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Updated: June 27, 2025
I watched some Dayaks who had just brought in their fines as they went away in one of their large canoes, and they crossed the river with a quick, short stroke of their paddles in splendid time, so that one heard the sound of their paddles, as they beat against the side of the canoe, come in one short tr-r-up.
No pig is killed or rice-spirit offered, though possibly a toasted bat or bit of salted wild pig will be served as a relish. At great feasts the Sea Dayaks drink more freely than the other peoples, except the Muruts. Men and women alike drink deeply, and many become intoxicated.
There was no suitable place outside for my tent, so I decided to paddle a few hundred kilometres up the river to a dilapidated camping-house for travellers, put up by the Dayaks under government order. Such a house is called pasang-grahan and may be found in many out-of-the-way places in Borneo.
Of course the Dayaks had to be punished; the government, however, took the provocation into account. The kapala's wife and a female companion demanded two florins each for telling folklore, whereupon I expressed a wish first to hear what they were able to tell.
While I was in Borneo I heard the following story of Dayak barbarity, which is a good example of the way the women incite their men to go on these head-hunting expeditions. In a certain district where some missionaries were doing good work among the Dayaks, a Dayak young man named Hathnaveng had been persuaded by the missionaries to give up the barbaric custom of headhunting.
The patterns once employed by the tribes included in the second section of this list, most of which have adopted Malay dress and to some extent Malay customs, are lost beyond recall. The Land Dayaks display absolute ignorance of tatu, and aver that they never indulged in the practice.
The next two or three nights the crowd that waited to see me change into my pyjamas was, if anything, still larger, a good many Dayaks from neighbouring villages coming over to see the sight. But gradually the novelty wore off, to my great joy, as I was getting a bit tired of the whole performance. I had come here to see the Dayaks, but it appeared that they were even more anxious to see me.
As soon as the latter had departed in the morning, many Dayaks whom I had not seen before ventured to come up to the kitchen and my tent to ask for empty tin cans. The Malays had slept in the Dayak houses, and the last night one of them carried off the mat which had been hospitably offered him. One day there were two weddings here, one in the morning and the other in the evening.
Though the so-called Dayaks have many traits in common, of them all the Kenyahs are the most attractive. They are intelligent and brave and do not break a contract; in fact, you can trust their word more completely than that of the majority of common white people.
Both the Dayak and the judge would even feel remorse if sympathy moved them to spare the murderer. That is why the Dayaks, apart from the murders they commit when actuated by their conception of justice, are depicted, by all those who know them, as a most sympathetic people.
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