Children of Borneo

CHAPTER XI

SOME ANIMAL STORIES

The Dyaks of Borneo, both young and old, are very fond of listening to stories, and often in the evening in the public hall of the long Dyak village house, a crowd of men, women and children may be seen seated on mats, listening to a legend or fairy-tale related by some old man. They have a large number of stories about animals which the Dyaks are never tired of listening to; and though they know them well, still they love to hear them retold again and again. These animal stories correspond to the adventures of Brer Rabbit, or our own tales illustrating the cunning of the fox. In the Dyak stories the mouse-deer, one of the smallest animals to be found in Borneo, is represented as very clever, and able to outwit with his cunning the larger and stronger animals. Here are two animal stories which I have myself heard related by the Dyaks themselves:

Once upon a time the Mouse-deer, accompanied by many other animals, went on a fishing expedition. All day long they fished, and in the evening they returned to the little hut they had put up by the river-side, salted the fish they had caught, and stored it up in large jars. They noticed, when they returned in the evening, that much of the fish they had left in the morning was missing. The animals held a council to decide what it was best to do, and after some discussion, it was decided that the Deer should stay behind to catch the thief, while the others went out to fish.

"I shall be able to master him, whoever he is," said the Deer. "If he refuses to do what I wish, I shall punish him with my sharp horns."

So the others went out fishing, leaving the Deer at home. Soon he heard the tramp of someone coming to the foot of the ladder leading up into the hut, and a voice called out:

"Is anyone at home?"

"I am here," said the Deer. Looking out he saw a great giant, and his heart failed him. He wished he had asked one of his companions to stay with him.

"I smell some fish," said the Giant. "I want some, and you must give it to me at once. I am hungry. Let me have what I want."

"It does not belong to me," said the Deer, in great fear. "It belongs to the Pig, the Bear, the Tiger, and the Mouse-deer. They would punish me severely if I gave any of it to you."

"Don't talk to me in that way," said the Giant, impatiently. "If you do not let me have what I want, I will eat you up."

The Deer was too frightened of the Giant to refuse his request, so he let him eat the fish, and take some away with him.

When his companions returned, the Deer gave them his account of the Giant's visit. They blamed him for his cowardice, and the Wild Boar said he would keep watch the next day.

"If the Giant comes," said he, "I will gore him with my tusks, and trample him underfoot."

But he fared no better than the Deer, for when he saw the Giant, who threatened to kill him if he refused to give him some fish, he was afraid, and let him take as much as he wanted.

Great was the disgust of the others to find on their return that their fish had again been taken.

"Let me watch," said the Bear. "No Giant shall frighten me. I will hug him with my strong arms, and scratch him with my sharp claws."

So Bruin was left in charge the next day, while the others went out to fish.

Soon he heard the Giant who came to the foot of the steps, and shouted: "Hullo! Who's there?"

"I am," said the Bear. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I can smell some nice fish, and I am hungry, and want some."

"I cannot let you have any," said the Bear. "It does not belong to me."

"Let me have some at once," said the Giant in a voice of thunder, "before I kill and eat you."

The Bear was too much frightened to interfere, while the Giant ransacked the jars. When he had had enough, he bade the Bear "Good-bye!" and went off.

On the return of the other animals, the Tiger said he would put a stop to this state of things. He would stay at home the next day and keep watch. It would have to be a very strong Giant indeed that would dare to fight him!

The Giant paid his visit as before, and told the Tiger that he was hungry, and asked for some fish. At first the Tiger refused to give any to him, but when the Giant threatened to attack him, he was afraid, like the others had been, and let him have as much as he wanted.

On their return, again the animals found their fish had been stolen.

Then the Mouse-deer spoke. "I see," he said, "that it is no use depending on you others. You boast, but when the time comes for action, you have no courage. I will stay at home, and secure this giant of whom you are all afraid."

