United States or Hungary ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Many showed indications of having had smallpox, not in a scarred face, but by the loss of an eye; one man was totally blind from the same cause. In order to induce them to dance I bought a domestic pig, which was brought from the ladang and in the customary way was left on the ground in the middle of the dancing place. Four men attended to the gongs which had unusually fine tones.
The little pleasant-faced Malay captain of his Highness's three-hundred ton yacht Pante called softly, close to my ear, "Tuan Tuan Consul, Gunong Ladang!" I sprang to my feet, rubbed my eyes, and gazed in the direction indicated by the brown hand.
When about to make a new ladang one fowl is sacrificed in the morning and the blood, with the usual addition of rice, is thrown up in the air by the husband or wife as a present to antoh, the meat being reserved for home consumption. On arrival at the selected place they carry the sharpening stone some distance into the utan where a portion of the same mixture is applied to it.
For the same purpose he make a serpent pass in front of the prahu, or a rusa cry in the middle of the day. At night this cry is immaterial. The most inauspicious of all omens is the appearance of a centipede. If a man in a ladang is confronted with such an animal he at once stops work there and takes up a new field. The tribal name of the Penihings is A-o-haeng.
These images and their pedestals are usually carved from one block, though the very small ones may be made to stand inside of an upright piece of bamboo. Some kapatongs are placed in the ladang to protect the crops, others in the storehouse or inside the baskets where rice or food is kept.
A spear is also carried, especially on trips to the ladang. The sumpitan, called sawput, is no longer made and the tribe is not very apt at its use; therefore, being unable to kill the great hornbill themselves, these natives have to buy its highly valued tail feathers from the Punans.
The owner with wife and children having concluded their meal, all others present and as many as care to come are welcome to partake of new rice and meat and to drink tuak. On the following day they go to the ladang to cut paddi, but barely half the number that took part in the feast assist in the work.
In the ladang the woman thought the crying of her children sounded very strange. "It is not like that of other infants," she said. "Other people have no tails and you have; you look like the children of a dog."
Rice is planted but once a year, and quite recently the cultivation of peanuts, which I had not before observed in Borneo, had been introduced through the Malays. Bukits never remain longer than two years at the same house, usually only half that time, making ladang near by, and the next year they move to a new house and have a new ladang.
Above and overshadowing all both in beauty and historical interest was the famous old mountain where King Solomon sent his diminutive ships for "gold, silver, peacocks, and apes." By the time the ladies were astir, the mists had vanished and Gunong Ladang, or as it is styled in Holy Writ Mount Ophir, presented to our admiring gaze its massive outlines, set in a frame of green and blue.
Word Of The Day