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Updated: May 4, 2025
In his report on a journey to the Katingans in 1909 Captain J.J.M. Hageman says: "By nature the Dayak is a good-tempered man. The head-hunting should not be charged against him as a dastardly deed; for him it is an adat. In the second place, he possesses very good traits of character, as evidenced by his hospitality and generosity.
The cowardly manner in which they cut heads is no criterion of their courage." It would not be in accordance with facts to suppose that head-hunting has altogether been eliminated in Borneo. It is too closely identified with the religious life of the natives, but in time a substitute probably will be found, just as the sacrifice of the water-buffalo supplanted that of slaves.
Here very extensive lines of communication have been opened up by the building of roads and trails and the clearing of rivers. A good state of public order has been established. Head-hunting, slavery, and piracy are now very rare. The liquor traffic has been almost completely suppressed. Life and property have been rendered comparatively safe, and in much of the territory entirely so.
Hose at his Sarawak Home The Fort at Sibu Enormous length of Dayak Canoes A Brush with Head-Hunters Dayak Vengeance on Chinamen First Impressions of the Sea Dayak, "picturesque and interesting" A Head-Hunting raid, Dayaks attack the Punans I accompany the Punitive Expedition Voyage Upstream A Clever "Bird Scare" Houses on the top of Tree-stumps The Kelamantans Kanawit Village The Fort at Kapit Capture of a notorious Head-Hunting Chief I inspect the "Heads" of the Victims Cause of Head-Hunting Savage Revenge of a Dayak Lover and its Sequel Hose's stem Ultimatum Accepted by the Head-Hunters I return to Sibu A Fatal Misconception.
But I am compelled to accept such an estimate of the Dyak character with reservations. From all that I could learn, head-hunting is a sport, like fox-hunting in England.
If a head-hunting party sees a large tree fall, the expedition is abandoned, and no young men who took part can ever join another venture of the same kind. Old and experienced men, after the lapse of a year, may resume operations. In case of meeting a centipede a head-hunting expedition must return immediately to the kampong, and for four years no such enterprise may be undertaken.
Although dirty in appearance, only one man was afflicted with scaly skin disease. Visits to the hill-tops are avoided by them on account of the cold, which they felt much in our camp. Their dark-brown eyes had a kindly expression; in fact they are harmless and timid-looking beings, though in some parts of Borneo they engage in head-hunting, a practice probably learned from the Dayaks.
Accounts of earlier travelers offer undoubted proof that head-hunting was rampant a generation ago; while the folk-tales feature the taking of heads as one of the most important events in Tinguian life. The first incentive for head-taking is in connection with funeral rites.
"These islanders export a great deal of rattan, and the head-hunters up there in the mountains watch for the Chinese when they are working in the forest." Mackay listened eagerly to his friends' tales of the head-hunting savages, living in the mountains. They were always on the lookout for the farmers near their forest lairs.
The Company has paved the way to the ultimate extinction of the practice of slavery; it has dealt the final blow to the piracy and kidnapping which still lingered on its coasts; it has substituted one strong and just Government for numerous weak, cruel and unjust ones; it has opened Courts of Justice which know no distinction between races and creeds, between rich and poor, between master and slave; it is rapidly adjusting ancient blood feuds between the tribes and putting a stop to the old custom of head-hunting; it has broken down the barrier erected by the coast Malays to prevent the aborigines having access to the outer world and is thus enabling trade and its accompanying civilisation to reach the interior races; and it is attracting European and Chinese capital to the country and opening a market for British traders.
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