Round three sides of the room – the fourth side being occupied by the fireplace – are ranged the treasured valuables of the Dyaks – old earthen jars, some of which are of great value, and brass gongs and guns. Their cups and plates are hung up in rows flat against the wall. The flooring of this room is the same as that of the public hall outside, and made of split palm or bamboo tied down with cane. The floor is swept after a fashion, the refuse falling through the flooring to the ground underneath. The room is stuffy and not such a pleasant place as the open hall outside. The pigs and poultry occupy the waste space under the house.
Each family has its own portion of the long public hall outside, and the length of this corresponds to the breadth of the room occupied by the family, and in each of these portions there is a small fireplace which consists of a slab of stone, at which the men warm themselves when they get up, as they usually do, in the chill of the early morning before the sun has risen.
Over this fireplace in the open hall hangs the most valuable ornament in the eyes of the Dyak, the bunch of human heads. These are the heads obtained when on the war-path by various members of the family – dead and living – and handed down from father to son as the most precious heirlooms – more precious, indeed, than the ancient jars which the Dyaks prize so highly.
The posts in this public part of the Dyak village house are often adorned with the horns of deer and the tusks of wild boar. The empty sheaths of swords are hung from these horns or from wooden hooks, while the naked blades are placed in racks overhead.
If you can imagine a long house built several feet above the ground on posts, with walls and roof of palm leaf thatch, and this house divided into two parts, one a large public hall common to all the inmates, and the other divided into separate rooms each occupied by a different family, then you have some idea of the kind of house in which the Dyaks live.
The women are earlier risers than the men, and retire to bed earlier. They generally go to the river as soon as they wake, carrying their water-gourds with them. They have a bath, fill their gourds with water, and return to the house to cook the morning meal.
The principal article of food is rice, which is cooked in brass or iron pots. With their rice they eat either vegetables or fish. Sometimes they have the flesh of wild pig or deer, but that is not usual. Nearly every animal is eaten by the Dyaks; fish, venison and pork are eaten by all, and many tribes eat monkeys, snakes and even crocodiles. A favourite method of cooking is to put the proper quantity of fish or vegetables or meat, with sufficient water and a little salt, into a newly-cut bamboo. The mouth is then stopped up with leaves, and the bamboo is placed over the fire, resting on a stone at an angle of forty-five degrees or more. By the time the bamboo is thoroughly charred, the contents are sufficiently cooked, and it is taken from the fire and emptied out into a plate. Sometimes rice is cooked in bamboos, and when it is ready to be eaten, the bamboo is split and torn off in strips, and the rice is found well cooked inside – a stiff mass moulded in the form of the bamboo.
When the food is ready and put out in plates, the men are asked to come into the room and eat. Sometimes the women eat with the men; but if there are too many to eat comfortably at one sitting, the men have their meal first, and the women eat with the children after the men have done.
The Dyaks all sit on the floor, which also serves as their table. They have their rice on plates, or sometimes upon clean leaves. They eat with their fingers, dipping the hand when necessary into the common stock of salt or common dish of meat or vegetables. They eat with the right hand, compressing the rice into portions of convenient size.
When the meal is over, they wash the crockery and put it away. The mats are swept and taken up, and the refuse thrown through the open floor for the pigs and poultry under the house to eat.
The floor of the Dyak house is clean enough because all the dirt falls through on to the ground underneath; consequently this is covered with rubbish, and perpetually wet from the water thrown down from the floor above, and, being the favourite resort of the pigs and fowls of the long Dyak house, often smells horribly.
CHAPTER IV
DYAK BABIES AND CHILDREN
A Dyak baby is much like any other baby in being a little helpless human thing that spends most of his time in sleeping and feeding, worrying its mother with its constant wants, but yet loved greatly by her, and as it grows up, making its parents proud of it, and amusing them by its cunning little ways. Its colour varies from a light brown with a tinge of yellow to a dark chocolate, and it wears no clothing at all until it is five or six years old.
Until a civilised government interfered to prevent such cruel murders, there used to be a custom among the Dyaks that if the mother died when her child was born, the poor babe should pay the penalty and be buried with the mother. The reasons given for this cruel act was that the child was the cause of the mother's death, and that there was no one to nurse and care for it. No woman would dare to nurse such an orphan, lest it should bring misfortune upon her own children. Therefore the poor child was often placed alive in the coffin with the dead mother, and both were buried together. That was the old cruel Dyak custom, but I am glad to say it is a long time since it has been carried out. I have myself known many cases among the Dyaks where the mother has died, and the orphan has been adopted and brought up by some friend or relative.
When a child is born a fowl is waved over it as a kind of offering to the gods and spirits. This fowl is then killed, cooked, and eaten by the parents, and any friends that may be present.
During the first three days the child receives its bath in a wooden vessel in the house, but on the fourth day it is taken to the river. Some curious ceremonies attend its first bath in the river. An old man of some standing, who has been successful in his undertakings, is asked to bathe the child. He wades into the river holding the child in his arms. A fowl is killed on the bank, a wing is cut off, and if the child be a boy this wing is stuck upon a spear, and if a girl it is fixed to the slip of wood used to pass between the threads in weaving, and this is fixed on the bank, and the blood allowed to drop into the stream, as an offering to propitiate the spirits supposed to inhabit the waters, and to insure that, at any rate, no accident by water shall happen to the child. The remainder of the fowl is taken back to the house and cooked and eaten.
At some period after the child's birth – it may be within a few weeks or it may be deferred for years – a ceremony is gone through in which the gods and spirits are invoked to grant the child health and wealth and success in all his undertakings. This ceremony is generally postponed for some years if the parents are poor, in order to enable them to save a little to pay for the entertainment of their friends and relations on the occasion. Where the parents are better off, the ceremony is held a few weeks after the birth of the child. Several witch doctors are asked to take part in this performance. A portion of the long open hall of the Dyak house is screened off by large hand-woven Dyak sheets, and within these the mother sits with the child in her arms. The witch doctors walk round and round singing an incantation. Generally there is a leader who sings by himself for a few minutes, then he pauses, and turns round to his followers, and they all sing in chorus. Then the leader sings by himself again, and so on. They all walk round, first turning their feet to the right, and stamping on the floor, then pausing a moment, and turning their feet to the left, still stamping. This ceremony begins in the evening and goes on for several hours. When it is over, food is brought out to the assembled guests, and all partake of the provided feast.
The proceedings differ very much according to the wealth and standing of the parents. Among the poor, it is a very quiet affair – two or three witch doctors attend, and only the near relatives of the child are present. On the other hand, among those who are rich, this ceremony is made the occasion of holding a great feast, and inviting people from all parts to attend. Pigs and fowls are killed for food. Jars of tuak (a spirit obtained from rice) are brought forth for the guests to drink, and all are invited to rejoice with the parents.
The naming of the child is not made the occasion for any ceremonies,