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Updated: June 6, 2025
We had evidently come on them before they were prepared, as we found some of the guns in the forts with the slings still on by which they had been carried. The positions of the forts here, as at Paddi, were selected with great judgment; and had their guns been properly served, it would have been sharp work for boats.
The following day the sound of the gong was again heard, but this time it was occasioned by the fact that an adept had taken augurs from the flight of the red hawk, and to him it was given that illness would cease. It was difficult to hold the busy Dayaks in the kampong. At this time, the beginning of May, their attention was absorbed in harvesting the paddi.
The guardians of the ladang and the implements are to be regaled with new paddi. Blood of pig and fowls mixed with new rice having been duly offered to antoh, the mixture is smeared on the kapatongs and implements and a small quantity is also placed on a plate near the trays. Here also stands a dish of boiled rice and meat, the same kind of food which is eaten later by the family.
A woman was going to the ladang in the morning, and she said to her young son, Amon Amang, whose father was dead: "When the sun comes over the tree there you must begin to husk paddi." She then went away to the ladang while the boy remained at home. He carried the paddi, as well as the oblong wooden mortar, up into a tree.
Although this expedition would have a great moral effect on all the more respectable and thinking natives, inasmuch as the inhabitants of the places destroyed were looked upon, from the large proportion of Malays, as more civilized than their formidable and savage neighbors, the Dyaks inhabiting the Sakarran river; still, it was not to be supposed, when the settlements of Paddi, Pakoo, and Rembas could not be responsible for the good behavior of one another, that it was probable the severe lesson taught them would have any great effect on the Sakarrans.
A good antoh gave it the order to come, and it means much paddi, a gutshi, and other good things. Three fowls must be sacrificed and the people also dance. When a liao departs through the top of the head and death occurs, gongs are beaten for twenty-four hours.
The owner with wife and children having concluded their meal, all others present and as many as care to come are welcome to partake of new rice and meat and to drink tuak. On the following day they go to the ladang to cut paddi, but barely half the number that took part in the feast assist in the work.
Life there was the same as in most Dayak kampongs, nearly all the people being absent during the day at the ladangs, and in the evening they bring home the roots of the calladium, or other edible roots and plants, which are cooked for food. The paddi had been harvested, but the crop was poor, and therefore they had made no feast. There is no dancing here except war dances.
On the tenth day they all went away to a small river in the neighbourhood, where they took their meals, cooking paddi in bamboo, also fish in the same manner. During the days immediately following the people may go to the ladang, but are obliged to sleep in the kampong, and they must not undertake long journeys.
After them follow an equal number of women, each carrying a small basket of paddi which she drops with her fingers into the holes, where it remains uncovered. They do not plant when rain is falling. After planting is finished, usually in one day, they repair to the kampong, have their evening meal, and drink tuak until midnight.
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