The Punans are pure jungle-folk, and know very little about canoeing or swimming. When we asked to be taken to some place where we could bathe, we were led about a mile away to a delightful, deep, sandy-bottomed pool; but our guide thither could not be persuaded to enter the water, and warned us repeatedly to be careful, as the water was very deep,—it was hardly up to our waists. When we ducked under, a native bystander shouted in genuine terror that one of the ‘white fathers’ was drowned.
To test their skill in marksmanship with the blow-pipe, we fastened a potato about an inch and a half in diameter on a pole, and from a distance of fifty paces they stuck in it six darts out of ten. For small birds, they seldom use darts, which cost some trouble to make; little pellets of clay are equally effective; poisoned darts are reserved for monkeys and larger game. They assert that with a properly prepared dart they can kill even the formidable rhinoceros. For such large game, the point is weighted with a little triangular head of bamboo or of tin, which carries more poison, and becomes detached in the wound.
When we bade farewell, we gladdened every Punan heart by distributing all that remained of our gay cloth and good tobacco; the cloth was quite sufficient for every woman and child in the village to meet the tolerant demands of fashion in the way of apparel; and as for the tobacco,—I longed to know what prodigious stories they would rehearse, as they sat round their fires in the evening, of the marvellous appearance and mysterious actions of the ‘White Fathers.’ But my heart was woeful for that little mother as, day by day, she would discover that the ‘picture-making’ had brought no healing balm to her poor, hydrocephalic boy.
There is one product of the Punan country which I think deserves a note: it is that luxury so dear to the Chinese palate, the edible nests built by swallows, or swifts, in certain limestone caves. In the Niah hills, near the coast, these caves have been the breeding-places of these birds from time immemorial, and in supplying the market with their nests the Punans have been for many a year employed by Chinese traders, and the estimate is well within bounds that several hundred tons of nests have been there gathered by this tribe.
Within the caves of Mt. Subis,—one of the Niah hills,—there is a small settlement of Punans who, during the building season, collect nests. There are three harvests of nests, then the season closes, and the swallows are allowed to rebuild undisturbed and rear their brood.
When I visited the village of Niah and the caves in Mt. Subis, the season was closed, but it had been so very successful and had kept all the natives so busy that those, whose duty it was to attend to the rice crop, had neglected it; consequently, the people of Niah,—a mixed tribe of Malanaus and Punans,—were actually suffering from a rice famine; boats had been sent to neighbouring villages to purchase rice, but they had been away for thirty days or more, and almost every pound in the village had been consumed, except a goodly store in the secure granaries of a stingy, avaricious old head-man, Orang Kaya Perkassa by name, who demanded such an unconscionably exorbitant price for it that even to starving men it was almost prohibitory.
PUNAN WOMAN CARRYING HER BABY IN A SLING MADE OF RATTAN.
THIS MODE OF CARRYING CHILDREN ENABLES THE MOTHER TO HAVE BOTH HER HANDS FREE, AND THE SOMEWHAT CRAMPED POSITION OF THE CHILD KEEPS IT OUT OF MISCHIEF. ON THESE SLINGS ARE USUALLY HUNG SHELLS OF LAND SNAILS, CURIOUS KNOTS OF WOOD, MALFORMED BOAR TUSKS, OR SEVERAL LARGE BEADS, ALL OF WHICH ARE EXCEEDINGLY EFFECTIVE IN WARDING OFF THE EVIL SPIRITS, WHOSE OBJECT IT IS TO HARASS SMALL CHILDREN.