xxi] DYAK COSMOGRAPHY 



At Ruma Sale I again saw some Dyaks eating with evident 

 relish the clay schist which I alluded to just now as having seen 

 at the Meliet. It certainly was not eaten to appease hunger, but 

 as a delicacy, or. perhaps, to assuage an instinctive craving of the 

 stomach for some alkaline substance. 



As there were many upas trees here, and as the natives are very 

 proficient in preparing the well-known poison, I wished to witness 

 the process used in its manufacture. It is a very simple one. 

 With a parang they first make a deep oblique incision in the bark 

 of the tree, and then place just below it a bamboo joint, in which 

 the milky sap, which exudes in abundance from the cut, is collected. 

 In this manner, from a upas near the village, I myself collected 

 sufficient sap to fill a joint of a medium-sized bamboo in a 

 very short time. The fresh sap of the upas is quite harmless, and 

 thus no precautions are necessary whilst collecting it; a fact I can 

 amply confirm, for whilst tapping the tree my hands were splashed 

 all over. I have explained elsewhere the way in which the poison 

 is preserved in palm leaves hung over the fireplace, and when 

 required for use dissolved and applied to the points of the sumpitan 

 darts. 



No European had previously been in this part of the country, 

 and I was therefore an object of the greatest curiosity, especially 

 to the women, and amongst these the most importunate were 

 the elderly ones, of whom there was an ample and scarcely attractive 

 collection. I had few things with me, my personal necessaries 

 forming only the load of one man, for travelling as I did I could not 

 take much luggage with me. And yet every object was passed in 

 review, handled, and commented upon. These old hags would have 

 taken possession of everything had I let them do so. In no other 

 place was I so much pestered with questions, and nowhere were 

 they as absurd as here ; especially those relating to elementary 

 cosmography. But there was a reason for this, at least it appeared 

 to me so. These Dyaks, who, by the way, do not differ from the 

 other Land -Dyaks I had seen, consider the earth to be a 

 flat surface, whilst the heavens are a dome, a kind of glass shade 

 which covers the earth, and comes in contact with it at the horizon. 

 They, therefore, believe that, travelling straight on, always in the same 

 direction, one comes at last, without any metaphor, to touch the 

 sky with one's fingers. Now as they know that Europeans come from 

 far away over the sea, the supposition that we are nearer heaven 

 comes naturally to them. It seemed to them, therefore, nearly 

 impossible that I had not been in the moon, and they wanted to 

 know if in my country we had one or several moons, and if we also 

 had only one sun. It was most amusing to see the signs of incredulity 

 which my negative answers elicited amongst my audience. Had I 

 told them the story of Jules Verne's Voyage to the Moon I should 



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