Borneans

“ Every now and then my eyes were dazzled by flashes from a diamond-shaped decoration on Abun’s war-cap. When we disembarked at noon I found that this glittering jewel was a tin trade-mark stamped in familiar letters: ‘Devoe’s Brilliant Kerosene Oil.’
For some inexplicable reason, the Borneans never breakfast before starting on any expedition; but, once started, they always seem to choose the most inopportune time for their first meal; [84] just when they have fallen fairly into the swing of paddling or poling, they must needs land and build fires for cooking rice. ”

“ Dogs, on the other hand, are treated by all Borneans uniformly with great contempt. It may be noted, furthermore, that this same pattern, whatever be its origin, enters into all Kayan decoration, whether of doors, of beams, of implements, of bead-work, or of graves.
The patterns are selected purely according to fancy, and, as far as I could ascertain, serve solely as personal embellishment. The only mark which is really a male distinction is placed on the back of the hands and fingers after a man has taken a head. ”

“ It was current talk among the Portuguese, that they marveled that the Spaniards would have plundered the Borneans, for they considered that people as valiant, since they are accustomed to go to Malaca, Pegu, and other places for the sake of plunder, and Borney was very strong. ”

“ The native Borneans proper are sparsely scattered over the whole country, and are divided into various tribes, each inhabiting a particular district, and speaking a dialect peculiar to itself. These tribes have been compared with the natives of our English counties, but they are much more distinct, each having its own customs, dress, mode of life, weapons, and in many cases a language unknown to the tribes only a few miles distant. ”

“ The houses in which the Borneo people live are the outcome of a life of constant apprehension of attacks from head-hunters. In union alone is strength. Surrounded by a dense jungle which affords, night and day, up to the very steps to their homes, a protecting cover for enemies, the Borneans live, as it were, in fighting trim, with their backs to a hollow square. A village of scattered houses would mean the utmost danger to those on the outskirts; consequently, houses which would ordinarily form a village have been crowded together until one roof covers them all. ”

“ Although the help of the stars is not needed by the Borneans in directing their course when travelling, since all but very short journeys are made on the rivers, most of them are familiar with the principal constellations, and name them in accordance with the resemblances they discover to men, animals, and other objects. Some of the tribes determine the arrival of the season for sowing PADI by the observation of the stars. ”

“ It can hardly have suggested itself to the minds of the Borneans as an element of purification and cleansing; to their mind water does not possess these properties. Water is good to drink when you are thirsty, and refreshing to bathe in when you are [Pg 25] hot, that is all; dirt has no horrors to the Bornean mind, and after a plunge in the river has refreshed the body, the Kayan, Dayak, Kenyah, Sibop, or whatever the tribe, will put on the same dirty waist-cloth or cotton jacket that has never known soap, and has seldom if ever been nearer the water than when on the back of its owner. ”

“ Naturally enough, of course, creation began on the island of Borneo, or Kalamantan, as they call it, and the first people were Borneans and spoke the language of the tribe that tells the story. Every tribe has a different account of creation, and claims that its people sprang from the first created mortals. The following account is the story of Genesis according to the Kayans of Northwestern Borneo:—
In the old, old days, when there was nothing but water and sky, there fell from the heavens an enormous rock ”

“ As before declared, this witness is one of the six Moros whom the said Simagat and Simagachina took with them when they carried the letters to the king of Borney at the order of his Lordship. When they reached the fleet of the king of Borney, stationed in the port of an islet to forbid the entrance there of the Spaniards, and when the said Borneans saw them, these envoys were seized and each one placed in a separate galley—except this witness and one other Moro, one Sungayan, who were imprisoned together and put in fetters under the deck. ”

“ Then all the twenty together, with a profound and mighty grunt, give a shove that sends the boat ahead for fifteen or twenty feet.
By this time, we had approached so near to the lurking-place of the enemy that it was deemed advisable to have scouts sent ahead, especially to see that there were no trees on the banks which had been partially chopped through and were kept in position only by the vines binding them to adjoining trees; a fatal trap for enemies often used by the Borneans. ”

