304 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



for them, and that they bore him no ill-will ; and that 

 some of them, accompanying him on later excursions, 

 proved themselves willing helpers and agreeable 

 companions. 



Other and larger expeditions of armed forces 

 have in the past been led against tribes or villages, 

 generally on account of their having refused to 

 surrender to the government members guilty of 

 taking heads or of attacking other villages wantonly 

 and without permission. In all cases the govern- 

 ment officers have relied almost exclusively upon the 

 services of bodies of natives under the immediate 

 charge of their own chiefs and armed only with their 

 native weapons. In some cases the offending 

 parties have fled from their villages without offering 

 active resistance ; and in these cases the government 

 force has usually been content to inflict punishment 

 by burning down their houses and taking what 

 property was left in them. 



It is perhaps too much to hope that no cases of 

 taking heads or of wanton attack on jungle parties 

 or on weak villages will ever again occur. But such 

 incidents have become very infrequent and the 

 offenders have seldom escaped punishment ; for, 

 unlike our own population, many thousands of whom 

 live detached from all local bonds as isolated floating 

 units unknown to the government and to those 

 among whom they dwell, every man in Sarawak, with 

 the partial exception of the nomad jungle-dwellers, 

 is a member of some local group which is held re- 

 sponsible by the government for his good behaviour ; 

 thus in every district every man is known, if not as 

 an individual, at least as a member of some com- 

 munity ; and every stranger (or party of strangers) 

 is expected to be able to give a satisfying account 

 of himself; and any who wish to work in the jungle 

 of any district other than their own are required to 

 have government permission. It is thus impossible 



