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My own opinion is that, though prestige and vanity and superstition all contribute to the prevalence of head-hunting, in the inherent savagery of the Dyak is found the true explanation of the custom. I have already made passing mention of that characteristic weapon of the Dyaks, the sumpitan, or, as it is called by foreigners, the blow-gun.
Penganun was pursuing them, and he caught the smaller one around the ankle, but the father killed the monster with his sumpitan and its spear point. With his parang he cut it in many pieces and his wife cooked the meat in bamboo, and they all ate it.
I observed that each man remained with his sword in one hand and his sumpitan, with a dart in it, ready to discharge, in the other; and every now and then one of them would lift up his head and look about him, so accustomed are they to be on the watch, and so uncertain when they may be attacked. In the afternoon we again resumed our march.
There are no large serpents here, and neither snakes, dogs, nor crocodiles are eaten; but the rusa is accepted as food. Fruits, as the durian and langsat, are rather scarce. Fire is made by twirling, and these natives use the sumpitan.
One end of the dart is imbedded in a cork-shaped piece of pith which fits the hole in the sumpitan as a cartridge fits the bore of a rifle; the other end, which is of needle-sharpness, is smeared with a paste made from the milky sap of the upas tree dissolved in a juice extracted from the root of the tuba.
She now rescued the Bible, the copy of Tennyson's poems, the battered tin cup, her revolver, and the Lee-Metford which "scared" the Dyaks when they nearly caught Anstruther and Mir Jan napping. Robert also gathered for her an assortment of Dyak hats, belts, and arms, including Taung S'Ali's parang and a sumpitan. These were her trophies, the spolia opima of the campaign.
He looked cautiously on every side his sumpitan, with a poisoned arrow ready to discharge, was in one hand, while a spear and shield, prepared for defence or attack, was in the other he then advanced a few steps farther and halted.
Two or three minutes later they returned, one man bearing in his arms a scarcely half-grown live pig, which had been hit by the sumpitan. The whole affair lasted barely ten minutes. At another place, where we were again waiting for the big prahu, the Penyahbongs amused themselves with wrestling in water up to their shoulders.
In changing abode women carry everything, the men conveying only the sumpitan and the darts, probably also a child that is big enough to walk, but the small child the woman always carries. If the men go to war the women remain behind and defend themselves if attacked.
Saloo had been one of the best sumpitan shooters in all Sumatra, and could send an arrow with true aim a distance of a hundred and fifty yards. But to make its effect deadly at this distance, something more than the mere pricking of the tiny "sumpit" was needed.
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