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Updated: May 27, 2025
We were received by friendly natives, who came voluntarily to assist in putting up my tent, laying poles on the moist ground, on which the boxes were placed inside. They also made a palisade around it as they had seen it done in Long Kai, for the Dayaks are very adaptable people.
Thus Carl Bock, the same author who has given such a terrible picture of head-hunting, writes: "As regards morality, I am bound to assign to the Dayaks a high place in the scale of civilization.... Robberies and theft are entirely unknown among them. They also are very truthful.... If I did not always get the 'whole truth, I always got, at least, nothing but the truth from them.
All these pagan tribes have often been classed together indiscriminately under the name Dyaks or Dayaks, though many groups may be clearly distinguished from one another by differences of culture, belief, and custom, and peculiarities of their physical and mental constitutions.
After arranging his tent with little or no help from the Dayaks, he would next put up a frame-work on which to dry his skins, under a roof of palm leaves; here a fire was always kept, without which the skins would have spoiled in that damp climate. Chonggat had a fine physique, was always pleasant and willing and was possessed of more than ordinary intelligence withal.
Physically they are without question the finest people of the country. Their skin-colour is decidedly fairer than that of Sea Dayaks or Kayans. They are of medium stature, with long backs and short, muscular, well-rounded limbs; a little stumpy in build, but of graceful and vigorous bearing.
The river at Sibu was of great width, over a mile across, in fact, and close to the bank is a Malay village, and a bazaar where the wily Chinaman does a thriving trade in the wild produce of the country, and makes huge profits out of the Dayaks and other natives on this river.
I was told that when they go fighting the wild head-hunters, they are allowed to bring in as trophies the heads of those they kill, in the same way that the Dayaks themselves do.
Their total number in the Bulungan district is perhaps only one-tenth that of Dayaks, but with them women preponderate and there are many children. Such is the case in the rest of Dutch Borneo, and is one reason why the Malays ultimately must dominate.
These facts suggest that these minor gods may be deified ancestors of great chiefs, and this suggestion is supported by the following facts: First, a recently deceased chief of exceptional capacity and influence becomes not infrequently the object of a certain cult among Klemantans and Sea Dayaks.
The Dayak dogs are fearful and wonderful animals, both as regards shape and colour, and I could get very little sleep on account of the noise they made; yet the Dayaks seemed to sleep through it all. One night I woke up after a particularly noisy fight, and saw what appeared to me to be a dog sitting calmly by my bed with its back turned to me.
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