Books: The Pagan Tribes of Borneo

C >> Charles Hose and William McDougall >> The Pagan Tribes of Borneo

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Punans never build boats or travel on the water of their own initiative
and agency. In fact they dislike to come out from the shade of the
forest on to a cleared space or the stony bed of the river. They are
very conservative in spite of their intercourse with more advanced
tribes, and they harbour many irrational prejudices. They entertain
a particular aversion to the crocodile, an aversion strongly tinged
with awe. They will not kill it or any one of their omen-beasts. They
are very shy of whatever is unfamiliar. Many of them will not eat
salt or rice when opportunity offers.

The medicine men or DAYONGS of the Punans are distinguished for
their knowledge and skill, and are in much request among the other
tribes for the catching of souls and the extraction of pains and
disease. They are therefore fairly numerous; but, as among the other
peoples, the calling is a highly specialised one, though not one which
occupies a man's whole time or excuses him from the usual labours of
his community. Their methods do not differ widely from those of the
Kayan and Kenyah DAYONGS.

The Punan has great faith in charms, especially for bringing good luck
in hunting. He usually carries, tied to his quiver, a bundle of small
objects which have forcibly attracted his attention for any reason,
E.G. a large quartz crystal, a strangely shaped tusk or tooth or
pebble, etc., and this bundle of charms is dipped in the blood of
the animals that fall to his blow-pipe.

As regards dress and weapons the Punan differs little from his
neighbours. A scanty waist-cloth of home-made bark-cloth, or equally
scanty skirt for the woman, strings of small beads round wrists or
ankles or both, numbers of slender bands of plaited palm-fibre below
the knees and about the wrists, and sometimes a strip of cloth round
the head, make up his costume for all occasions.

All his belongings are such as can easily be transported. He carries
a sword, a small knife, a blow-pipe with spear-blade attached, and a
small axe with long narrow blade for working camphor out of the heart
of the camphor-tree. Besides these essential tools and weapons, which
he constantly carries, the family possesses sago-mallets and sieves,
dishes and spoons or spatulas of hard wood, and tongs of bamboo for
eating sago,[176] a few iron pots,[177] large baskets for carrying
on the back, a few mats of plaited rattan, and small bamboo boxes.

These are the sum of the worldly goods of a Punan family, and it would,
we suppose, be difficult to find another people who combine so great
a poverty in material possessions with so high a level of contentment
and decent orderly active living.

Although his material possessions are so few, the Punan is not capable
of fashioning all of them by his own independent efforts. All his
metal tools he obtains from the Kayans (or other tribes) who are his
patrons. But everything else he makes with his own hands. The long
blow-pipe of polished hard-wood, which is his favourite weapon, he
makes by the same methods and as well as the Kayans. But the iron rod
which he uses in the process of boring the wood he cannot make. This
illustrates his intimate dependence on other tribes, and seems to
imply that the blow-pipe, at least in the highly finished form in
which it is now used, cannot have been an independent achievement
of the Punans. They are especially skilful in the plaiting of rattan
strips to make baskets, mats, and sieves. They do little wood-carving,
but carve some pretty handles for knives and decorative pieces for
the sword-sheaths from the bones of the gibbon and deer. They are
expert also in making bamboo pipes with which to imitate the calls
of the deer and of some of the birds.

Hunting, tracking, and trapping game are the principal and favourite
pursuits of the men; they display much ingenuity in these pursuits
and attain a wonderful skill in the interpretation of the signs of the
jungle. For example, a Punan is generally able to read from the tracks
left in the jungle by the passage of a party of men, the number of the
party, and much other information about it. They are expert scouts,
and, when their neighbourhood is invaded by any party whose intentions
are not clearly pacific, they will follow them for many days, keeping
them under close observation while remaining completely hidden.

The Punan has few recreations. His highest artistic achievement
is in song. His principal musical instrument is a simple harp made
from a length of thick bamboo (Fig. 86); from the surface of this
six longitudinal strips are detached throughout the length of a
section of twenty inches or more, but retain at both ends their
natural attachments. Each strip is raised from the surface by a pair
of small wooden bridges, and is tuned by adjusting the interval
between these. The only other musical instrument is a very simple
"harmonica." A series of strips of hard-wood, slightly hollowed and
adjusted in length, are laid across the shins of the operator, who
beats upon them with two sticks. But the finest songs are sung without
accompaniment and are of the nature of dramatic recitals in the manner
of a somewhat monotonous and melancholy recitative. To hear a wild
Punan, standing in the midst of a solemn circle lit only by a few
torches which hardly seem to avail to keep back the vast darkness of
the sleeping jungle, recite with dramatic gesture the adventures of
a departing soul on its way to the land of shades, is an experience
which makes a deep impression, one not devoid of aesthetic quality.

