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Updated: June 28, 2025
This is the last and best fortified village in the Serampei country, bordering on the forests between that and Anak-Sungei. They have a custom here of never allowing any animal to be killed in any part of the village but the balei or town hall, unless the person wishing to do otherwise consents to pay a fine of one fathom of cotton cloth to the priest for his permission.
To each kampong there is also a balei, where the inhabitants assemble for transacting public business, celebrating feasts, and the reception of strangers, whom they entertain with frankness and hospitality. At the end of this building is a place divided off, from whence the women see the spectacles of fencing and dancing; and below that is a kind of orchestra for music.
The balei was of limited proportions, dark, and uninviting, so I put up my tent, which was easily done as the pumbakal and men were friendly and helpful. All the carriers were, of course, anxious to return, but as they were engaged to go to Kandangan I told them they would have to continue, promising, however, to pay for two days instead of one and to give them all rice in the evening.
Kane ruh ka long ka dáw namar balei ba la khot ia uta u lúm uba don hajan Sumer "U Lúm Sohpet Byneng." How the Dog came to live with Man. In olden days, when the world was young, all the beasts lived happily together, and they bought and sold together, and they jointly built markets. The largest market where all the beasts used to take their articles for sale was "Luri-Lura," in the Bhoi country.
On our reaching the Balei, or public hall, of the Orang Kaya Steer Rajah, I immediately called a number of their chiefs together, and opened a conference with them on the subject of Parembam having attacked and killed the Dyaks of Sigo.
The kapala cleared the way with his parang, and just before dusk we arrived at the balei, a large structure which the people had taken as a permanent abode, having no houses and possessing ladangs near by. Many fires were burning inside, round which the families had gathered cooking rice, and my entire party also easily found room.
The facts, as sot forth by Bradley Gaither, were that he had twelve bales of cotton ready for market. The twelve balei had been loaded upon three, wagons, and the wagons were to start for Augusta at daybreak. At the last moment, when everything was ready, the teams harnessed, and the drivers in their seats, it was discovered that two bales of the cotton were missing.
The Rajah Muda Hassim, being well aware of the state of things, sent, at this crisis, to order Si Tundo and his friend to his presence; which order they obeyed forthwith, and entered the balei, or audience-hall, which was full of their enemies.
The most prominent feature of the place was a house of worship, the so-called balei, a square bamboo structure, the roomy interior of which had in the centre a rectangular dancing-floor of bamboo sticks.
The greater the concourse the more is the credit of the host, who is generally on these occasions the father of the girl; but the different branches of the family, and frequently all the people of the dusun, contribute a quota of rice. The young women proceed in a body to the upper end of the balei where there is a part divided off for them by a curtain.
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