226 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



Meantime the festive preparations continued. Many 

 loads of bamboo were brought in, because much rice and 

 much pork was to be cooked in these handy utensils 

 provided by nature. Visitors were slowly but steadily 

 arriving. On the fourth day came the principal man, the 

 Raja Besar (great chief), who resides a little further up 

 the river, accompanied by his family. The son of a 

 Long-Glat father and an Oma-Suling mother, Ledjuli 

 claimed to be raja not only of these tribes, but also of the 

 Kayans. Next morning Raja Besar and his stately wife, 

 of Oma-Suling nobility, accompanied by the kapala of 

 the kampong and others, paid me a visit, presenting me 

 with a long sugarcane, a somewhat rare product in these 

 parts and considered a great delicacy, one large papaya, 

 white onions, and bananas. In return I gave one cake 

 of chocolate, two French tins of meat, one tin of boiled 

 ham, and tobacco. 



Domestic pigs, of which the kampong possessed over 

 a hundred, at last began to come in from the outlying 

 ladangs. One by one they were carried alive on the 

 backs of men. The feet having first been tied together, 

 the animal was enclosed in a coarse network of rattan or 

 fibre. For the smaller specimens tiny, close-fitting bam- 

 boo boxes had been made, pointed at one end to accom- 

 modate the snout. The live bundles were deposited on 

 the galleries, and on the fifth day they were lying in rows 

 and heaps, sixty-six in number, awaiting their ultimate 

 destiny. The festival was now about to begin in earnest 

 and an air of expectancy was evident in the faces of the 

 natives. After the performance of the melah and the 



