The Ibans, consequently, found the Leppu Anan houses deserted and stripped of everything movable. Whereupon, not to be baulked of all spoils whatever, they attacked some of the friendly houses, the abodes of the very people who, on their journey up-river, had cheerily and kindly wished them success in their head-hunting. To the Bornean a head is a head, whether of friend or foe; so on this occasion the Ibans returned to their homes laden with spoils of their friends and enriched with heads which had not been on the shoulders of those against whom they had set out.
The Leppu Anans, in their new house, although they still harboured the small clan of Lerons who had vowed vengeance on Dr. Hose, nevertheless regarded Dr. Hose as their preserver, and no trouble taken in his behalf could be too great. They are quiet and gentle in their manners and very clean in their persons and about the house. We noticed with much relief that they did not throng about us, asking such inane questions the minute that we had landed, as, ‘When did you arrive?’ or, when helping us to disembark, ‘Did you come in a boat?’—questions which are really not at all unusual even from the very men who have been paddling your boat all day long. Possibly, true etiquette demands such questions among the natives themselves, who, for some occult reason, always desire their actual arrival and departure to pass unnoticed.
These Leppu Anans were intensely interested in my photographs, and literally climbed on each other’s shoulders to see them. In their anxiety to touch the page itself, they nearly crushed the lucky holder of the book. The picture which excited their unstinted admiration is of two Ibans bargaining for the sale of a highly prized Chinese jar; they read the meaning of it at once, explaining it over and over to each other; but opinion was divided as to the balance of trade; some thought the owner was a fool to refuse the pile of silver dollars which the purchaser was offering, while others contended that the man who offered so mean a sum for so fine a jar must have been crazy. (When I showed the photograph to the wife of the man who had posed for me as the owner, she was extremely indignant, protesting that I had no right to represent Angas as such a fool! No sensible man would ever refuse that pile of money for such a common old jar. She felt actually defrauded of all that wealth, and I am sure she looked on me as a thief.)
At noon the next day the Peace-party, which we had left to finish up the ‘seven’ span pig at Aban Liah’s, came up-river, and we all set out together on the last stage of the journey to Tama Aping Buling’s.
It was an exciting day’s travel; the rapids were extremely swift, and the Kayans, Kenyahs, Sibops, Berawans, Leppu Anans, and Lerons became inextricably intermingled in forcing their canoes past dangerous rocks and through narrows where the water rushed with almost irresistible power. Every man of the large assemblage was at the highest tension of excitement in anticipation of the stirring ceremonies close at hand, which after all, in the twinkling of an eye, by the merest accident, or by some trivial flaw in etiquette amid so large a body of hostile clans, might be converted to bloody battle.
When Tama Bulan was forced to leave us and turn back with his sick nephew, he provided, with usual forethought, a small pig, which was to be swiftly forwarded to Tama Aping Buling’s in advance of the Peace-party. In punctillious observance of native customs on such exalted occasions as the present, the pig must be sacrificed on the beach before the Kayans and Kenyahs disembarked. We were positively assured by Aban Liah on leaving his house, that the piglet had been sent on ahead the night before to Tama Aping Buling’s house at Long Dapoi; wherefore, when the Peace-party arrived, everything would be ceremoniously carried out. Our boat, a little in advance of the others, was gliding smoothly on a long stretch of quiet water just above turbulent rapids, when we were met by some men in a canoe from Tama Aping Buling’s; a short excited announcement from them revealed to us that all was not going rightly up-river; accordingly, we changed to their lighter boat, and sped up-stream, leaving our luggage and the Peace-party to follow as they could. The men who poled the canoe could talk but very little of any language but Sibop, so we hardly knew what was amiss until we arrived at the house. On the beach, we were met by Tama Aping Buling himself, almost in tears; before we could get fairly out of the boat, he squatted down, and, in a voice of despair, said, ‘Oh, Tuan Prenta, what shall be done! No pig has been sent to sacrifice when the Kayans arrive. There will be war instead of peace.’ It was even so. That old traitor, Aban Liah, had purposely kept back Tama Bulan’s pig in order that the Peace-making should be a failure, and that his rival, Tama Aping Buling, should get into trouble. Dr. Hose instantly turned and started down-stream to meet the Kayans, and keep them down-river until Aban Liah should either restore the pig or procure another and send it on ahead of them. Aban Liah was serenely imperturbable when accused to his face of the theft of the pig, and of his plot to create trouble; but eventually Dr. Hose’s unsparing denunciation, combined with the sullen threats of the tired Kayans, eager for the comfortable shelter of a house for the night, forced him actually to leave the party, and paddle off down-river to buy or borrow the indispensable little pig.
IBANS BARGAINING OVER THE SALE OF VALUABLE CHINESE JARS.
THE OFFER OF FIFTY MEXICAN DOLLARS IS TREATED WITH HAUGHTY REFUSAL. THE TWO MEN POSED THEMSELVES, AFTER MY SUGGESTION, FOR THE SUBJECT OF THE PICTURE.
They told us afterward that at house after house he was rebuffed, and, although there were plenty of pigs everywhere, not one could he borrow, beg, or steal, so universally disliked was he for his mean, tricky ways. Night came before he finally succeeded in procuring the sacrifice, so that the wearied Kayans were forced to sleep in their canoes, or in huts of boughs which they built on a pebbly island in midstream, and endure a drenching deluge of rain, illumined by such blinding lightning and deafening thunder as only the Tropics know.