|
H. Wilfrid Walker - Wanderings Among South Sea Savages
woman's scream of terror, followed by the sickening sound of hacking blows from the sharp Dayak
"parangs," and the Dayak war-cry, "Hoo-hah! hoo-hah!" ringing through the night air, as every single
Punan man, woman and child, who has not had time to escape, is cut down in cold blood. When all are
dead, the proud Dayaks, proceed to hack off the heads of their victims and bind them round with rattan
strings with which to carry them, and then, returning in triumph, are hailed with shouts of delight by their
envious fellow-villagers, for this means wives, a Dayak maiden thinking as much of heads as a white girl
would of jewellery. The old Dayak who undid the wrappings pretended to be horrified, but I felt sure that
the old hypocrite wished that he owned them himself.
Only seven of the heads had been brought in, and two of them were heads of women, and although they
had been smoked, I could easily see that one of them was that of a quite young, good-looking girl, with
masses of long, dark hair. She had evidently been killed by a blow from a "parang," as the flesh on the
head had been separated by a large cut which had split the skull open. In one of the men's heads there
were two small pieces of wood inserted in the nose. They were all ghastly sights to look at, and smelt a
bit, and I was not sorry to be able to turn my back on them.
As in the present case, the brass-encircled young Dayak women are generally the cause of these
head-hunts, as they often refuse to marry a man unless he has one or more heads, and in many cases a
man is absolutely driven to get a head if he wishes to marry. The heads are handed down from father to
son, and the rank of a Dayak is generally determined by the number of heads he or his ancestors have
collected. A Dayak goes on the war-path more for the sake of the heads he may get, than for the honour
and glory of the fighting. Generally, though, there is precious little fighting, as the Dayak attacks only
when his victims are unprepared.
While I was in Borneo I heard the following story of Dayak barbarity, which is a good example of the
way the women incite their men to go on these head-hunting expeditions. In a certain district where some
missionaries were doing good work among the Dayaks, a Dayak young man named Hathnaveng had
been persuaded by the missionaries to give up the barbaric custom of headhunting. One day, however, he
fell in love with a Dayak maiden. The girl, although returning his passion, disdained his offer of
marriage, because he no longer indulged in the ancient practice of cutting off and bringing home the
heads of the enemies of the tribe. Hathnaveng, goaded by the taunts of the girl, who told him to dress in
women's clothes in the future, as he no longer had the courage of a man, left the village and remained
away for some time. When he returned, he entered his sweetheart's hut, carrying a sack on his shoulders.
He opened it, and four human heads rolled upon the bamboo floor. At the sight of the trophies, the girl at
once took him back into her favour, and flinging her arms round his neck, embraced him passionately.
"You wanted heads," declared her lover. "I have brought them. Do you not recognize them?"
Then to her horror she saw they were the heads of her father, her mother, her brother and of a young man
who was Hathnaveng's rival for her affections. Hathnaveng was immediately seized by some of the
tribesmen, and by way of punishment was placed in a small bamboo structure such as is commonly used
by the Dayaks for pigs, and allowed to starve to death.[12] This is a true story, and occurred while I was
still in Borneo.
The day after we arrived at Kapit a great crowd of Dayaks, belonging to the tribe of those implicated in
the attack on the Punans, assembled at the fort to talk with Dr. Hose on the matter, and the upshot of it all
was startling in its severity. This was Hose's ultimatum: They must give up the rest of those that took part
in the raid, and they would all get various terms of imprisonment. They must return the rest of the heads.
|
