs the hive, the sparks falling from it cause, it is said, the bees to fly down in chase of them, instead of attacking their real enemy, who then takes the hive and lowers it down by a rattan string. The bees escape unhurt. This plan does not appear to be as safe as that pursued by the Pakatan Dayaks, who kindle a large fire under the trees, and, throwing green branches upon it, raise so stifling a smoke that the bees rush forth, and the man ascending takes their nest in safety. Both these operations are generally conducted at night, although the second might be, I imagine, practised in safety during the day.
There is a custom existing among the Dayaks of the Batang Lupar which I have not heard of elsewhere. Beside one of the paths in the Undup district there are several heaps of sticks; and in other places, of stones, called “tambun bula,” or lying heaps. Each heap is in remembrance of some man who has told a stupendous lie, or disgracefully failed in carrying out an engagement; and every passer-by takes a stick or a stone to add to the accumulation, saying, at the time he does it, “For So-and-so’s lying heap.” It goes on for generations, until they sometimes forget who it was that told the lie; but, notwithstanding that, they continue throwing the stone.
At another place, near many cross roads, there is a tree on which are hung innumerable pieces of rag; each person passing tears a little bit of cloth from his costume and sticks it there. They have forgotten the origin of this practice, but fear for their health if they neglect it. One Dayak observed, “It is like that custom of some European nations giving passports to those who enter or leave their country.” If this be a true explanation, it is, perhaps, to give the spirits of the woods notice who have passed that way, and the Dayak’s observation shows how quick they are, and how well they remember what they have heard.
They practise various ordeals; among others, two pieces of native salt, of equal weight, are placed in water; that appertaining to the guilty party melts immediately; the other, they affirm, keeps its form; but, in fact, the one that disappears first proves the owner to be in the wrong. Another is with two land shells, which are put on a plate and lime-juice squeezed upon them, and the one that moves first shows the guilt or innocence of the owner, according as they have settled previously whether motion or rest is to prove the case. They talk of another, where the hand is dipped into boiling water or oil, and innocence is proved by no injury resulting. The favourite ordeal, however, is the dipping the head under water, and the first who puts up his face to breathe loses the case.
I need only observe, concerning their language, that the Sibuyaus, the Balaus, the Undups, the Batang Lupars, the Sakarangs, Seribas, and those inhabitants of the Rejang living on the Kanowit and Katibas branches, all speak the same language, with no greater modifications than exist between the English spoken in London and Somersetshire. They are, in fact, but divisions of the same tribe; and the differences that are gradually growing up between them principally arise from those who frequent the towns and engage in trade, using much Malay in their conversations, and allowing their own words to fall into disuse. The agricultural inhabitants of the farther interior are much more slowly influenced.