In dancing, the Punan attains only a very modest level. The men dance
upon a narrow plank (for the good reason that they have nothing else
to dance upon); and the exhibition is one of skilful balancing on this
restricted base while executing a variety of turning movements and
postures. The women dance in groups with very restricted movements
of the feet, and some monotonous swaying movements of the arms and
body. The men also imitate the movements of monkeys and of the hornbill
and the various strange sounds made by the latter.

The most striking evidence of the low cultural standing of the Punan
is the fact that he cannot count beyond three (the words are JA,
DUA, TELO); all larger numbers are for him merely many (PINA). Yet,
although in culture he stands far below all the settled agricultural
tribes, there is no sufficient reason for assuming him to be innately
inferior to them in any considerable degree, whether morally or
intellectually. Any such assumption is rendered untenable by the fact
that many Punans have quickly assimilated the mode of life and general
culture of the other tribes; and there can be no doubt, we think, that
many of the tribes that we have classed as Klemantan and Kenyah are
very closely related to the Punans, and may properly be regarded as
Punans that have adopted Kayan or Malay culture some generations ago.

CHAPTER 20

Moral and Intellectual Peculiarities

In this chapter we propose to bring together a number of observations
which have found no place in foregoing chapters but which will throw
further light on the moral and intellectual status of the pagan tribes.

We have seen that among the Kayans the immediate sanction of all
actions and of judgments of approval and disapproval is custom, and
that the sanction of custom is generally supported by the fear of
the TOH and of the harm they may inflict upon the whole house. The
principle of collective or communal responsibility of the household,
which is thus recognised in face of the spiritual powers, as well
as in face of other communities, gives every man an interest in
the good behaviour of his fellows, and at the same time develops
in him the sense of obligation towards his community. The small
size of each community, its separation and clear demarcation by its
residence under a single roof, its subordination to a single chief,
and its perpetual conflict and rivalry with other neighbouring
communities of similar constitution, all these circumstances also
make strongly for the development in each of its members of a strong
collective consciousness, that is to say, of a clear consciousness
of the community and of his place within it and a strong sentiment of
attachment to it. The attachment of each individual to his community is
also greatly strengthened by the fact that it is hardly possible for
him to leave it, even if he would. For he could not hope to maintain
himself alone, or as the head of an isolated family, against the
hostile forces, natural and human, that would threaten him; and
it would be very difficult for him to gain admittance to any other
community.

It is only when we consider these facts that we can understand how
smoothly the internal life of the community generally runs, how few
serious offences are committed, how few are the quarrels, and how few
the instances of insubordination towards the chief, and how tact and
good sense can rule the house without inflicting any other punishment
than fines and compensatory payments.

And yet, when all these circumstances have been taken into account,
the orderly behaviour of a Kayan community must be in part regarded as
evidence of the native superiority of character or disposition of the
Kayans. For though the Sea Dayaks, Klemantans, and Muruts, live under
very similar conditions, they do not attain the same high level of
social or moral conduct. Among the Muruts there is much drunkenness
and consequent disorder, and the same is true in a less degree of
the Sea Dayaks; among them and some of the Klemantan tribes quarrels
within the house are of frequent occurrence, generally over disputed
ownership of land, crops, fruit-trees, or other property. And these
quarrels are not easily composed by the chiefs. Such quarrels not
infrequently lead to the splitting of a community, or to the migration
of the whole house with the exception of one troublesome member and
his family, who are left in inglorious isolation in the old house.

But the higher level of conduct of the Kayans is in most respects
rivalled by that of the Kenyahs, and some importance must therefore be
attributed to the one prominent feature of their social organisation
which is peculiar to these two peoples, namely a clearly marked
stratification into three social strata between which but little
intermarriage takes place. This stratification undoubtedly makes
for a higher level of conduct throughout the communities in which it
obtains; for the members of the higher or chiefly class are brought
up with a keen sense of their responsibility towards the community,
and their example and authority do much to maintain the standards of
conduct of the middle and lower classes.

