Life in the forests of the Far East (vol. 2 of 2)

by Sir Spenser St. John

First. The head mission should be placed among the Dayak tribes, and a chaplain left at Kuching, as work, not society, should be the object aimed at.

Second. The schools should be removed from the contaminating influence of the town, and the left-hand branch of the river offers suitable spots.

Third. The missionaries should be placed in responsible positions over certain tribes, and with the same kind of authority as a clergyman in a parish at home.

Fourth. The bishop should not interfere with the internal management of the local mission and the local schools, more than is at present done in England.

Fifth. The funds should not be dissipated in buying useless boats, or in trying to keep up abortive plantations, on which already large sums have been wasted. Enough has been lost to have built a church and missionary house in every section of Sarawak.

If these recommendations be stringently carried out at the first opportunity, there may be yet a bright future for the Sarawak Mission, which is, without doubt, one of the most interesting in the world.

I would earnestly draw attention to the fact that there is unoccupied room for missionaries in nearly all the rivers. Mr. Gomez does his duty well at Lundu, but there are not perhaps more than a thousand Dayaks there. Mr. Chambers at Lingga has probably seven thousand around him, and requires assistance to enable him to influence the whole tribe. There remain, therefore, nearly two hundred thousand Dayaks without a teacher among them, and there would be work there for a hundred missionaries. I am, however, convinced that spreading your strength is comparative weakness. The ground should be gradually occupied; and when one tribe had its teacher, it should not be considered enough to influence all the surrounding ones; but as the missionaries arrived, they should be sent to the very next tribe, and not away a hundred miles. The teaching would then act and react: the Dayaks would take an interest in comparing the ways and methods of their different pastors; and once awaken an interest, half the work is done.

One missionary left among a large population is lost. I have heard it said that occasional preaching in a tribe would do great good. I think not. Influence in the East depends on the personal character; but even defects may, and would be overlooked if the missionary showed a real interest in the affairs of his people, and this can only be displayed by one who has acquired his knowledge by continued and familiar intercourse with the tribe.

I think those who have read my chapters on the Dayaks will not fail to observe that they are an improvable race; that they do not possess any superstitions or beliefs likely to offer great obstacles to Christian teaching. If I have not created an interest in them, the fault is mine, not theirs.

Another point is worthy of attention. In the districts lately ceded to Sarawak, there is a curious population of Milanaus, half of them Mahomedans, the other half Pagans. They live together in the same villages, and probably their conversion is but skin-deep. At all events, the rest have refused to join the Islamites, as pork would then be forbidden. It is a great satisfaction to all the Dayaks, Kayans, and unconverted Milanaus, that the English, the superior and governing race, indulge in the flesh of the prohibited animal: they often talk of it with pleasure.