Susanna Moodie - "Life in the Clearings versus the Bush"

Hector Malot - "Conscience, v3"

Frances Hodgson Burnett - "The Head of the House of Coombe"

Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe - "The American Woman's Home"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Pagan Tribes of Borneo

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




It has been said of many savage peoples that they recognise no natural
death, but believe that all deaths not due to violence are due to
black magic. No such statement can be made of the Kayans; few, if
any, deaths are ascribed by them to the efforts of sorcerers. Natural
death is recognised as inevitable in old age, and disease is vaguely
conceived as the effect of natural causes; though as to what those
natural causes are they have no definite ideas. This attitude is shown
by their readiness to make use of European drugs and of remedies for
external application. Quinine for fever, and sulphate of copper for
the treatment of yaws, are most in demand. Cholera and smallpox are the
great epidemic diseases which have ravaged large areas of Borneo from
time to time. The Kayans recognise that both these diseases spread up
river from village to village, and that to abstain from intercourse
with all villages lower down river and to prevent any one coming up
river contributes to their immunity. With this object the people of
a tributary stream will fell trees across its mouth or lower reaches
so as to block it completely to the passage of boats, or, as a less
drastic measure, will stretch a rope of rattan from bank to bank
as a sign that no one may enter (Pl. 183). Such a sign is generally
respected by the inhabitants of other parts of the river-basin. They
are aware also of the risk of infection that attends the handling of
a corpse of one who has died of epidemic disease, and they attempt
to minimise it by throwing a rope around it and dragging it to the
graveyard, and there burying it in a shallow grave in the earth,
without touching it with the hands.[183]

The Kayans have some slight knowledge of the medicinal properties
of some herbs, and make general use of them. They administer as
an aperient a decoction of the leaves of a certain plant, called
OROBONG, which they cultivate for the purpose on their farms. The
root of the ginger plant is used both internally and for external
application. A variety of vegetable products are used in preparing
liniments; the basis most in request for these is the fat of the
python and of other snakes, but wild pig's fat is used as a more
easily obtainable substitute.

There is a small common squirrel (SCIURUS EXILIS), the testicles of
which are strikingly large in proportion to his body. These organs are
dried and reduced to powder, and this powder, mixed with pig's fat,
is rubbed over the back and loins in cases of impotence.[184]

Kayan mothers treat colic in their children by chewing the dried root
of a creeper (known as PADO TANA) with betel nut, and spitting out
the juice on the belly of the patient.

Some of the coastwise Klemantans make use of a bitter decoction of a
certain creeper as a remedy for jungle fever. It is asserted by Kayans
and others that the Punans make use of the poison of the IPOH tree
(the poison used on their darts) as an internal remedy for fever. It
is said also (probably with truth, we think) that the Punans also
apply the IPOH poison to snake-bites and to festering wounds.[185]


Surgery

Broken limbs are bound round with neat splints made of thin slips
of bamboo tied in parallel series. Little effort is made to bring
the broken ends of the bones into their proper positions or to reduce
dislocations. Abscesses are not usually opened with the knife, but are
rather encouraged to point, and are then opened by pressure. A cold
poultice of chopped leaves is applied to a bad boil or superficial
abscess, and it is protected from blows and friction by a small cage of
slips of rattan. Festering wounds are dressed with the chewed leaves
or the juice of the tobacco plant, or are washed with a solution of
common salt. But a clean wound is merely bound up with a rag; or,
if there is much haemorrhage, wood ashes are first applied. They
practise no more efficient methods for arresting haemorrhage.

Headache is treated by tugging the hair of the scalp in small bundles
in systematic order. Massage of the muscles is practised for the relief
of pain, and massage is applied to the abdomen in cases of obstinate
constipation; in certain cases they claim to break up hard lumps in
the belly by squeezing them with the hands. Bodily aches and fatigue
are relieved by pulling and bending the parts of the limbs until all
the joints crack in turn.

Cupping is perhaps the most frequently practised surgical
operation. Severe internal bruising from falls or heavy blows is the
usual occasion. The operation is performed by scratching the skin
with the point of a knife, and then applying the mouth of a bamboo cup
previously heated over the fire. The cup is a piece of bamboo some five
or six inches in length and an inch or rather more in diameter. Its
edge is thinned and smoothed. Several of these may be simultaneously
applied in a case of extensive bruising. Since this operation, like
tatuing, involves the shedding of blood, some small offering, such
as a few beads, must be made to the patient by the operator.

