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Updated: June 20, 2025
The speech was a stirring one, and created an impression. Others spoke a few words to the pig, and it was then taken to one side and stabbed in the throat with a spear, after which the liver was taken out and examined. I should mention that a pig intended to serve the same purpose was provided by the Madangs for our people, who were still waiting to be invited to the house.
But we do not think that this view is tenable in face of the fact that, while the conception is a living belief among the Madangs, a Kenyah tribe that inhabits a district in the remotest interior and has had no intercourse with Malays, the Ibans, who have had far more intercourse with the Malays than have the Kayans and Kenyahs, yet show least trace of this conception.
On the following morning several parties of Madangs from other villages came in, numbering in all about 600, and exchanged presents of weapons with my people. It was necessary that the gods should be consulted as to whether the meeting was really in the interests of peace or not.
The following day the Madangs collected a quantity of rubber for their first payment of tribute to the government, namely, $2.00 per family, and as we had no means of weighing it except by guesswork, it was decided that Tama Bulan and two Madang headmen should act as assessors, and decide whether the piece of rubber brought by each person was sufficiently large to produce $2.00.
When the Baram people had all entered, the Madangs once more rushed at them, and for some two minutes a rough-and-tumble fight continued, in which many hard blows were given.
On came the Baram people, stamping, shouting, and waving their weapons in defiance, the Madangs in the houses keeping up a continuous roar.
The Madangs assisted in making huts for my followers, gave them several pigs, and sent down their women laden with baskets full of rice; so no want of hospitality marred our reception. In the evening I took a walk round the village, followed by a crowd of women and children, who appeared greatly pleased to find that the white man was able to converse with them in the Kenyah tongue.
Neither these Madangs nor the Kenyahs of the Batang Kayan had entered into friendly relations with the Sarawak government, and they had preserved a hostile attitude towards the Baram tribes.
When the Baram people first attempted to enter the house, they were driven back, and a tremendous clashing of shields and weapons took place; then the Madangs retreated from the entrance in order to allow their visitors to come in, stamping and making the most deafening noise.
On the appointed day some five thousand of the Baram people and the Madangs were encamped very comfortably in leaf and mat shelters on the open ground between our bungalow and the fort, while the Sea Dayaks had taken up their quarters in the long row of Chinamen's shops that form the Marudi bazaar, the commercial centre of the district.
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