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Updated: June 8, 2025
Though the Malay builds his dismal little mosques on the outskirts of Malacca, he shuns the town, and prefers a life of freedom in his native jungles, or on the mysterious rivers which lose themselves among the mangrove swamps. So in the neighborhood of Malacca these kampongs are scattered through the perpetual twilight of the forest.
In the kampongs, from our present camp, Poru, up to the Busang tributary, the population continues to be subject to strong Malay influence, the native tribes gradually relinquishing their customs, beliefs, and vernacular. But back from the river on either side the Dayak still easily holds his own.
Some eight years previous to my visit they were induced by the government to form kampongs and adopt agricultural pursuits, and while most of them appear to be in the western division, two kampongs were formed east of the mountains, the Sabaoi and the Tamaloe, with less than seventy inhabitants altogether.
The Teng'gerese who people this mountainous region are a race apart. Their religion is a mixture of paganism and Buddhism, and, though reputed to be kind and honest, they are an ignorant, uncouth, uncultured people. They dwell en famille in large square houses without windows, in isolated kampongs on the projecting ridges of the mountains.
It took place in front of the house where the kapala resided, and here a sacred pillar stood, by the Katingans and others called kapatong, erected on the occasion of a death. A striking feature in Dayak kampongs, especially in remote regions, is the presence of such upright pillars, carved more or less completely into human form and standing before the houses.
The two kampongs, Long Pelaban and Long Mahan, combined forces, and as so many were going I experienced difficulty in arranging to join the excursion, but finally succeeded in securing prahus and men from the latter place. We passed a small settlement of Punans, former nomads, who had adopted the Dayak mode of living, having learned to cultivate rice and to make prahus.
The harvest-festival is called bluput, which means that the people fulfil their promise to antoh. It lasts from five to seven days, and consists mostly of dancing at night. Neighbouring kampongs are invited and the guests are given boiled rice, and sometimes babi, also young bamboo shoots, which are in great favour and are eaten as a sayur. When the harvest is poor, no feast is made.
They also drive a thriving trade in such romantic commodities as gold dust, tortoise shell, pearls, nutmegs, camphor, and bird-of-paradise plumes. They dwell for the most part in walled enclosures known as kampongs, in flimsy houses built of bamboo and thatched with grass or leaves.
The Leper Island looked beautiful in the dewy morning with its stilted houses under the cocoa-palms; and the island of Pinang, with its lofty peak, dense woods, and shores fringed with palms sheltering Malay kampongs, each with its prahus drawn up on the beach, looked impressive enough. The fierce glory of a tropic sunrise is ever a new delight.
They told me that none had been cut for two years past, on account of a stop being put to the purchases at Tappanuli; and that if I was come with authority to open the trade I should call together the people of the neighbouring kampongs, kill a buffalo for them, and assure them publicly that the cassia would be again received; in which case they would immediately begin to cut and cure it, and would willingly follow any instructions I should give them; but that otherwise they would take no trouble about it.
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