The Kayans have distinct numerals up to ten (JI, DUA, TELO, PAT,
LIMER, NAM, TUSU, SAYA, PITAN, PULU). Those from eleven to nineteen
are formed by prefixing PULU ( = ten) to the names of the digits;
and those from twenty to twenty-nine by prefixing DUA PULU ( =
two twenty); and so on up to JI ATOR ( = one hundred). Two hundred
is DUA ATOR, three hundred is TELO ATOR, and so on up to MIBU ( =
one thousand). All or most of the other tribes (except the Punans)
have a similar system of numerals, though the numbers beyond the
first ten are little used. In counting any objects that cannot be
held in the hand or placed in a row, the Kayan (and most of the other
peoples) bends down one finger for each object told off or enumerated,
beginning with the little finger of the right hand, passing at six to
that of the left hand, and then to the big toe of the right foot, and
lastly to that of the left foot. When all the names or objects have
been mentioned, he holds the toe reached until he or some one else
has told off the number; if the number was, say, seventeen, he would
keep hold of the second toe of the left foot until he had counted up
the number implied by that toe, either by means of counting or by
adding up five and five and five and two; unless the count ends on
the little toe of the left foot, when he knows at once that the number
is twenty. If a larger number than twenty is to be counted, as when,
for example, a chief has to pay in tax for each door of his house,
he calls in the aid of several men, who sit before him. One of these
tells off his fingers and toes as the chief utters the names of the
heads of the rooms; and when twenty have been counted in this way,
a second man begins on his fingers, while the first continues to
hold on to all his toes. A third and a fourth man may be used in the
same way to complete the count; and when it is completed, the total
is found by reckoning each man as two tens, and adding the number of
fingers and toes held down by the last man. The reckoning of the tens
is done by addition rather than multiplication. Both multiplication
and division are almost unknown operations.

When a chief is getting ready to pay in the door tax of two dollars a
door, he does not count the doors and then multiply the number by two:
he simply lays down two dollars for each door and pays in the lot,
generally without knowing the sum total of the dollars. If a chief
were told to pay in the tax for half his doors only, he would not
know how to carry out the instruction. Subtraction is accomplished
only in the most concrete manner, E.G. if a man wished to take away
eight from twenty-five, he would count out twenty-five of the objects
in question, or of bits of leaf or stick, then push away eight and
count up the remainder. A dodge sometimes adopted, especially by the
Kenyah, for counting the persons present, is to take a fern-leaf with
many fronds, tear off a half of each frond, handing each piece to
one of the men, until every man present affirms that he has a piece,
and then to count the number of torn fronds remaining on the stalk.

It will thus be seen that the arithmetical operations of the Kayans
are of an extremely concrete character; those of the other tribes
are similar (with the exception again of the Punans, who do not count
beyond three); though many of the Klemantans get confused over simple
counting and reckoning, which the Kayans accomplish successfully.

Tama Bulan, the Kenyah chief whom we have had occasion to mention in
several connections, obtained and learnt the use of an abacus from a
Chinaman, and used it effectively. This deficiency in arithmetic is,
however, no evidence of innate intellectual inferiority, and there
seems to be no good reason to doubt that most of the people could
be taught to use figures as readily as the average European; those
children who have entered the schools seem to pick up arithmetic with
normal rapidity.

The Sea Dayaks sometimes deposit sums of money with the Government
officers, and they know accurately the number of dollars paid in;
but when they withdraw the deposit, they generally expect to receive
the identical dollars paid in by them.



Measurement

The Kayans use two principal standards of length, namely, the BUKA and
the BUHAK. The former is the length of the span from finger-tip to tip
of outstretched arms; the latter is the length of the span from tip of
the thumb to tip of the first finger of the same hand. In buying a pig,
for example, the price is determined by the number of BUHAK required
to encircle its body just behind the forelegs. The half BUKA is also in
general use, especially in measuring rattans cut for sale, the required
length of which is two and a half BUKA. In order to express the half,
they have adopted the Malay word STINGAH, having no word of their own.

