A water-buffalo would be killed and the festival
would last for a week. In three years there would be another festal
occasion of two weeks' duration, at which a water-buffalo would again be
sacrificed, and when a second period of three years has elapsed the final
celebration of three weeks' duration will be given, with the same
sacrificial offering. Thus the occasions are seen to be of increasing
magnitude and the expenses in this case to be on a rising scale. It was
comparatively a small affair.
About a month later, when I stopped at Buntok, on the Barito, the
controleur of the district told me that an unusually great tiwah feast had
just been concluded in the neighbourhood. He had spent ten days there, the
Dayaks having erected a house for him to stay in. More than two hundred
pigs and nineteen water-buffaloes had been killed. Over three hundred
bodies, or rather remains of bodies, had previously been exhumed and
placed in forty boxes, for the accommodation of which a special house had
been constructed. These, with contents, were burned and the remains
deposited in ten receptacles made of iron-wood, those belonging to one
family being put in the same container.
Some of the Dayaks were much preoccupied with preparations for the Bundang
ceremony, which was postponed again and again. They encouraged me to
participate in the festivities, representing it as a wonderful affair. I
presented them with money to buy a sack of rice for the coming occasion,
and some of them went at once to Puruk Tjahu to purchase it. Having
overcome the usual difficulties in regard to getting prahus and men, and
Mr. Demmini having recovered from a week's illness, I was finally, early
in November, able to move on. Several people from our kampong went the
same day, and it looked as if the feast were really about to take place.
We proceeded with uneventful rapidity up-stream on a lovely day, warm but
not oppressively so, and in the afternoon arrived at Bundang, which is a
pleasant little kampong. The Dayaks here have three small houses and the
Malays have five still smaller. A big water-buffalo, which had been
brought from far away to be sacrificed at the coming ceremonial, was
grazing in a small field near by. The surrounding scenery was attractive,
having in the background a jungle-clad mountain some distance away, which
was called by the same name as the kampong, and which, in the clear air
against the blue sky, completed a charming picture. We found a primitive,
tiny pasang-grahan, inconveniently small for more than one person, and
there was hardly space on which to erect my tent.
There appeared to be more Siangs than Murungs here, the former, who are
neighbours and evidently allied to the latter, occupying the inland to the
north of the great rivers on which the Murungs are chiefly settled, part
of the Barito and the Laong. They were shy, friendly natives, and
distinguished by well-grown mustaches, an appendage I also later noted
among the Upper Katingans. The people told me that I might photograph the
arrangements incident to the feast as much as I desired, and also promised
to furnish prahus and men when I wished to leave.
The following day Mr. Demmini seemed worse than before, being unable to
sleep and without appetite. The festival was to begin in two days, but
much to my regret there seemed nothing else to do but to return to Puruk
Tjahu. The Dayaks proposed to take the sick man there if I would remain,
but he protested against this, and I decided that we should all leave the
following day. In the evening I attended the dancing of the Dayak women
around an artificial tree made up of bamboo stalks and branches so as to
form a very thick trunk. The dancing at the tiwa feast, or connected with
it, is of a different character and meaning from the general performance
which is to attract good antohs. This one is meant to give pleasure to the
departed soul. The scene was inside one of the houses, and fourteen or
fifteen different dances were performed, one of them obscene, but
presented and accepted with the same seriousness as the other varieties.
Some small girls danced extraordinarily well, and their movements were
fairylike in unaffected grace.
Enjoying the very pleasant air after the night's rain, we travelled
rapidly down-stream on the swollen river to Tumbang Marowei, where we
spent the night. There were twenty men from the kampong eager to accompany
me on my further journey, but they were swayed to and fro according to the
dictates of the kapala, who was resolutely opposed to letting other
kampongs obtain possession of us. He wanted to reserve for himself and the
kampong the advantages accruing from our need of prahus and men. To his
chagrin, in the morning there arrived a large prahu with four Murungs from
Batu Boa, who also wanted a chance at this bonanza, whereupon the kapala
began to develop schemes to harass us and to compel me to pay more.
Without any reason whatsoever, he said that only ten of the twenty men I
had engaged would be able to go. This did not frighten me much, as the
river was swollen and the current strong, so that one man in each of our
prahus would be sufficient to allow us to drift down to the nearest Malay
kampong, where I had been promised men some time before. At first I was
quite concerned about the loading of the prahus, as the natives all
exhibited a marked disinclination to work, the kapala, as a matter of
fact, having ordered a strike.
