Westcott & Thomson,
Electrotypers, Phila.
Press of J. B. Lippincott Company,
Phila.
PREFACE
While to scenery, it is distance,—and photography,—which lends enchantment, it is, on the contrary, propinquity which, in my experience, lends to the Borneo Head-Hunters and to their Home-life, a charm which cannot be wholly dispelled even by the skulls hanging from the rafters of their houses. After living among them, for months at a time, an insight is gained into their individualities and peculiarities which a casual sojourn can never disclose. Some, of course, are ill-tempered, crotchety, selfish; others, again, are mild, gentle, generous. The youths have their languishing loves, which they are eager to confide to sympathetic ears. The maidens are coy, or demure, or bashful, when their lovers are near, and delight in teasing and tormenting. The Bornean mothers and fathers think their babies the prettiest that ever were born; and the young boys are as boyish as school-boys here at home, and are quite as up to all mischief.
It is so much easier to descend than it is to rise in what we call civilization, that, before a month is passed in a Kayan or a Kenyah house, the host and hostess, who, on first sight, seemed to be uncouth savages, frightfully mutilated as to eyes, ears, and teeth, are regarded as kind-hearted, devoted friends. It becomes well-nigh impossible to realise that they cannot add the simplest of sums without the aid of fingers and toes; and that Cæsar, Shakespeare, and Washington are to them meaningless, unpronounceable words.
Their honesty, (in a twelve months’ residence the only thing stolen from me was a tooth-powder bottle,) their simple, child-like nature, their keen interest in the pursuit of the moment, and their vivacious excitability, place them in advance of any ‘savages’ with whom I have ever, in my many wanderings, come in contact.
The greater part of my time in Borneo was spent among the Kayans and Kenyahs of the Baram district of Sarawak; consequently, in the following pages I have barely mentioned the Dayaks, (or Ibans, as they call themselves,) or any of the coast tribes, of whose home-life I saw comparatively little; so much has been already written about these tribes that I am jealous for my friends of the far interior.
I have refrained from giving dates, or details, as to the height of the thermometer, or as to my personal comfort or health, or as to the number of men who carried my luggage, or what I had for breakfast, or dinner,—items extremely important at the time, but of no permanent or public interest whatsoever.
I have attempted to portray the impressions made on a mind which I endeavoured to keep wholly unprejudiced, and even free from all tendency to despise as gross superstition that which by the natives is deemed holy and religious. I do not wish to forget that I was received as an honoured guest in Kayan Long-houses; it is a sorry payment to vilify my hosts. Rather let me throw what charm I may over the daily round of the natives’ dateless life.