Distances between villages are always expressed in terms of the
average time taken by a boat in ascending the stream from one to the
other. Distances by land are expressed still more vaguely; for example,
the distance between the heads of two streams might be expressed
by saying that, if you bathe in one, your hair would still be wet
when you reach the other (which means about one hour); or a longer
distance, by saying that if you started at the usual time from one
of the places you would reach the other when the sun is as high as
the hawk (which means a journey from sunrise to about 10 A.M.), or
when the sun is overhead (I.E. noon), or when it is declining (about
3 P.M.), or when the sun is put out (sunset), or when it is dark.

In order to describe the size of a solid object such as a fish,
a Kayan would compare its thickness with that of some part of his
body, the forearm, the calf of the leg, the thigh, or head, or the
waist. In describing the thickness of the subcutaneous fat of a pig,
he would mention one, two, three, or even four fingers.



Cosmological and Geographical Notions

The more intelligent Kayans can give a fairly good general description
of the geographical features and relations of the district in which
they live. In order to do this a Kayan will map out the principal
features on a smooth surface by placing pieces of stick to represent
the rivers and their tributaries, and pieces of leaf to represent the
hills and mountains; he will pay special attention to the relations
of the sources of the various streams. In this way a Kayan chief of
the Baram would construct a tolerably accurate map of the whole Baram
district, putting in Bruni and USUN APO and the heads of the Rejang,
Batang Kayan, Tutong, and Balait rivers. He knows that all the rivers
run to the sea, though few Kayans have seen the sea or, indeed, been
outside the basin of their own river. To have been to another river,
or to have seen the sea, is a just ground of pride. He does not know
that Borneo is an island, though he knows that the white men and
the Chinese come from over the sea; he will confidently assert that
the sea is many times larger than the Baram river, even ten times as
large. They seem to regard the sea as a big river of which their main
river is a tributary.

Ibans sometimes speak of AIROPA (meaning Europe), which they take
to mean the river Ropa, as the home of the white man; and all the
tribesmen are apt to think of foreigners as living on the banks of
rivers in forest-covered country much like their own.

Although the Kayans do not observe the stars and their movements
for practical purposes, they are familiar with the principal
constellations, and have fanciful names for them, and relate
mythical stories about the personages they are supposed to represent
(Chap. XVII.).[186] They seem to have paid no special attention
to the planets. Inconsistently with the star myths, the stars are
regarded as small holes in the floor of another and brighter world,
and it is said that these holes have been made by the roots of plants
which have penetrated through the soil of that world.

The sky is regarded as a dome which meets the earth on every hand,
and this limiting zone is spoken of as the edge of the sky; but they
have no notion how far away this edge may be; they recognise that,
no matter how many days one travels in any one direction, one never
gets appreciably nearer to it, and they conclude, therefore, that
it must be very distant. They understand that the clouds are very
much less distant than the sky, and that they merely float about the
earth. Neither sun nor moon seems to be regarded as animated.

Two total eclipses of the sun have occurred in Borneo in the last
half-century. These, of course, caused much excitement and some
consternation.[187] The former of them serves as a fixed date in
relation to which other events are dated.

The traditional lore of the Kayans provides answers of a kind to many
of the deep questions that the spirit of enquiry proposes whenever
man has made provision against the most urgent needs of his animal
nature. Yet the keener intelligences among them do not rest satisfied
with these conventional answers; rather, they ponder some of the
deepest questions and discuss them with one another from time to
time. One question we have heard debated is -- Why do not the dead
return? Or rather, Why do they become visible only in dreams and even
then so seldom? The meeting of dead friends in dreams generally leaves
the Kayan doubtful whether he has really seen his friend; and he will
try to obtain evidence of the reality of the REVENANT by prayer and by
looking for a favourable answer in the liver of a pig, the entrails of
a fowl, or in the behaviour of the omen birds. They argue that persons
who have been much attached to their relatives and friends would surely
return to visit them frequently if such return were at all possible.

The relation of the sky to the earth remains also an open and disputed
question. One of us well remembers how, when staying in a Kenyah house,
he was approached by a group of youths who evidently were debating some
knotty problem, and how they very seriously propounded the following
question: -- If a dart were shot straight up into the air and went
on and on, what would become of it? Would it come up against the sky
and be stopped by it?