We have said that almost all offences are punished by fines only. Of
the few offences which are felt to require a heavier punishment,
the one most seriously regarded is incest. For this offence, which is
held to bring grave peril to the whole house, especially the danger of
starvation through failure of the PADI crop, two punishments have been
customary. If the guilt of the culprits is perfectly clear, they are
taken to some open spot on the river-bank at some distance from the
house. There they are thrown together upon the ground and a sharpened
bamboo stake is driven through their bodies, so that they remain pinned
to the earth. The bamboo, taking root and growing luxuriantly on this
spot, remains as a warning to all who pass by; and, needless to say,
the spot is looked on with horror and shunned by all men. The other
method of punishment is to shut up the offenders in a strong wicker
cage and to throw them into the river. This method is resorted to as
a substitute for the former one, owing to the difficulty of getting
any one to play the part of executioner and to drive in the stake,
for this involves the shedding of the blood of the community.

The kind of incest most commonly committed is the connection of
a man with an adopted daughter, and (possibly on account of this
frequency) this is the kind which is most strongly reprobated. It
is obvious also that this form of incest requires a specially strong
check in any community in which the adoption of children is a common
practice. For, in the absence of severe penalties for this form of
incest, a man might be tempted to adopt female children in order to
use them as concubines. We find support for this view of the ground of
the especially severe censure on incest of this form in the fact that
intercourse between a youth and his sister-by-adoption (or VICE VERSA)
is not regarded as incest, and the relation is not regarded as any bar
to marriage. We know of at least one instance of marriage between two
young Kenyahs brought up together as adopted brother and sister.[178]
Of other forms of incest the more common (though, it should be said,
incest of any form is very infrequent) are those involving father
and daughter, brother and sister, and brother and half-sister.

The punishment of the incestuous couple does not suffice to ward off
the danger brought by them upon the community. The household must be
purified with the blood of pigs and fowls; the animals used are the
property of the offenders or of their family; and in this way a fine
is imposed.

When any calamity threatens or falls upon a house, especially a great
rising of the river which threatens to sweep away the house or the
tombs of the household, the Kayans are led to suspect that incestuous
intercourse in their own or in neighbouring houses has taken place;
and they look round for evidences of it, and sometimes detect a case
which otherwise would have remained hidden. It seems probable that
there is some intimate relation between this belief and the second
of the two modes of punishment described above; but we have no direct
evidence of such connection.[179]

All the other peoples also, except the Punans, punish incest with
death. Among the Sea Dayaks the most common form of incest is that
between a youth and his aunt, and this is regarded at least as
seriously as any other form. It must be remembered that, owing to
the frequency of divorce and remarriage among the Sea Dayaks, a youth
may find himself in the position of step-son to half a dozen or more
divorced step-mothers, some of them perhaps of his own age, and that
each of them may have several sisters, all of whom are reckoned as
his aunts; therefore he must walk warily in his amorous adventures.

Sexual perversion of any form is, we think, extremely rare among
the pagan tribes of Borneo. We have never heard of any case of
homosexuality on good authority, and we have never heard any reference
made to it; and that constitutes, to our thinking, strong evidence
that vice of that kind is unknown among most of the tribes. It is
not unknown, though not common, among the Malays and Chinese, and,
if cases occur sporadically among the pagans, they are presumably
due to infection from those quarters.

Homicide

Kayans, as we have seen, have no scruple in shedding the blood
of their enemies, but they very seldom or never go to war with
other Kayans; and the shedding of Kayan blood by Kayans is of rare
occurrence. To shed human blood, even that of an enemy, in the house
is against custom. Nevertheless murder of Kayan by Kayan, even by
members of the same house, is not unknown. In a wanton case, where
two or more men have deliberately attacked another and slain him,
or one has killed another by stealth, the culprit (or culprits)
would usually be made to pay very heavy compensation to relatives,
the amount being greater the higher the social status and the greater
the wealth of the culprit; the amount may equal, in fact, the whole
of his property and more besides; and he might, in order to raise the
amount, have to sell himself into slavery to another, slavery being
their only equivalent to imprisonment. The relatives would probably
desire to kill the murderers; but the chief would generally restrain
them and would find his task rendered easier by the fact that, if
they insist on taking the murderer's life, they would forfeit their
right to compensation.[180] The amount of the compensation to be paid
would not depend upon the social standing of the murdered man, but
the fine paid to the house or chief would be heavier in proportion
to his rank. But we have knowledge of cases in which chiefs have,
with the approval of the house, had a murderer put to the sword. The
murderer who has paid compensation has, however, by no means set
himself right with the household; they continue to look askance
at him. Set fights or duels between men of the same house are very
rare. If a Kayan of one house kills one of another, his chief would
see that he paid a proper compensation to the relatives, as well as
a fine to his own house. If a man killed his own slave, he would be
liable to no punishment unless the act were committed in the house;
but public opinion would strongly disapprove.