When his companions had gone away the next morning, the Mouse-deer tied a bandage round his forehead and lay down.

Soon the Giant came, and shouted: "Who's there?"

"Only me," said the Mouse-deer, groaning with pain. "Come up, whoever you may be."

The Giant climbed up the rickety ladder, and saw the Mouse-deer lying with his head bandaged.

"What is the matter with you?" asked the Giant.

"I have a headache," was the answer.

"Whatever has given you the headache?" asked the Giant.

"Can't you guess?" said the Mouse-deer. "It is the smell of this fish in these jars. It is so strong, it is enough to make anyone ill. Don't you feel ill yourself?"

"I think I do," said the Giant. "Cannot you give me some medicine?"

"I have no medicine with me," said the Mouse-deer, "but I can bandage you, as I have bandaged myself, and that is sure to do you good."

"Thank you," said the Giant. "It is good of you to take the trouble to cure me."

So the Giant lay down as he was bid, while the Mouse-deer bandaged his head and fastened the ends of the bandage to pegs which he drove into the ground under the open flooring of the hut.

"Don't you feel a little pain in your ankles?" anxiously suggested the Mouse-deer.

"I think I do," said the foolish giant. "Suppose you bandage them also."

So the Mouse-deer, chuckling to himself, bandaged his ankles, and made them fast to the floor of the hut.

"Do you not feel the pain in your legs?" asked the Mouse-deer.

"I think I do," was the foolish Giant's reply.

So the Mouse-deer bandaged his legs and made them secure, so that the Giant was quite unable to move.

By this time the Giant began to get uneasy, and trying to get up, and finding himself securely bound, he struggled, and roared in pain and anger.

The little Mouse-deer sat before him and laughed, and said:

"You were a match for the Deer, the Pig, the Bear, and the Tiger, but you are defeated by me. Don't make so much noise, or I shall drive a peg through your temples and kill you."

Just then the others returned from their fishing. Great was their joy to find their enemy securely bound. With shouts of triumph they fell upon the Giant and killed him, and praised the Mouse-deer for his cleverness in securing him.

A Mouse-deer, wandering in the jungle, fell into a pit. He could not get out, so he waited patiently for some passer-by. Presently a Pig passed by the mouth of the pit. The Mouse-deer called out to him, and he looked in and asked the Mouse-deer what he was doing at the bottom of the pit.

"Don't you know what is going to happen?" said the Mouse-deer. "The sky is going to fall down, and everybody will be crushed to dust unless he takes shelter in a pit. If you want to save your life, you had better jump in."

The Pig jumped into the pit, and the Mouse-deer got on his back, but he found he was not high enough to enable him to leap out.

Next a Deer came along, and, seeing the two animals in the pit, asked them what they were doing there.

The Mouse-deer replied: "The sky is going to fall down, and everyone will be crushed unless he hides in some hole. Jump in, if you want to save your life."

The Deer sprang in, and the Mouse-deer made him stand on the back of the Pig; then he himself got on the back of the Deer and jumped out of the pit, leaving the other two to their fate.

The Deer and the Pig were very angry at being tricked in this way by such a small animal as the Mouse-deer. They scratched the side of the pit with their feet until it sloped, and enabled them to scramble out; then they followed the trail of the Mouse-deer, and soon overtook him.

The Mouse-deer saw them coming, and climbed up a tree from the bough of which a large beehive was hanging.

"Come down," said the Pig and Deer angrily. "You have deceived us, and we mean to kill you."

"Deceived you?" said the Mouse-deer in pretended surprise. "When did I deceive you, or do anything to deserve death?"

"Didn't you tell us that the sky was going to fall, and that if we did not hide ourselves in a pit we should be killed?"

"Oh, yes," was the reply. "What I said was perfectly true, only I persuaded the King to postpone the disaster."

"You need not try to put us off with any more lies. You must come down, for we mean to have your blood."