The whereabouts of the home of the white men, and how long is spent
on the journey thither, are questions often raised. Tama Bulan once
raised the question of the motion of the sun, and having been told
that really the earth revolves and that the sun only appears to move
round it, he argued that this could hardly be, since we see the sun
move every day. For a long time he said nothing more on this topic
to us, but it continued to occupy his mind; for some years later he
recurred to it and announced that he now accepted the once incredible
doctrine, because he had inquired concerning it of every European he
had been able to meet, and all had given him the same answer.

The methods of argument of the Kayans are characteristic and worthy
of a short description. As we have said, they are great talkers and
orators. They are by no means an impulsive people; far less so than
the Kenyahs or the Sea Dayaks. Although they are not a vivacious or
talkative people in general intercourse, every undertaking of any
importance is carefully discussed in all its aspects, often at what we
should consider unnecessary length, before the first step is taken;
and in such discussions each man likes to have his say, and each is
heard out patiently by his fellows. They have a strong belief in the
efficacy of words; this is illustrated by the copious flood of words
which they pour out whenever they perform any religious or other rite.

In arguing or persuading, or even threatening, they rely largely on
indirect appeals, on analogy, simile, and metaphor, flavoured with
a good deal of humour of a rather heavy kind. Or they may convey a
strong hint by describing a professed dream in which the circumstances
under discussion are symbolised.

The following incident illustrates this mode of speech. Two
Kayans quarrelled over the sale of a pig. The current price was
a dollar a BUHAK (I.E. the span from finger-tip to thumb-tip, see
vol. ii. p. 212). The buyer had insisted on measuring it by spans
from thumb to tip of second finger, whereas the customary span is to
the tip of the index finger. The case was brought before the chief,
who of course might have contented himself, but not perhaps the
purchaser, by authoritatively laying down the law of custom. He,
therefore, being a man of tact and experience, thrust out his second
finger and pointed it at the purchaser of the pig, saying, "Suppose
any one pointed at you like that, instead of with the index finger;
you would all laugh at him." All the people sitting round laughed,
and the purchaser went away convinced of the propriety of using the
index finger in measuring a pig.

To illustrate the way in which a chief may exert influence in matters
in which he has no footing for the exercise of formal authority, we
cite the following bit of history. It is an ancient custom of the
Kayans to have in the house a very large LAMPIT (the mat made of
parallel strips of rattan), the common property of the household,
which is spread on the occasion of the reception of visitors to
serve as a common scat for guests and hosts. The Kayans of the Baram,
under the individualising influences of trade and increasing stocks
of private property, neglected to renew these communal mats; and thus
the good old custom was in danger of dying out. This was observed with
regret by an influential chief, who, therefore, found an opportunity
to relate in public the following story. "A party of Kayans," he said,
"once came over from the Batang Kayan to visit their relatives in the
Baram. The latter dilated upon the benefits of the Rajah's government,
peace, trade, and the possibility of fine dress for themselves and
their wives and of many other desirable acquisitions, all for the small
annual payment of two dollars a door. The visitors looked about them
and confessed that they still had to be content with bark clothing,
bamboo cups, and wooden dishes; 'but,' they added, 'if you come to
our house you will at least find on the floor a good LAMPIT on which
we can all sit together.' " The story quickly went the round of the
Kayan villages in the Baram, with the result that large LAMPITS quickly
came back into general use and the good old custom was preserved.

The Kayans have a keen sense of humour and fun. As with ourselves, the
most frequent occasions of laughter are the small mishaps that happen
to one's companions or to oneself; and practical jokes are perpetrated
and appreciated. For example, at the time when the wild pigs were dying
in large numbers, a boat-load of Kayans working up-river encountered
a succession of pigs' carcases floating down, most of them in a state
of decomposition and swollen with gases. A practical joker at the bow
conceived the notion of prodding the carcases with his spear and thus
liberating the foul-smelling gases for the benefit of those who sat
in the stern of the boat, to their great disgust and the amusement
of those on the forward benches. Again -- a Klemantan example -- a
chewer of betel-nut and lime sometimes prepares several quids wrapped
carefully in SIRIH leaf, and sets them aside till they are required. On
one occasion, while the crew of a boat landed to cook their dinner,
a youngster carefully opened such a quid and substituted a piece of
filth for the betel-nut. When the victim of the joke spat out the
morsel, spluttering with disgust and anger, the crew was moved to loud
laughter, which they tried in vain to suppress out of consideration
for the feelings of the victim; for no one likes to be laughed at.