“ Here some of the grandeurs of an oriental court are spread before their eyes, which Pigafetta briefly describes. The strangers are graciously given permission to take on fresh supplies of food, water, and wood, and to trade at pleasure. Later actions of the Borneans cause the men of the ships to fear treachery, and forestalling any action by that people, they attack a number of junks near them, and capture four. Among the captives is the son of the king of Luzón, who is the chief captain in Borneo, and whom Carvalho allows to escape, without consulting the others, for a large sum of gold. ”

“ Races.—The peoples of Borneo belong to a considerable variety of races, of different origin and degrees of civilization. The most important numerically are the Dyaks, the Dusuns and Muruts of the interior, the Malays, among whom must be counted such Malayan tribes as the Bajaus, Ilanuns, &c., the Bugis, who were originally immigrants from Celebes, and the Chinese. The Dutch, and to a minor extent the Arabs, are of importance on account of their political influence in Dutch Borneo, while the British communities have a similar importance in Sarawak and in British North Borneo. ”

“ Britain is a Christian island. Borneo is a heathen island. Yet Borneo is not an island of idols, as Ceylon is. All heathens do not worship idols. I will tell you who live in Borneo, and you will see why there are so few idols there.
Many people have come from Malacca, and settled in Borneo; so the island is full of Malays. These people have a cunning and cruel look, and no wonder;—for many of them are PIRATES! It is a common custom in Borneo to go out in a large boat,—to watch for smaller boats,—to seize them—to bind the men in chains, and to bring them home as slaves. ”

“ The villagers sleep soundly till cock-crow; but the European guest, lying in the place of honour almost beneath the row of human heads which adorns the gallery, is, if unused to sleeping in a Bornean long house, apt to be wakened from time to time throughout the night by an outburst of dreadful yelpings from the dogs squabbling for the best places among the ashes, by the prolonged fit of coughing of an old man, by an old crone making up the fire, by the goats squealing and scampering over the boats beneath the house, or by some weird cry from the depths of the jungle. ”

“ We were in the very heart of the Bornean jungle, guests, in the house of a barbarous ‘savage’ and bloodthirsty ‘head-hunter,’—but, these terms, when applied at that moment to our host, what misnomers! Could contrast be more emphatic than the perfect peacefulness of our surroundings, and the thought that a man as benignant and hospitable as Aban Avit should cherish as his highest aim in life to add every year to that cluster of human heads hanging from the rafters just above us, and gently swaying in the heat ascending from the flames? ”

“ Certainly Börne ought to have honoured this man, and for the very reason for which he despises him. For perhaps at no time was he more clearly worthy of all honour. Börne, by his own showing, would, like the ordinary tourist in Venice, have spent himself in vague moonlight and sunset romancings on the subject of the Bridge of Sighs, the terrors of tyranny, the blessings of liberty, and all the melody and colour—Goethe gazed at his sheep's skull. ”

“ The scenery and produce of Bornou were exceedingly various. Mountains, valleys, plains, and deserts alternating with each other composed a prospect of striking aspect; and the population, consisting of wild soldiers, merchants, artisans, farmers, herdsmen, and shepherds, some glittering with arms, or wrapped in ample drapery, others nearly as naked as when they left the womb, appeared no less picturesque or strange. Leo’s stay in this country was short, and the persons from whom he acquired his information must have been either ignorant or credulous ”

“ And why if Borron, or any other French poet, wanted to connect the Holy Vessel legend which he had imagined with Arthur, should he go out of his way to invent the personages of Brons and Alain? The story as found in the Queste would surely have been a far more natural one for him. And why the insistence upon Avalon? We have plain proof that Borron did not understand the word, as he explains it by a ridiculous pun (supra, p. 78) . [142]
These difficulties are met in a large measure if we look upon [Pg 223] Bran (Brons) as the starting point of the Christian transformation of the legend. ”

