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Updated: May 18, 2025
Being an antoh, and the greatest of all, it is invisible under ordinary conditions, but lives in rivers and underground caves, and it eats human beings. Lidju, who accompanied me as interpreter and to be generally useful, had aroused the men early in the morning to cook their rice, so that we could start at seven o'clock, arriving in good time at the Kayan kampong, Long Blu.
Lidju, my assistant, did not forget, on this day of plenty, to send my party generous gifts of fresh pork. To me he presented a fine small ham. As salt had been left behind we had to boil the meat a la Dayak in bamboo with very little water, which compensates for the absence of seasoning.
The mother nourishes her offspring for about five years, the two youngest suckling at the same time. A raja may marry ten women, or more, and has a great marriage-feast of more than a week's duration. Lidju, my Long-Glat assistant, said that his father had fifteen wives, his grandfather thirty, but it was no longer the fashion to have so many.
My preference was for Lidju, my constant assistant, but on the morning of our start the great man actually forced himself into service, while the former, who had been told to come, was not to be seen. The raja began giving orders about the prahus and behaved as if he were at home.
Although he did not speak Malay very well, still, owing to his earnestness of purpose, Lidju was of considerable assistance to me. The kampong consists of several long houses of the usual Dayak style, lying in a row and following the river course, but here they were separated into two groups with a brook winding its way to the river between them.
As I remained passive he finally said that he wanted to know whether he could go; if I preferred Lidju he would remain behind. Not wanting a scene, and as he was so intent on going, I gave the desired permission. Though, like the others, he was nude except for a loin-cloth, Raja Besar was a gentleman at heart, but he did not know how to work, especially in a prahu.
Here, on the north side of the river, was formerly a small military establishment, inhabited at present by a few Malay families, the only ones on the Mahakam River above the great kihams. Accompanied by Lidju I crossed the river to see the great kampong of the Kayans.
The chiefs from two neighbouring kampongs paid us visits, and they and their men made a somewhat better impression, besides having less skin disease. Lidju, a Long-Glat raja from Batokelau, who at one time was my interpreter and assistant, told me that the Saputans had made a contract with his grandfather to take them to the Kasao. This report was confirmed by the kapala of Batokelau.
He fixed fair prices on things I wanted to buy, which before he had not done, and I made him tie labels on the specimens I bought. As he was truthful, he finally served as well as Lidju. On the last day of our stay he helped me to repress the eagerness of the Dayaks to "turn an honest penny."
Lidju, my assistant and friend here, was a noble of the Long-Glats with the title of raja and married a sister of the great chief of the Oma-Sulings. She was the principal of the numerous female blians of the kampong, slender of figure, active both in her profession and in domestic affairs, and always very courteous. They had no children.
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