But, although the Kayans have a strong sense of the ridiculous, their
laughter is not so violent and uncontrollable as that of Europeans
is apt to be, and it is not so apt to recur from time to time at the
mere recollection of an amusing incident.

We refer to some of the stories reproduced in Chapter XVII. as examples
of the less crude forms of humour appreciated by the people. These
stories are repeated again and again, without failing to amuse those
who are perfectly familiar with them. AEsop's fables transposed into a
Bornean key were, we found, much appreciated. In a large proportion of
the entertaining stories of the Kayans, as well as of the other tribes,
the point of the story depends on some reference to sexual relations
or actions But such references are not, as a rule, coarsely put, but
rather hinted at merely, often in a somewhat obscure way; E.G. such
a story may terminate before the critical point is reached with some
such phrase as "Well, well, what of it?" and a shrug of the shoulders.

The tendency of the Kayans to laconic speech is well illustrated by
their way of referring to well-known stories or fables with one or
two words, in order to sum up or characterise a situation -- much as
we say "sour grapes!"

Like all other varieties of mankind (some few savage tribes perhaps
excepted), the Kayans and other tribes are apt to distort the truth in
their own favour, in describing from memory incidents that seriously
affect their interests. When a party has allowed itself to commit some
reprehensible action, such as over-hasty and excessive reprisals,
a whole village, or even several villages, may conspire together
more or less deliberately to "rig up "some plausible version of
the affair which may serve to excuse or justify the act in the
eyes of the government. A good PENGHULU[188] will set about the
investigation of such an affair with much tact and patience. He
will send for those immediately concerned and patiently hear out
their version of the incident. If it departs widely from the truth,
he will find reason to suspect the fact. But, instead of charging the
men with untruthfulness, or attempting to extort the truth by threats,
or bullying, or torture (as is so often done in more highly civilised
courts), he keeps silence, shrugs his shoulders, and tells them to go
away and think it over, and to come back another day with a better
story. In the meantime he hears the version of some other group,
who view the affair from a different angle, and thus puts himself in
a position to suggest modifications of the new version of the former
group. When he has in this way gathered in a variety of accounts of
the incident, he find himself in a position to construct, by a process
of moral triangulation, an approximately correct picture; this he now
lays before the party immediately concerned, who, seeing that the game
is up, fill in the details and supply minor corrections. Throughout
this process the tactful PENGHULU never shuts the door upon his
informants or tries to pin them down to their words, or make them
take them back; rather he keeps the whole story fluid and shifting,
so that, when the true account has been constructed, the witnesses
are not made to feel that they have lost their self-respect.

It seems worth while to describe here one of a large class of incidents
which illustrate at the same time the workings of the native mind
and the way in which an understanding of such workings may be applied
by the administrator. The Resident of the Baram having heard of the
presence in the central no-man's land of a considerable population of
Kenyahs under a strong chief, TAMA KULING, sent friendly messages to
the latter. He responded by sending a lump of white clay, which meant
that he and his people recognised that they were of the same country
as the people of the Baram and that their feelings were friendly;
and with it came an elaborately decorated brass hook (Pl. 184), which
was to serve as a complimentary and symbolical acknowledgment of the
white man's power of binding the tribes together in friendship. He
sent also a verbal message acknowledging his kinship with the Kenyahs
of the Baram; but he added that he and his people were in the dark and
needed a torch (I.E. they wanted more explicit information about the
conditions obtaining in the Baram). In reply to these representations,
the Resident despatched trusty messengers to TAMA KULING bearing
the following articles: a large hurricane lamp for TAMA KULING, and
smaller ones for the other principal chiefs of the district: smaller
lamps again were sent for the heads of houses, and with them a large
stock of boxes of lucifer matches, which were to be dealt out to the
heads of the rooms of each house. In this way the desired torch was
provided for every member of their communities. With these symbols
went a large horn of the African rhinoceros, out of which TAMA KULING
might fashion a hilt for his sword.[189]