'Running AMOK' is not unknown among Kayans, though it is very rare. If
a man in this condition of blind fury kills any one, he is cut down and
killed, unless he is in the house; in which case he would be knocked
senseless with clubs, carried out of the house into the jungle,
and there slain.

Drunkenness during an act of criminal violence is regarded as a
mitigating circumstance, and the fines and compensation imposed would
be of smaller amount than in a case of similar crime deliberately
committed.

Suicide is strongly reprobated, and, as we have seen, the shades of
those who die by their own hands are believed to lead a miserable and
lonely existence in a distressful country, Tan Tekkan, in which they
wander picking up mere scraps of food in the jungle. Nevertheless,
suicides occur among Kayans of both sexes. The commonest occasion
is the enforced separation of lovers, rather than the despair of
rejected lovers. We have known of two instances of Kayan youths who,
having formed attachments during a long stay in a distant house and
who then, finding themselves under the necessity of returning home
with their chief and unable to arrange marriage with their fair ones,
have committed suicide. The method most commonly adopted is to go
off alone into the jungle and there to stab a knife into the carotid
artery. The body of a suicide is generally buried without ceremony
on the spot where it is found. Suicides of women are rarer than those
of men; desertion by a lover is the commonest cause.

Dishonesty in the form of pilfering or open robbery by violence
are of very rare occurrence. Yet temptations to both are not
lacking. Fruittrees on the river-bank, even at some distance from
any village, are generally private property, and though they offer a
great temptation to passing crews when their fruit is ripe, the rights
of the proprietor are usually respected or compensation voluntarily
paid. Theft within the house or village is practically unknown. Even
before the European governments were established, Malay and Chinese
traders occasionally penetrated with boat-loads of goods far into
the interior; and now such enterprises are regularly and frequently
undertaken. Occasionally a trader establishes himself in a village
for months together, driving a profitable trade in hardware, cloth,
tobacco, etc. These traders usually travel in a small boat with a
company or crew of only two or three men, and they are practically
defenceless against any small party of the natives who might choose
to rob or murder them. Such traders have now and again been robbed,
and sometimes also murdered, by roving bands of Sea Dayaks, but we
know of no such act committed by Kayans or Kenyahs. The trader puts
himself under the protection of a chief and then feels his life and
property to be safe.

It would not be true to say that the Kayans or any of the other
peoples are always strictly truthful. They are given to exaggeration
in describing any event, and their accounts are apt to be strongly
biassed in their own favour. Nevertheless, deliberate lying is a
thing to be ashamed of, and a man who gets himself a reputation as
a liar is regarded with small favour by his fellows.

The Kayans, as we have said elsewhere, are not coarse of speech,
and both men and women are strictly modest in respect to the display
of the body. Though the costume of both sexes is so scanty, the
proprieties are observed. The Kayan man never exposes his GENITALIA
even when bathing in the company of his fellows, but, if necessary,
uses his hands as a screen. The bearing of the women is habitually
modest, and though their single garment might be supposed to afford
insufficient protection, they wear it with an habitual skill that
compensates for the scantiness of its dimensions; they bathe naked
in the river before the house, but they slip off their aprons and
glide into the water deftly and swiftly; and on emerging they resume
their garments with equal skill, so that they cannot be said to expose
themselves unclothed. The same is true of most of the other tribes,
with the exception of the men of Kenyah and Klemantan communities
that inhabit the central highlands; these, when hauling their boats
through the rapids, will divest themselves of all clothing, or will
sit naked round a fire while their waist-cloths are being dried,
without the least embarrassment.

There is no Kayan word known to us that could properly be translated
as justice or just, injustice or unjust. Yet it is obvious that they
view just conduct with approval and unjust with disapproval; and they
express their feelings and moral judgments by saying laconically of
any particular decision by a chief, TEKAP or NUSI TEKAP. But the
word TEKAP is of more general application than our word 'just,'
and might be applied to any situation which evokes a judgment of
moral approval; for example, on witnessing any breach of custom or
infringement of tabu a Kayan would say NUSI TEKAP; TEKAP, in short,
is applicable to whatever is as it ought to be.