“ To make these lounging-places still more luxurious, mats of fine rattan or bamboo strips [6] are spread upon them, and then a Bornean desires no more comfortable place whereon to sit by day or to recline by night, unless, perchance, it be a dry sandy river-bank, above the rapids, where are no crocodiles, mosquitoes, nor pestiferous black-flies, and where grow gigantic Caladiums, whereof a single leaf is large enough to cover his entire body and afford him a protection from the rain, as impervious as a rubber blanket. ”

“ Inhabitants.—The inhabitants, of whom the great majority profess Mahommedanism, are divided into Negroes and those of mixed blood, i.e. Negro and Berber, Arab or other crossing. The total population of British Bornu is estimated at 500,000. The dominant tribe, called Bornuese, Berberi or Kanuri, a Negro race with an infusion of Berber blood, have black skins, large mouths, thick lips and broad noses, but good teeth and high foreheads. The females add to their want of beauty by extensive tattooing ”

“ In looking over the map of the world, it is a melancholy reflection to view so large a portion of the habitable globe as all Borneo abandoned to barbarism and desolation; that, with all her productive wealth and advantages of physical situation, her valuable and interesting shores should have been overlooked by all Europeans; that neither the Dutch nor the Portuguese, with centuries of uncontrolled power in these seas, should have shed a ray of civilization on shores bordering upon their principal settlements ”

“ The natives of Borneo are in a certain sense savages, but yet they are savages of a high order, possessed of a civilization far above what is usually implied by the term; they live together in what almost might be called coöperative communities, they practise the art of weaving, they forge rough implements of iron, they cultivate rice and esculent plants, and in all their work, such as house-building, boat-building, manufacture of cloth and weapons of warfare, they show an ambitious desire, and a skilful ability, to ornament [Pg 4] their work and add, to its usefulness, pleasure to the eye. ”

“ During our repeated visits to the island (a period of nearly two years) , we only lost one man, by a [60] most imprudent exposure to the night air, sleeping in an open boat, without the awning being spread, and exposed to a very heavy dew.
Borneo abounds with rivers, some of them very fine, running inland for one or two hundred miles. Most of these rivers have been taken possession of and colonised by the various tribes indigenous to the neighbouring isles and continent, to wit, Arabs, Malays, Illanoans, Bughis, the natives of Celebes, Chinese, &c. ”

“ There is every reason to believe that Borron knew nothing of any other Early History. His work, as we have it, is abridged and arranged. Meanwhile
(5) Queste had appeared. The author probably used the same Early History as Pseudo-Gautier. He knew the Conte du Graal, and wrote in opposition to it with a view to edification. He certainly knew nothing of Borron’s poem, or he could not have failed, with his strong mystical tendencies, to dwell upon the spiritual and symbolic character of the Grail. ”

“ But while in the very act of gazing and marvelling at these pictures of what rational human beings will suffer in order to appear more beautiful, she was herself constantly relieving her poor, elongated ear-lobes of the several pounds weight of copper rings dangling and clinking on her shoulders, by sustaining in her hands, if only for a brief moment, these monstrous demands of Bornean fashion. ”

“ Bertrand de Born was of the Limousin, lord of a castle in the diocese of Périgueux, by name Hautefort. He had at his command near a thousand men. And all his time he was at war with all his neighbours, with the count of Périgord, and the viscount of Limoges, and with his own brother Constantine—whom he would have liked to disinherit, had it not been for the king of England—and with Richard, while he was count of Poitou. He was a good knight, and a good warrior, and a good servant of ladies, and a good troubadour of sirventes ”

“ Borneo and Celebes, and indeed the greater portion of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, are still unknown, and the apathy of two centuries still reigns supreme with the enlightened people of England; while they willingly make the most expensive efforts favorable to science, commerce, or Christianity in other quarters, the locality which eminently combines these three objects is alone neglected and alone uncared for. It has unfortunately been the fate of our Indian possessions to have labored under the prejudice and contempt of a large portion of the well-bred community. ”