Tama Balan’s was the last house on the Dapoi, and as we continued up the pleasant stream we seemed to have left all Borneo behind us. Suddenly we caught sight of a young Punan girl standing in a canoe near the shore, and so earnestly engrossed in stamping grated tapioca root through a piece of matting to strain it, that she never noticed our approach. When at last she looked up and caught sight of our canoes, and the inconceivable white beings in them, in a flash she snatched up her mat and basket of tapioca, and darted into the jungle, like a startled fawn. She was such a pretty picture, as she stood in her canoe, absorbed in her work, that I told one of our men to find her and lure her back with promises of rich presents, if she would allow me to take a picture of her. She was quickly found, and brought back somewhat reluctantly; never before had she seen white folk, and what idea the making of a picture conveyed to her poor, little, bewildered brain, cannot be fathomed. In reminiscence, it must have seemed to her a hideous dream; she was told to go on with her work, while a horrible monster, with a face as pale as ashes, and incomprehensibly clad, stood off at a distance, and placed on three long sticks an awful object, that expanded and contracted, hid his face in a black cloth, looked at her with an awful eye for a moment, gave her a big piece of yellow cloth and a handful of tobacco, and then with his black object and long sticks was off again in a canoe;—such, at least, was her utterly bewildered and dazed expression, as she stood motionless in her canoe, holding in her hands the yellow cloth and the tobacco, her only proofs that she was not dreaming, and glancing from them to us alternately as we disappeared rapidly round the turn of the river, vanishing into empty space from which we had as suddenly and mysteriously emerged. No Punan mind could doubt that she had been visited in a trance by supernatural Spirits.
PUNAN HUTS NEAR THE HEAD WATERS OF THE DAPOI.
THESE LEAFY SCREENS, THE MOST SUBSTANTIAL HABITATIONS WHICH THE PUNANS EVER BUILD, ARE DESERTED AS SOON AS THE TAPIOCA OR OTHER JUNGLE PRODUCT, ON WHICH THE PEOPLE LIVE, IS EXHAUSTED IN THAT LOCALITY. THE PUNANS DO NOT PLANT RICE, NOR DO THEY CULTIVATE ANY CROPS, BUT LIVE SOLELY ON WHAT THEY FIND GROWING WILD IN THE JUNGLE.
PUNAN GIRL STRAINING GRATED TAPIOCA.
THE TUBERS ARE FIRST FINELY GRATED AND THEN, DILUTED WITH WATER, PLACED IN A MAT, AND BY A VIGOROUS TREADING THE FINE PARTICLES ARE STRAINED THROUGH AND COLLECTED IN THE BOTTOM OF THE BOAT OR OTHER RECEPTACLE USED FOR THE PURPOSE.
Not long after this, the river grew so shallow that we deserted the boats, and walked for miles and miles, so it seemed, up the bed of the stream.
At last, as we were nearing our destination, we halted for rest and refreshment, at a rice-field hut; and here there strolled in upon us one of the Punans themselves from the settlement; he had been out with his blow-pipe after small game. He made no attempt to conceal his speechless wonderment at white people, and silently gazed at us in open-eyed and open-mouthed astonishment. When our Sibop guide, whom we had brought from Tama Aping’s, as an interpreter, asked him whether he had ever before seen white men, he replied, with awestruck earnestness, ‘Never anything like them have I seen! Surely they must be the Fathers of all People!’ Ever after he referred to us or addressed us as his ‘fathers.’
Not long after resuming our march, our guide suddenly turned off from the river-bed into the open jungle,—that is, jungle in which there is but little undergrowth, except thorny palms and rattans. It is the ideal forest primeval, where old and majestic trees form in every direction vast, illimitable, solemn vistas. On a sudden, our guide asked us to halt and keep perfectly silent, while he went on ahead to give notice to the Punans that some peaceful, friendly visitors were approaching. Unless this notice were given, he declared that the people would scatter at the first sound of our approach, and we should find nothing but empty huts. When he returned, he guided us down a slight hill and over a stream, and through a dense hedge of tall plants of wild tapioca. We emerged into more open ground, and were all at once in the Punan village. The huts could be hardly distinguished from the surrounding grasses and palms, so low and fragile were they. The walls were merely boughs and twigs interlaced, and against them leaned broad palm leaves; the roofs were a loose thatch of leaves and boughs, but could not be more waterproof than the natural roof of leaves overhead. The ‘village’ comprised only four huts, and in not one of them could I stand upright.