Specialised terms for moral qualities of character and conduct are,
however, not lacking. A just and wise chief would be said to be TENANG;
but this word implies less purely a moral quality than our word
justice and more of intellectual capacity or knowledge or accuracy;
the word is more especially applied as a term to describe the quality
of a political speech which meets with approval. The word HAMAN means
skilful, or clever, or cunning, in the older sense of capable both
physically and intellectually. A man who fights pluckily is said
to be MAKANG, and the same word is applied to any daring or dashing
feat, such as crossing the river when it is dangerously swollen. To
disregard omens would be MAKANG also; it seems, therefore, to have
the flavour of the word rash or foolhardy.

SAIOH means good in the sense of kindly, pleasantly toned, or
agreeable. JAAK is bad in the sense of a bad crop or an unfortunate
occurrence, or a sore foot, I.E. it conveys no moral flavour. Morally
bad is expressed by SALA; this is used in the same sense in Malay
and may well be a recently-adopted word. In general the language
seems to be very poor in terms expressive of disapproval, adverse
judgments being generally expressed by putting nusi, the negative or
primitive particle, before the corresponding word of positive import;
thus a cowardly act or man would be denounced as NUSI MAKANG.

We think it is true to say that, although they thus distinguish
the principal qualities of character and conduct with appropriate
adjectival terms, they have no substantival terms for the virtues
and vices, and that they have not fully accomplished the processes
of abstraction implied by the appropriate use of such highly abstract
substantives.

As regards the influence of their religious beliefs on the moral
conduct of the Kayans, we have seen that the fear of the TOH serves
as a constant check on the breach of customs, which customs are in
the main salutary and essential for the maintenance of social order;
this fear does at the least serve to develop in the people the power
of selfcontrol and the habit of deliberation before action. The part
which the major spirits or gods are supposed to play in bringing
or fending off the major calamities remains extremely vague and
incapable of definition; in the main, faithful observation of the
omens, of rites, and of custom generally, seems to secure the favour
of the gods, and in some way their protection; and thus the gods
make for morality. Except in regard to that part of conduct which is
accurately prescribed by custom and tradition, their influence seems to
be negligible, and the high standard of the Kayans in neighbourliness,
in mutual help and consideration, in honesty and forbearance, seems
to be maintained without the direct support of their religious beliefs.

The high moral level attained by individuals among the Kayans
and Kenyahs, and less frequently by Klemantans, is, we think,
best exemplified by the enlightened and public-spirited conduct of
some of the principal chiefs. It might have been expected that the
leading chiefs of warlike and conquering peoples like the Kayans and
Kenyahs, which, until the advent of the European governments, had
never encountered any resistance which they could not break down by
armed force, would have been wholly devoted to conquest and rapine;
and that a chief who had acquired a high prestige and found himself
able to secure the adhesion in war of a number of other chiefs and
their followers would have been inspired with the barbarous ideals
of an Alexander, a Napoleon, a Chaka, or a Cetewayo. But though some
of them have shown tendencies of this kind, there have been notable
exceptions who have recognised that chronic hostility, distrust, and
warfare, which had always been characteristic of the relations between
the various tribes and villages, were an unmixed evil. Such men have
used their influence consistently and tactfully and energetically to
establish peaceful relations between the tribes. Unlike some savage
chieftains of warrior tribes in other parts of the world, such as
some of those produced by the Bantu race, or those who established
the great confederation of the Iroquois tribes, they have not sought
merely to bring about the combination of all the communities of
their own stock in order to dominate over or to exterminate all
other tribes. They have rather pursued a policy of reconcilement
and conciliation, aiming at establishing relations of friendship and
confidence between the communities of all languages and races. One
such powerful Kenyah chief of the Baram district, Laki Avit, had
earned a high reputation for such statesmanship before the district
was incorporated in the Raj of Sarawak. His policy was to bring about
intermarriages between the families of the chiefs and upper-class
people of the various tribes. Tama Bulan (see Pl. 27), the leading
Kenyah chief of the same district at a later time, spared no efforts
to bring about friendly meetings between chiefs of different tribes,
for the purpose of making peace and of promoting intercourse and
mutual understanding.[181] It should be added that these peacemaking
ceremonies are generally of lasting effect; the oaths then taken are
respected even by succeeding generations. Tama Kuling, who a decade
ago was the most influential of the Batang Kayan chiefs, had also
spontaneously pursued a similar policy.[182]