IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap, iv 



unintelligible even to those well acquainted with the Dyak 

 language. 1 



Head-hunting is not, indeed, restricted to theDyaks of Borneo, 

 but is found amongst many peoples of the Indian Archipelago from 

 Sumatra to New Guinea and beyond. In past ages it was pro- 

 bably practised in many other countries where civilisation has now 

 caused it to become obsolete. The custom must, however, be 

 looked upon neither as an expression of savage brutality, nor as a 

 sort of collector's mania for accumulating the proofs of acts of 

 bravery, as a sportsman keeps the trophies of the big game he has 

 killed. The psychological motive which from generation to gener- 

 ation has influenced, and in a certain way consecrated, such a 

 barbarous custom, is probably analogous to that which maintains 

 — or used to maintain — amongst some tribes the custom of human 

 sacrifices. The ardent desire in a Dyak for the possession of a 

 head is always the outcome of a superstitious sentiment, of a duty 

 to be performed, to propitiate or to earn the favour of a spirit, or to 

 serve and benefit the soul of a dead relative or chief. 



The Sea-Dyaks have not a special " head-house," such as the 

 Land-Dyaks have, which is that in which the unmarried men live. 

 They suspend the heads they have collected over the fireplace, in 

 the middle part of the verandah of the common dwelling-house. 



A Dyak house is an assemblage of apartments, inhabited by 

 various families ; the quarters of each being partitioned off. Each 

 division is called a " pintu," which means, literally, " a door." 

 These long houses, in which many families congregate, must have 

 originated in an insecure country to facilitate defence in case of an 

 attack by a hostile tribe. 



The Sea-Dyaks enjoy a free and easy kind of life. There is no 

 parish clerk to register every birth and death in the community. 

 They have solved the problem of conjugal and family life in the 

 simplest manner. It is not rare to find amongst them men and 

 women who have been married seven or eight times before meeting 

 the mate with whom they could end their days in peace. A girl of 

 sixteen or seventeen years of age may have already had two or 

 three husbands, and is not for that reason less respected. The 

 causes of divorce are many, and often absurd or capricious, but this 

 never causes serious inconvenience. Our vaunted civilisation, 

 the cumulative product of centuries of ignorant prejudices and 

 foolish customs, finds insurmountable difficulties where they would 

 not exist, if, in lieu of moral convention, the simple laws of Nature' 

 and hygiene were but followed. 



The Dyaks are very superstitious and are always in a state of 

 anxious pre-occupation regarding the spirits, or " Antu," which the}' 



1 This song has been transcribed and printed by the Rev. J. Perham in the 



Sarawak Gazette, No. 130, April, 1877. 



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