"I cannot," said the Mouse-deer, "because the King has asked me to watch his gong," pointing to the bees' nest.

"Is that the King's gong?" said the Deer. "I should like to strike it to hear what it sounds like."

"So you may," said the Mouse-deer, "only let me get down, and go to some distance before you do so, as the sound would deafen me."

So the Mouse-deer sprang down and ran away. The Deer took a long stick and struck the bees' nest, and the bees flew out angrily and stung him to death.

The Pig, seeing what had happened, pursued the Mouse-deer, determined to avenge the death of his friend. He found his enemy taking refuge on a tree round the trunk of which a large python was curled.

"Come down," said the Pig, "and I will kill you."

"I cannot come down to-day. I am set here to watch the King's girdle. Look at it," he said, pointing to the Python. "Is it not pretty? I have never seen such a handsome waist-belt before."

"It is beautiful," said the Pig. "How I should like to wear it for one day!"

"So you may," said the Mouse-deer, "but be careful and do not spoil it."

So the foolish Pig entangled himself in the folds of the Python, who soon crushed him to death and ate him for his dinner, and the clever Mouse-deer escaped, having outwitted his enemies.

CHAPTER XII

OMENS AND DREAMS

The Dyak is conscious of his ignorance of the laws which govern the world in which he lives. He feels his weakness and the need of some guidance from unseen powers. He has no knowledge of God and the revelation He has made in the Bible, and so he has devised for himself a system of omens.

There are seven birds in Borneo whose native names are: Katupong, Beragai, Kutok, Embuas, Nendak, Papau and Bejampong. These are supposed to reveal to the Dyaks the will of the great god Singalang Burong. These birds are beautiful in plumage, but, like most tropical birds, they have little song, and their calls are shrill and piercing. They are supposed to be the seven sons-in-law of Singalang Burong, and the legend which tells of how the Dyaks came to know them and to listen to their cries is given in Chap. XIV. ("The Story of Siu").

The system of bird omens as carried out by the Dyaks, is most complicated, and the younger men have constantly to ask the older ones how to act when contradictory omens are heard. The law and observance of omens occupy a great share of the thoughts of the Dyak.

Some idea of the method in which the Dyaks carry out their system of omens may be learned from what is done at the beginning of the yearly rice farming. Some man who has the reputation of being fortunate, and has had large paddy crops, will be the augur, and undertake to obtain omens for a large area of land, on which he and others intend to plant. This man begins his work some time before the Dyaks begin clearing the ground of jungle and high grass. He will have to hear the cry of the Nendak, the Katupong and the Beragai, all on his left. If these cries come from birds on his right, they are not propitious. He goes forth in the early morning, and wanders about the jungle till the cry of the Nendak is heard on his left. He will then break off a twig of anything growing near, and take it home, and put it in a safe place. But it may happen that some other omen bird or animal is first to be seen or heard. In that case he must give the matter up, return, and try his chance another day.

Thus, sometimes several days pass before he has obtained his first omen. When he has heard the Nendak, he will then listen for the Katupong and the other birds in the necessary order. There are always delays caused by the wrong birds being heard, and it may be a month or more before he hears all the necessary cries. When the augur has collected a twig for each necessary omen bird, he takes these to the land selected for farming, buries them in the ground, and with a short form of address to the omen birds and to Pulang Gana – the god of the earth – clears a small portion of the ground of grass or jungle, and then returns home. The magic virtues of the birds have been conveyed to the land, and the work of clearing it for planting may be begun at any time.

The sacred birds can be bad omens as well as good. If heard on the wrong side, or in the wrong order, the planting on a particular piece of land must be postponed, or altogether abandoned.

I have mentioned the omens necessary before planting the seed. In a similar manner, before beginning to build a house, or starting on a war expedition, or undertaking any new line of action, certain omens are required, if good fortune is to attend them and the Fates be propitious.

