CHAPTER XXIV

On the evening fixed for the party a storm was raging; the rain poured on the roof with the noise of a hundred cataracts, making conversation impossible. Vivid flashes of lightning revealed patches of the surrounding country through the lattice-work of the room; we could see little bits of the river-bank opposite, the rank vegetation, an intricate entanglement of creepers and parasites, palms tossed about by the wind and rain, blazing into view, exuberant in detail, like over-exposed photographic plates. A thick grey veil of water streaked the landscape with silver bars, and each vivid flash was succeeded by terrific peals of thunder almost overhead. It was a weird scene. The walls and ceiling of our rooms were of wood, the mats on the floor were dark, a lighted lamp hung from the centre of the ceiling, and here and there were placed tumblers of cocoa-nut oil in which floated lighted wicks, giving out a flickering light.

Tubam had come at the head of the men and women of his village. Kayans from the far interior were easily recognizable by their hair cut in a fringe over their foreheads, flowing behind, and covered with crowns of plaited straw. Their bodies were tattooed, and two great fangs from some wild beast’s jaw were thrust through their elongated ears. The Sea Dyaks were very picturesque; their young warriors wore a mass of fringes and beads, of silver bangles, of waving plumes, of ivory and brass armlets, and of silver waistbands. Their women shone resplendent in innumerable rows of brass rings twined under their armpits, reaching far below their waists, over very short petticoats of beadwork, that glistened at every movement.

All natives seem to love the ceremony of touching hands. Dyaks and Kayans turn the palms of their hands upwards, and bend their fingers in the shape of claws; into these cavities you dip your fingertips, when the slightest touch on your part appears to give satisfaction. It is extraordinary how cool and dry the hands of Sarawak natives are at night, or when a storm is in progress. On this tempestuous evening, none of the hands I touched felt either warm or clammy.

Our guests were very affectionate to Bertram and me, and seemed glad to see us again. The Tanjong women were the first to come forward; their silken draperies rustled, their armlets tinkled, but their naked feet moved noiselessly across the matted floor; they swept along as though wafted by an invisible wind, and in the semi-darkness looked like groups of brightly draped ghosts. After them came the Dyak women, noisier and heavier of tread, with their Amazon-like cuirasses, and their very short petticoats. When the women had passed, Kayan warriors swaggered up. Then came the Dyaks, and the long procession finished with the flower of ci-devant piratical contingents—​thin, spare old men, still known and addressed by glorified titles won in exploits during their youthful days—​Bald-Headed Hawk, Torrent of Blood, Face of Day, the Cobra, and many other titles, equally terrifying and appropriate. These old gentlemen were full of swagger, with a tremendous sense of their own importance.

The greetings having taken place, we called for the dances to begin. On such occasions the arrangement of the programme is a matter of difficulty, as none of the performers appear to like figuring in a lever de rideau. I inquired in Malay who should begin the performance, Mingo translating my remarks in a loud voice, so that all should hear; but the women sat sullenly in their corner, the men squatted motionless in various parts of the room, and no one seemed inclined to respond to the invitation. We waited a considerable time, and I began to despair. There was nothing for it—​Mingo must come to the rescue. I told him to ask the Tanjong ladies to open the ball. Mingo looked at me sternly, nodded his head, glared round him for a second or so, and then marched up to one of the corners of the room, where the girls were sitting in a group. He laid hold of two shrinking figures and dragged them resolutely under the lamp swinging from the centre of the ceiling. For a minute or two the girls remained where he placed them, giggling, shrugging their shoulders, and pulling the hem of their jackets over their mouths. They pretended to be shy, sliding their feet in and out of their trailing petticoats, and suddenly rushed back to their former places and flopped down in the midst of their friends. Quick as lightning, Mingo was after them. He got hold of their hair, their arms, their draperies, anything that came to hand, and pulled them back under the lamp.

Meanwhile the music had started. A clear space was left in the centre of the room, and three young Tanjong girls were sitting there in preparation. They were a pretty group, huddled close together, their eyes cast down and their features expressionless. Two of them pinched the strings of bamboo guitars, thereby producing the mildest, meekest little tinkles imaginable. The third damsel beat the ends of a bamboo drum, thus bending her fingers back almost to her elbows. The music continued through the pantomime of refusal, the musicians taking no notice of what was going on.

