The home-life of Borneo head-hunters

by William Henry Furness

Just as we were pushing off in our canoe, a wild figure, with arms waving, and face distorted with malignant rage, dashed down the log-walk to the beach; there it turned and faced the house. It was Jamma, the corpse. Snatching off his war-cap of Tiger skin, he waved it, backward and forward above his head with frantic gestures, toward the house. We did not care to wait for the upshot of these remarkable antics, but pursued our tranquil course up the Dapoi, inhaling peace and repose beneath the over-arching boughs festooned with ferns and orchids.

SIBOP WOMEN AT THE HOUSE OF TAMA BALAN DENG.

Late in the afternoon, we landed at the house of Tama Balan Deng, a Sibop Chief, who received us kindly, and most hospitably gave up to us his own room, wherein throughout every minute of the entire night we were the objects of awestruck curiosity to his whole household, the larger part of whom had never before seen a white man; they sat immovably huddled together at one side of the room, and were the last objects that we saw on going to sleep, and when we awoke at dawn they were noiselessly creeping away.

Early in the day, to our surprise, Tama Aping Buling arrived in his canoe, in a state of painful excitement over Jamma’s conduct of the day before, whose antics were now explained. As soon as we had left, the old rascal, tired of being a corpse, fell into a violent rage with the universe, and had stormed down to the beach, and there had cursed with his awful Tiger skin cap every bit of timber in the house, together with all its inmates, big and little, old and young, and all the Kayans, root and branch, who had been in it, and ended up with the white men who had half-killed him. The house, as I said above, had just been built, at a cost of infinite labor and great expense; but after such a blood-curdling curse had been launched at it, to Tama Aping Buling’s superstitious mind, the domicile was for ever banned and ruined. The object of the poor fellow’s hurried visit was to ask Dr. Hose if he did not think it best that the whole structure should be immediately destroyed; it took much serious argument from Dr. Hose to dissuade the disconsolate Tama Aping from the determination to empty his house of all movables and then set fire to it.

This account of Jamma’s malevolence did not exhaust Tama Aping’s budget. He brought the latest news of Aban Liah, whom we had last seen stricken down by the dreadful omen in the pig’s liver. The most skilful Dayongs had been summoned to keep the soul of the old Berawan Chief from wholly deserting his body, and, at last reports, they had grave doubts as to their success in finding whither it had temporarily flown, unless several additional parang blades and three or four more bolts of cloth were given to them, wherewith they could bribe the Spirits who were luring far away the soul of Aban Liah; they were sorely afraid that, in spite of all their exertions, the soul would evade them and slip off to Bulun Matai. We despatched the necessary spiritual bribes, and then continued our journey to the home of the Punans.

Four days afterward, when we left the Dapoi and again turned into the Tinjar, we stopped at the scene of the Great Peace making, and there we learned the end of Aban Liah’s tragic story. The fate foretold so clearly by the liver of the Government’s albino pig had been fulfilled. The conscience-stricken soul of the faithless Aban Liah had, indeed, departed to the Fields of the Dead. From the moment that he saw that ulcerous liver, and realized its plain indication to himself he sickened, became delirious, and within forty-eight hours was dead!

There happened to be in one of the boats of our party an old woman, a distant relative of Aban Liah, and when the news of his death was first shouted to us from a boat which we met on the river, this old creature withdrew a short distance from the bank, and, squatting down on the sand, proceeded to emit a solo of heart-rending wails for the dead, rehearsing his good qualities in a jerky and descending chromatic scale, beginning at high C and ending when her breath gave out; then, after a deep inspiration, the wailing strain was resumed. All the while she was glancing around to see the effect it had upon us, and also to see what was going on up and down the river while she was busy in sorrowing for the defunct; she knew, quite as well as we, what a thorough-paced old rascal he was, and how far better it was for all his household that he was dead and out of the way. When she had reeled off a due amount of profound sorrow, she re-embarked, and was as chatty and gay as possible until we reached the dead Chief’s house; there it behooved her to roar again for appearance’s sake. We went up to the house of mourning to pay our respects to the household and be witness to their grief. At the hour of our arrival, there happened to be a lull in the wailing, but the appearance of visitors of such august importance at once demanded a resumption, not only of gong-beating, but also of the recitation of the estimable, noble character of the departed. The obtrusive old Jamma was again to the fore, all animosity forgotten in his eagerness to display his extreme grief; out of respect for the dead he had discarded his jockey cap and goggles. Several other Chiefs from neighbouring houses and ourselves were led to places of honor in front of the bier, whereon lay Aban Liah, sealed up in a coffin hewn out of Durian wood. The bier was draped with some cotton cloth, which we recognized as that which we had sent as a bribe to the Spirits, and on posts at the four corners were hung the Chief’s most valuable beads, his parang, shield, and spear, and a number of musical instruments; it was expected that he would hold a high position among the minstrels and warriors in Bulun Matai. As soon as the chief men had conducted us to our places, they squatted beside us, and, covering their faces with their hands to hide the scalding tears that did not flow, they began to moan and groan in a style which was, perhaps, quite as symbolical to them of true sorrow as black crape and nodding plumes are to us.

At this moment, the women of the dead man’s immediate family issued from his private room, clad in high-pointed yellow hoods of bark-cloth, which flowing down enveloped them from head to foot; they gathered about the head of the coffin, and wailed to the accompaniment of several deep-toned gongs. This same rite had been repeated for every visitor who had come to the Chief’s house since his death; they were in good practice. All members of the household were in their dirtiest and most worn-out habiliments; every ornament had been discarded; girdles of beads had been replaced by belts of twisted rattan, and weights made of pebbles wrapped in bark-cloth had been substituted for metal ear-rings; many of the men and some of the women had smeared themselves with soot from the cooking-pots, and no one had bathed in the river since the demise of the Chief, four or five days before. They were certainly repulsive in appearance. This wailing lasted but a scant five minutes, and then the women retired, and the men withdrew their hands from their eyes; of course, not a tear had been shed. With the elasticity of youth,—for they are all mere children,—they were at once interested in hearing of the expedition we were about to make to the summit of a mountain near by, and were laughing and joking over the Ghosts and Sprites that we were sure to meet in that mysterious moss-jungle continually shrouded in mists.

It is the custom among the Berawans to keep a corpse in the house for several months, varying the length of time in accordance with the rank or wealth of the deceased; sometimes the body may have to remain unburied until after the harvest. On the third or fourth day after death, the body is squeezed into a large jar, which has been carefully cut apart at its largest diameter, so that the body does not have to be forced through the narrow neck. It is in the lower half that the corpse is placed in a cramped, squatting position; the upper half is then fitted on tightly, and the crack sealed up with resinous gum. The jar is then placed in a corner of the veranda, and a pipe of hollow bamboo is inserted to drain off to the ground below the fluids resulting from decomposition. It occasionally happens that gases accumulate inside the jar, and cannot escape through the tube, owing to a stoppage, and then an explosion follows.