The expression of all classes and of both sexes of these people is that of a subdued melancholy. A man fresh from Europe would doubtless notice many more peculiarities in these tribes, which being familiar to me pass without remark. Their houses I have before described, and what is suitable for the one is so for the other. Nearly all the representatives present are but those of the branches of a single tribe which has for many years been scattered. Their language is the same in words, though the accent is occasionally different—the effect of separation and other causes. It is difficult, without long and minute investigation, to familiarize oneself with their individual history and politics.
CHAPTER V.
LAND DAYAKS OF SIRAMBAU—THEIR SOCIAL LIFE.
Madame Pfeiffer—Chinese Village—Chinese Maidens—Sirambau—Ascent of the Mountain—Difficult Climbing—Forests of Fruit Trees—Scenery—Sirambau Village—Houses—The “Look-out”—Scenery—Head-houses—Orang Kaya Mita—His modest Request—Sir James Brooke’s Cottage—Natural Bath-house—Chinese Gold Workings—Tapang Trees—Social Life of the Land Dayaks—Ceremonies at a Birth—Courtship—Betrothment—Marriage—Burial—Graves—The Sexton—Funeral Feast—Children—Female Chastity—Divorces—Cause of Separations—Anecdote.
Madame Pfeiffer, the traveller, suddenly made her appearance among us in December, 1851; she was a woman of middle height, active for her age, with an open countenance and a very pleasant smile. She lived with us for some days, and then we took her to visit the Dayaks of Sirambau on the right hand branch. We selected a very fast, long prahu, fitted up with a little cabin for her, and another for ourselves, and having a numerous crew, pulled past our usual resting-place at Ledah Tanah, and did not stop till we reached the Chinese village of Siniawan, where we took up our quarters for the night.
There are about three hundred Celestials settled here, principally engaged in shop-keeping, though a few cultivate gardens. They are evidently thriving, as the Dayaks of the surrounding country resort to this place, and there is a constant influx of Chinese and Malay gold workers. Their women, half-breeds, are better-looking than any others in this part of the world; some of the girls were handsome, in one point they set a bright example to their neighbours, and that is in cleanliness. The Malay girls bathe at least three times a day, but are not careful of the condition of their clothes, while the Dayaks are too often neglectful of both their skins and their coverings.
It was quite a pleasure to look at the little Chinese maidens in their prim, neat dresses, and their parents evidently have a pride in their appearance. To them Madame Pfeiffer was a great attraction, and a crowd followed her everywhere, and wondered at the eagerness she displayed in the chase of a butterfly, or the capture of an insect.
Siniawan is situated on a plain near the foot of the Sirambau mountain, and affords an excellent market for the produce of the interminable fruit groves that cover the lower part of its slopes, and extend for miles beyond.
As Madame Pfeiffer had never seen a Dayak village, we thought she would like to visit these rather primitive people, who reside about eleven hundred feet up the sides of the mountain. Sirambau is separated from the surrounding ranges, and from the sea appears of great length, while from one view near Siniawan, it is a single peak seventeen hundred feet in height. At a few spots, we saw groves of cocoa-nuts varying the colour of the jungle, and these were at the villages of the Dayaks, all more than a thousand feet above us.
In the morning we collected a band of mountaineers to shoulder our baggage, and proceeded towards the hill. The soil around had lately been cleared, and afforded no shelter from the burning sun. I imagine Madame Pfeiffer, in all her travels, had never met worse paths, particularly when we commenced ascending the hill. It appeared exactly as if the Dayaks had chosen the bed of a mountain torrent as the proper approach to their houses. At first the stones were arranged as a rough paving, then as rougher steps, and at last it became so steep, rock piled on rock, that notched trunks of trees leaning against them were the only means of ascending.
But, if the climbing were difficult, we were partly compensated by the shade of the lofty fruit-trees growing in glorious confusion on either side of our path. Crowded as closely as in the jungle, durians, mangustins, and every variety of fruit-tree, jostled each other for the light, and spoilt the symmetry of their forms. I have not seen elsewhere durian-trees of proportions so magnificent, some above ten feet in circumference, and rising to the height of a hundred and twenty feet. When the season is good, it is dangerous to walk in a grove of these trees, as a breeze gently shaking the ripe fruit from its hold, it falls heavily to the ground. They are often a foot in length, and eight inches in diameter, and many a story was told us of Dayaks being brought home insensible through a blow from a falling durian.