SAEAWAK, PAST AXD PRESENT. 843 



behind the demand to enforce payment in some form. If a \vhole 

 clan stubbornly refused payment, it would be threatened with 

 an attack from a more powerful hostile clan, and, in one way or 

 another, the Malays managed to keep them in abject poverty. The 

 ai-ch-villain, Makota, used to assert that he liked to get even their 

 cooking-pots from them. Not only were the Dyaks robbed, but in 

 most instances they were compelled to carry to the boats the very 

 plunder which had been taken from them. 



If a Malay was ever injured in body or estate, and the injury, 

 however slight, could in any way be attributed to a Dyak, the latter 

 would be fined heavily for " a fault." To seriously injure a Malay, 

 no matter how accidentally, was ruin to the Dyak. ]\Iatters fin.ally 

 came to such a pass that the wretched aborigines abstained from 

 growing crops which only brought their oppressors upon them, 

 and, in many instances, were able to live only by secreting food in 

 the jungles. Hundreds of women and chUdi-en were seized and 

 kept as slaves, and scores of Dyak men became slave debtors. 

 Seriff Sahib and his brother, Seriff Muller, two atrocious pirate 

 chieftains, both of whom were incontinently thrashed and utterly 

 crushed by Captain Keppel and Rajah Brooke, were formerly in the 

 habit of sending armed parties to the Dyak settlements to bring 

 down aU the young boys and girls they could catch. It is stated, 

 on good authority, that three hundred boys and girls have fre- 

 quently been captured at one time, and kept as slaves. 



The Malay rulers not only permitted indiscriminate head-hunt- 

 ing and sanguinary warfai'e among the Dyak tribes, but openly 

 connived at it. It is hard to imagine a ruler giving a powerful 

 clan permission to attack and exterminate a weaker one, also his 

 own subjects, but this was often done. 



As a consequence, the Dyaks could no longer live in clans, but 

 sought refuge in the mountains or the jungle, a few together ; and 

 one of them pathetically said : " We do not live like men ; we are 

 like monkeys ; we are hunted from place to place ; we have no houses; 

 and when we light a fire we fear the smoke will draw our enemies 

 upon us." 



All these miseries were inflicted upon a people naturally amiable 

 and peaceful, honest, of cheerful disposition, and almost childlike 

 simpHcity of manner. The result can be readily imagined. In 

 two years' time, by reason of famine, sword, slavery, forced labor, 

 and sickness, the Dyak population of Sarawak proper was reduced 

 from li,360 persons to 6,792, or less than one-half! Some clans 