The worst of all omens is to find anywhere on the farm the dead body of any animal included in the omen list. It infuses a deadly poison into the whole crop. When such a terrible thing happens, the omen is tested by killing a pig, and divining from the appearance of its liver directly after death. If the liver be pronounced to be of good omen, then all is well, but if not, then all the paddy grown on that ground must be sold or given away. Other people may eat it, for the omen only affects those who own the crop.

It is not only to the cry of birds that the Dyaks pay heed. There are certain animals – the deer, the armadillo, the lizard, the bat, the python, even the rat, as well as certain insects – which all may give omens under special circumstances. But these other creatures are subordinate to the birds, from which alone augury is sought at the beginning of any important undertaking.

The Dyak pays heed to these omen creatures, not only in his farming, but in all his journeyings, and in any kind of work he may be engaged in. If he be going to visit a friend, the cry of a bird of ill omen will send him back. If he be engaged in carrying beams from the jungle to his house, and hear a Kutok, or a Bejampong or an Embuas, he will at once throw down the piece of timber. So great is the Dyak belief in omens, that a man will sometimes abandon a nearly-finished boat simply because a bird of ill omen flies across its bows. The labour of weeks will thus be wasted. I have myself seen wooden beams and posts left half finished in the jungle, and have been told that some omen bird was heard while the man was at work on them, and so they had to be abandoned.

There are many omens which make a house unfit for habitation. If a Katupong fly into it, or a Beragai over the house, or an armadillo crawls up into it, the Dyaks leave the house and build another for them to live in. Sometimes, however, they sacrifice a pig, and examine the liver, and only abandon the house if the liver is considered by experts to be of bad omen.

The Dyaks place implicit confidence in dreams. Their theory is that during sleep the soul can hear, see and understand, and so what is dreamt is what really takes place. When anyone dreams of a distant land, they believe that his soul has paid a flying visit to that land.

In dreams, also, the gods and spirits are supposed to bring charms to human beings. The story is often told of how a man falls asleep and dreams that a spirit came to him and gave certain charms, and lo! when he awakes, he finds them in his hands. Or else he is told in a dream to go to a certain spot at a special time and pick up some stone there, which will have some mysterious influence for good over his fortunes.

Dreams are looked upon by the Dyaks as the means the gods and spirits use to convey their commands to men, or to warn them of coming danger. Houses are often deserted, and farming land, on which much labour has been spent, abandoned on account of dreams. Newly married couples often separate from the same cause. It is no unusual thing for a man or a woman to dream that the spirits are hungry and need food. In that case the inmates of the Dyak house organize a feast, and offerings are made to the hungry spirits.

CHAPTER XIII

MARRIAGES AND BURIALS

Marriages in all countries are occasions of rejoicing, and it is the same among the Dyaks. The principal part of the ceremony is the fetching of the bride from her father's to the bridegroom's house. The women-folk of the village, who are friends of the bridegroom's family, set out in a boat, gaily decorated with an awning of parti-coloured sheets, and with streamers and flags flying, to an accompaniment of gongs and drums and musical instruments, to fetch the bride to her future home.

When the boat arrives at the landing-stage of the bride's house, they all walk up – a gaily dressed crowd – and are welcomed into the house. Here they sit down and talk over the future prospects of the young couple, chewing betel-nut and sireh (a kind of pepper leaf) all the time. A portion of these chewing ingredients are carefully set aside to be used later on. The Dyak with his great love for divination, cannot allow such an occasion to pass without some attempt to find out the secrets of the future.

The company all sit down in the long common hall of the Dyak house, and the betel-nut, sireh, etc., specially set aside for the ceremony, are brought forward. A betel-nut is split into seven pieces by one supposed to be lucky in matrimonial matters, and these, together with the other ingredients of the betel-nut mixture, are all put in a little basket, which is bound together with red cloth, and laid for a short time upon the open platform adjoining the house.

