Down to the Dayaks wishing to see what kind
of a skin the great white Rajah, who rules over them, possesses.
The next two or three nights the crowd that waited to see me change
into my pyjamas was, if anything, still larger, a good many Dayaks
from neighbouring villages coming over to see the sight. But gradually
the novelty wore off, to my great joy, as I was getting a bit tired
of the whole performance. I had come here to see the Dayaks, but it
appeared that they were even more anxious to see me.
For the next two or three weeks an odd Dayak would from time to time
ask to see my skin, so that at length I had absolutely to refuse to
exhibit myself any longer.
I had luckily brought several illustrated magazines with me to use
as papers for my butterflies, and these were a source of endless
delight to the crowds around me in the evenings. They behaved like a
lot of small children, and roared with laughter over the pictures. They
generally looked at the pictures upside down, and even then they seemed
to find something amusing about them. With Dubi as my interpreter
I used to make up stories about the pictures, and, pointing to
the portrait of some well-known actress, described the number of
husbands she had killed, and I'm afraid I grossly libelled many a
well-known politician, general, or divine in telling the Dayaks how
many heads they possessed or how many wives they owned, till it was
quite a natural thing for me to join in their uproarious merriment,
as I pictured in my mind some venerable bishop on the war-path.
As is well known, the Dayak women all wear rings of brass around
their waists. They are called "gronong," and they are made of pliable
rattan inside, with small brass rings fastened around the rattan. In
the centre of each ring there are generally two or three small red
and black rings of coloured rattan between the brass ones. Some wore
only four or five, while others possessed twenty or more, and then
they rather resembled a corset. Even the little girls of four or five
wore two or three of them.
I noticed on my first arrival that the women and some of the men seemed
to have their teeth plentifully filled with gold, but I soon found out
that it was brass that they had ornamented their teeth with, a small
piece being inserted in some way in the centre of each tooth. Their
teeth are generally black from the continual chewing of the betel-nut,
and I noticed small children of four or five years of age going in for
this dirty habit, and still younger children smoking cigarettes, the
covering of which is made out of the dried leaf of the sago-palm. The
Dayaks are almost as dirty as the Negritos in the Philippines, and yet
they are both certainly the merriest people I have ever met with. The
heartiest and most unaffected laughter I have ever heard proceeded
from the throats of Dayaks and Negritos. It almost seems as if dirt
in some cases constitutes true happiness.
The Dayak women seemed to bathe more often than the men, but they
never seemed to take off their brass waist-rings when bathing in the
river. The women also have their wrists covered with brass bangles,
which are all fastened together in one piece. The noise in the house
was deafening at times, especially in the evening, when all come home
from working in their "padi" fields, where the women are supposed to
do most of the work, the men generally going hunting. The continual
hum of conversation and loud laughter, with the noise made by the
pigs and chickens under the house, the dogs and chickens in the house,
and the beating of deep-toned gongs at times nearly drove me frantic,
especially when I was writing.
They resembled a lot of small children and would beat their gongs
simply to amuse themselves. Very often a Dayak, on returning from
his work or a hunt in the jungle, would walk straight up to a large
gong that was hanging up and hammer on it for a few minutes in a most
businesslike way, looking all the time as if it bored him. Then he
would walk away in much the same way as a man would leave the telephone
(as if he had just got through some business). I suppose it soothed
them after their day's work, but it irritated me.
The Dayak dogs are fearful and wonderful animals, both as regards
shape and colour, and I could get very little sleep on account of
the noise they made; yet the Dayaks seemed to sleep through it all.
One night I woke up after a particularly noisy fight, and saw what
appeared to me to be a dog sitting calmly by my bed with its back
turned to me. Lifting my mosquito net, therefore, very quietly, I let
drive with my fist at it, putting all my pent-up indignation and anger
for sleepless nights into the blow. Alas! it was a very solid dog that
I struck against, being nothing more nor less than the side of one of
my boxes, and I barked my knuckles rather badly. The laughter of the
Dayaks was loud and prolonged when Dubi translated the yarn to them
next day, and they remembered it long afterwards. Until I heard the
roar of laughter that went up, the story had not struck me as being
so very amusing!
All around the house for some distance was a forest of tall
fruit-trees. They had of course all been planted in times past by
the Dayaks' ancestors, and every tree had its owner, but they had
become mixed up with many beautiful wild tropic growths which had
sprung up between the trees.
