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On our return to the still smoking ruins of the once picturesque town of Paddi, we found that Seriff Jaffer, with his 800 warriors, had not been idle. The country round had been laid waste. All had been desolated, together with their extensive winter-stores of rice.
With the death of antoh the strong medicine of the food is gone, and the Saputans do not eat much. The native word for woman, however, is always maintained. Keladi is a caladium, which furnishes the principal edible root in Borneo. Years passed, and the girl had learned to bring water in the bamboo and to crush paddi.
She then lifted on her back the big-meshed rattan bag which held the bamboo receptacles, all full of water, and went home, carrying the fish in her hand. Before cooking it she went to husk paddi. The bird Teong, who had heard she was beautiful, saw her and he liked her much. He flew to a tree from which he could get a good look at her where she was husking the paddi.
At the age of six years, or when it begins to take part in the work of the paddi fields, fishing, etc., the name is changed. In both cases the father gives the name. The kapala, my informant, changed his name a third time about ten years previously, when he entered the service of the government. Names are altered for the purpose of misleading evil spirits.
The great hornbill, as well as the red and white hawk, may be killed, but are not eaten. Three times a day the women bring water and take baths, while the men bathe when fancy dictates. Penihing and Kayan women begin to husk rice about five o'clock in the morning, while it is still dark. The women who remain in the kampong place paddi on mats in the sun to dry, and at noon they husk rice.
This mode of warfare this dashing at once in the very face of their fort was so novel and incomprehensible to the enemy, that they fled panic-struck into the jungle, and the leading men of the British could scarcely get a snap-shot at them. That evening the country was illuminated for miles by the burning of the capital, Paddi, and the adjacent villages.
"It is well you have come," she said. "Bird and Otter have made a case against me. I was husking paddi, and Bird liked to look at me. I did not know he was there in the tree for a long time. A branch fell down and wounded Otter's child, making her very angry, and she asks damages from me." "This case is difficult," the husband answered. "I must think it over."
These recent converts from nomadic life still raise little paddi, depending mostly upon sago. Through the good offices of the Long Kai kapala people of both tribes were sent for and promptly answered the call. The Punan visitors had a kapala who also was a blian, and they had a female blian too, as had the Bukats.
The work of clearing the ground is immediately begun and completed in three or four weeks. Then comes planting of the paddi preceded by a sacrifice of pig or fowl. The blood, with the usual addition, is presented to antoh and also smeared on the seed, which may amount to ten baskets full.
Now, among the Saputans the custom long ago was that the woman who had a child should do no work during forty days. She must not bring water, nor husk paddi, nor cook. She remained in the house and took her bath in the river daily. She slept much and ate pork cooked in bamboo, and rice, if there was any, and she was free to eat anything else that she liked.
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