The Master of the Ceremonies, who splits the betel-nut, then makes a little speech, telling the assembled guests that if either party should desert the other without sufficient reason, the offending party shall be fined such an amount as has been agreed upon.

The basket containing the split pieces of betel-nut is then brought in and uncovered, and the contents examined to ascertain the will of the gods. Should the pieces of betel-nut, by some mystic power, increase in number, the marriage will be an unusually happy one; but should they decrease, it is a bad omen, and the marriage must be postponed or relinquished altogether. But, as a matter of fact, they neither increase nor decrease, and this is taken to mean that the wedding is one upon which the spirits have pronounced neither a good nor a bad verdict.

This action gives the name to the marriage ceremony. The Dyaks call marriage Mlah Pinang– "spitting the betel-nut."

The contents of the little basket, used to discover the will of the higher powers, is chewed by those present just as other pinang and sireh, and the marriage ceremony is over; the young couple are lawfully man and wife.

For the wedding, the bride decks herself out in all the finery she possesses, or can borrow from her friends. Her wedding-dress consists of a short petticoat of Dyak-woven cloth, which reaches to her knees. Along the bottom edge of this there are sewed several rows of tinsel, and of silver coins, below which probably hang some rows of hawk-bells, which make a tinkling sound as she walks. Round her waist are several coils of brass or silver chain, and two or three belts made of dollars or other silver coins linked together. From her hips upwards, as far as her armpits, she wears a corset formed by threading split cane through a great number of small brass rings, arranged so closely together as to completely hide the cane. To this corset may be fixed two or three bands of silver coins. Her armlets of brass or silver extend as far up as her elbow. As many rings as she possesses are on her fingers, and she wears necklaces of small beads, worked in very beautiful patterns, and finished off with a tassel of beads, or else a large number of big silver or brass buttons strung together round her neck. Her ears are decorated with filigreed studs of silver gilt, with a setting of scarlet cloth behind the filigree work to show them off.

In her hair is a towering comb of silver filigree work, to which are attached a number of silver spangles, which glitter with every movement of her head. She wears her hair in a knot into which are stuck a number of large brass hair-pins, decorated with beads and little tags of red and yellow and white cloth. She possesses a bright coloured jacket of Dyak-woven cloth; but she does not wear it, it is slung over her right shoulder.

After this detailed description of the bride's dress, it is disappointing to learn that the bridegroom takes no special pains to ornament his person. The men wear a great deal of finery when they attend a feast, or when they go on the war-path, but on the occasion of his wedding, the bridegroom takes no extra trouble over his apparel.

As soon as a man dies, the professional mourner sits on a swing near the head of the corpse and sings a long dirge, blaming the different parts of the house, beginning with the roof-ridge and proceeding downwards, for not keeping back the soul of the dead man.

Then the corpse is carried out into the public part of the house, and is covered with a Dyak sheet. By his side are put his belongings – his clothes, his implements of work, his shield, his sword, his spear – which are to be buried with him, or placed on his grave.

Early the following morning the body, wrapped in mats, and secured with a light framework of wood, is carried on the shoulders of four men, and, accompanied by their friends, they go to the jungle. When they come to the spot where a tree is to be cut down for the coffin, a halt is made. A fowl is killed, and the blood collected in a cup, and mixed with a little water. Each person present is touched with the blood, to propitiate the gods, and to secure safety from any evil consequences to the persons engaged in the funeral rites. They now set to work to make the coffin. A tree is felled and the required length cut off. This is split in two, and each half is hollowed out. The corpse is then placed inside this rude coffin, the two parts of which are now firmly lashed together with cane.

They then proceed either on foot or by boat to the place of burial. The trees in a Dyak burial-ground are not cut down, so there is nothing to distinguish it from any ordinary jungle. The Dyaks regard a cemetery with superstitious terror as the abode of spirits, and never go to it except to bury their dead, and when they do this, they do not stay longer than they can help, but hurry away lest they should meet some spirit from the other world.