Tama Bulan is a Chief of the Kenyah tribe, and his home is between three and four hundred miles in the interior of the island, on the Pata River, a tributary of the Baram. His house is one of the largest and best built in that large district, and is, moreover, conducted on rigid principles of Kenyah morality. Of course, in such a community theft is unknown, where every one knows every article of property belonging to the others. Thieving being thus eliminated, one of the strictest rules in Tama Bulan’s house is that no woman, young or old, shall frequent the veranda after nightfall; young girls must remain in their family apartments, and if they have sweethearts they must entertain these sweethearts there, and not sit sentimentally with them in convenient dark corners, whereof there is no lack in a veranda. Another of Tama Bulan’s rules is wisely sanitary, namely, that no rice may be hulled in the veranda; the dust arising from the chaff is not only irritating to the nostrils, but is also apt to produce an itching rash on the skins of young children and infants. To each family is apportioned a small shed at the back of the house for the threshing and hulling of the rice; and where, moreover, the workers are to a certain degree secluded, and not liable to distraction and idleness as they would be in a veranda.
Tama Bulan himself is one of the best types of a Bornean Chief. Although only about five or six years ago he was a passionate head-hunter (and is still, I believe, in his heart of heart, having been carefully and religiously brought up by his parents), he is now a genuinely loyal and highly valuable subject to Rajah Brooke, and has been made a member of the ‘Council Negri,’ a legislative body composed of the Rajah, of the English Resident Officers of the first class, of several of the most influential Malays in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, and of three or four of the most trustworthy and intelligent of the native Chiefs. This Council Negri, one of the admirable devices of that wise legislator, Rajah Brooke, meets once a year to discuss what might be termed national affairs, and to lay before the Rajah all complaints or suggestions.
THE HANDLE OF A PARANG, OR SHORT SWORD, CARVED OUT OF DEER’S HORN, AND DECORATED WITH TUFTS OF HUMAN HAIR AND WHITE GOAT’S HAIR. THE DESIGN IS CALLED “KOHONG KALUNAN”—A MAN’S HEAD, BECAUSE IT IS COMPOSED OF SEVERAL GROTESQUE FACES.
Our host, with whom we became eventually intimately acquainted, and of whom I became very fond, (his staunch friendship on one occasion saved our lives,) was a man of about forty-five, well built, but not muscular in appearance, about five feet six inches tall, his face broad, cheek bones somewhat high, eyes wide apart, lips thin, and mouth large but well shaped; his smile is ready, kind, and benignant, and his laugh reveals two rows of polished, regular, and highly blackened teeth. In his general expression there is not the least suggestion of what we are pleased to term a savage; his demeanor was quiet, unobtrusive, and dignified, and his voice soft and subdued. In obedience to fashion (to whose behests every son of Adam is a slave) his ear-lobes are pierced, and by means of heavy copper rings, inserted in early infancy, are so elongated that they almost touch his shoulder. The upper part of each ear is also perforated, so as to permit the insertion of a tiger-cat’s tooth; this ornament is, however, inserted only for full dress; in every-day life a plug of wood about half an inch in diameter is substituted. These ‘looped and windowed’ ears serve, in the lack of clothing, as pockets, and are extremely convenient receptacles of cigarettes, or even of boxes of matches. His head is shaved in a straight line extending horizontally from one temple to another, but his straight, black hair is allowed to grow long at the back. I describe Tama Bulan thus somewhat at length because he is a typical and pure-blooded Kenyah.
The skin of the Kenyahs and Kayans is not yellow, but somewhat darker than a Chinaman’s; they have none of the characteristics of the thick-lipped African negro, nor have they the bushy, krinkly hair of the Papuans; nor the almond eyes, or the stretched inner canthus of the Mongolians.
On ordinary occasions, they wear nothing but a loin-cloth, made either of bark fibre of native manufacture, or of red, white, or black cotton cloth, bought from Chinese traders in the Bazaar (the Malay name for a trading-post). On their heads they wear a close-fitting, pointed cap made of thin strips of rattan, (or ‘rotan’ as they call it,) or of bamboo woven into a pretty chequered pattern of black and yellow; when exposed to the sun they often exchange this skull cap for a broad, flat disc made of palm leaves and tied to the head.
In order that we might not burden Tama Bulan and his canoes with our heavy luggage of several boxes of tinned provisions, cooking utensils, and not a few articles for judicious presents, such as tobacco, bolts of cheap cotton cloth, and a quantity of steel bars, wherefrom the natives forge parangs and spear-heads, Dr. Hose kindly lent his large dug-out, which afforded comfortable quarters for ourselves and also (a pleasant arrangement) for our host, the Chief. The dug-out was about sixty feet long and five feet wide amidship, made of a single log, but deepened considerably by the addition of planks bound along the sides with rattan and caulked, thus giving about six inches of additional freeboard. The party consisted of eight canoes, bearing Tama Bulan’s followers, and as they swung into view after their start from the Bazaar, a short distance below Dr. Hose’s bungalow, which stands on a high and steep bluff, they shouted to us and loudly rapped their paddles on the sides of the canoes, by way of urging us to hurry down to the bank, so great was their impatience to be fairly started on the homeward voyage. We had divided the central third of the canoe into two compartments, separated from each other by our luggage, sleeping mats, mosquito curtains, etc.; in the forward division we took up our quarters, reserving the aft division for Tama Bulan, who seemed to fill and overflow it with his shields, parangs, large sun-hats, bundles and baskets packed with cheap cloths, Malay sarongs, heavy copper ear-rings, pressed glass bowls, and beads of every description,—all commissions executed for his household and received in exchange for jungle products. Where, or how he managed to sleep I cannot imagine,—but he was the Chief, and uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. As for us, we were really comfortable with rubber blankets and thick rugs spread over the flooring of bamboo strips which rested on the thwarts amidship, except that after awhile, as sitting cross-legged became misery, we longed for a chance to dangle our legs. Overhead was a roof of ‘kajangs’—a thin thatch of palm leaves—to protect us from the sun and rain. As soon as the canoe was all packed, and our Chinese cook and two Malay servants were properly ensconced in other canoes, and it took a deal of excited shouting and innumerable shiftings before this was accomplished to the satisfaction of the crew of each canoe, the word was given, and with a few powerful strokes from the paddles which sent the spray dashing and the water eddying all about us, we were round the turn of the river and had bid adieu to even such comfort and civilization as the Baram Bazaar affords, and had fairly started on this journey to the far interior of Borneo, with its untold possibilities, at the mercy of unknown natives, of whose very language we knew not a word.
THE CHINESE BAZAAR AT CLAUDETOWN—BARAM FORT.