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The story of how he came to know this article of food, and how he and his son, Seragunting, introduced it among the Dyaks is here set forth. Siu was the son of a great Dyak chief. His father died when he was quite a child, and at the time this story begins, he had grown to manhood, and lived with his mother, and was the head of a long Dyak house in which lived some three hundred families.
The girl, too, saw the frightful creatures that surrounded the man upon the deck. She thought that they were about to attack him, and gave a little cry of warning, but in another instant she realized that they were his companions, for with him they rushed to the side of the ship to stand for a moment looking down upon the struggling Dyaks in the water below.
The skull of a slain Igorot, as shown by Professor Virchow's investigation, has a certain similarity to Malay skulls of the adjoining Islands of Sunda, especially to the skulls of the Dyaks. On Coello's map these proportions are wrongly stated. An intelligent mestizo frequently visited me during my sickness.
As I have already mentioned, the Hill Dyaks in the interior of Sarawak make paths for long distances from village to village and to their cultivated grounds, in the course of which they have to cross many gullies and ravines, and even rivers; or sometimes, to avoid a long circuit, to carry the path along the face of a precipice.
"I suppose that is what the Dyaks used when they went head-hunting," said Felix. "No head-hunting now; used to use it, the Hill Dyaks. Used in battle too; split head open with it, or cut head off." "What other weapons did the fighting men use?" asked Louis. "They carried a shield, and used a spear with the parong latok; no other weapons. Two kinds of Dyaks, the Sea and the Hill."
The cocoa-nut, the betel, the sago, and the gno or gomati, are the four favorite palms of the Dyaks. In their simple mode of life, these four trees supply them many necessaries and luxuries. The sago furnishes food; and after the pith has been extracted, the outer part forms a rough covering for the rougher floor, on which the farmer sleeps.
The greatest evil, perhaps, from which the Dyaks suffer, is the influence of the Datus or chiefs; but this influence is never carried to oppression, and is only used to obtain the expensive luxury of 'birds'-nests' at a cheap rate. The latest accounts from Sarawak describe the increasing prosperity of that interesting settlement. Among other recent intelligence I have heard from Mr.
"In tracing the identity of this language, we may reckon the dialects of the Dyaks of Borneo, &c., as the lowest step of the ladder; those of the Pacific islands next; and so through the dialects of Sumatra and Tagala, up to the Malayan and Javanese.
If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the path, and every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the bamboos by which it is supported.
When the Dyaks fight against their enemies, they try to get, not only the heads of men, but also the heads of women and CHILDREN. How dreadful it must be to see a poor BABY'S HEAD hanging from the ceiling!
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