We began to think we should not see any dancing that night, and even Mingo seemed about to lose his temper. He stood in the middle of the room, storming at the girls, threatening them with fines, with imprisonment, and with all manner of punishments, unless they commenced to dance. I must say Mingo’s threats did not appear to have much effect on them, for they stood obstinate and immovable. But by and by, for no apparent reason, their bodies began to sway to and fro, and we understood that at last the performance had begun.

The change that came over these girls was wonderful. Their nervous giggling came to an end, an expression of scorn appeared on their faces, their eyebrows were lifted higher than usual, and their heavy eyelids were half-drawn over their eyes. They looked like tiny sphinxes, ancient and inscrutable, as though moving in a dream, obedient to an occult power. They might have been Hindoo goddesses, torn from off the wall of a Brahmin temple, practising strange rites in the midst of ordinary mortals. They were slim, young, and fragile-looking, with pale yellow skins, made yellower by a liberal amount of turmeric rubbed over their faces, necks, and arms. Their mouths were large, their noses flat and broad, but we scarcely noticed their departure from our European standards of beauty, so charmingly did the girls fit into their surroundings. We could almost admire the lobes of their ears, hanging down to their collar-bones, weighted with pieces of lead. We remembered Sakhya Mouni’s descendants who are always depicted with very long ear-lobes. Some people will tell you this ear fashion is a sign of princely descent amongst Buddhist believers. The girls stood and moved so well, a straight line might have been drawn from the crown of their heads to their heels. Their costumes were pretty, their black satin jackets, fringed round with little bells, reaching half-way to their knees, and their long petticoats of fine dark red and blue tints sweeping over their feet. Their straight black hair hung as far as their shoulder-blades, from whence it was gathered up in sweeps of darkness and tucked inside little crowns of plaited straw, brightened with beads, cowrie shells and all manner of glistening things. Knobs of beaten gold fastened their collars, and the sleeves of their jackets were pushed above their elbows, revealing masses of shell, ivory, and silver armlets encircling their arms; I thought this a pity, since the ornaments hid the symmetry of their slender wrists.

The dance is difficult to describe. It was slow, undulating, seductive, tender. As the dancers stood motionless before us, their draperies hung straight from their chins to their toes, their feet being hidden in the folds of their petticoats. When they slowly lifted their arms, an undulation wrinkled up the folds of their garments, as though a sigh, beginning at their heels, ran upwards and lost itself in the air above their heads. Then putting their heels together, they slid along the floor, their toes, peeping in and out the trailing folds, beating the ground in time to the music. Sometimes the figures were drawn up to their full height, when they looked like empresses in the regal pose of their heads. Sometimes they hung their heads, stretched out their arms and flapped their hands, like the wings of a bird, when, in the sudden transition from an appearance of haughtiness to one of humility, they looked charming, unhappy, and meek. I turned my head to listen to a remark Bertram made, and when I looked again the dance was finished. The proud and mysterious goddesses had vanished, and the giggling girls had reappeared. They moved awkwardly, I thought, as they waddled back to their corner in the midst of their friends, where they were lost in the shadows of the room.

Meanwhile the storm continued and increased in fury. A vivid flash of lightning was followed by a terrific crash, and a gust of wind blew the rain through the lattice-work across the room. Mingo rushed to the shutters, pulled them to, and barred out the storm. This unexpected douche appeared to silence the party; conversation flagged, and I am not sure that we were not becoming a little bored. Suddenly a luminous idea struck Mingo, and he rushed off for refreshments! Although these were of the simplest description, our guests were mightily pleased when Mingo reappeared with a great black bottle of gin under his arm, followed by a satellite bearing some water and two tumblers. The spirit was measured out in the tumblers by Mingo with the most punctilious care, and diluted with a fair amount of water, when the tumblers went the round of the hall, each warrior drinking his share and passing the tumblers back to Mingo, who, bottle in hand, refilled them. There were cocoa-nut cakes, cocoa-nut milk, coffee, biscuits made of sago, and other delicacies for the ladies, some of whom glanced wistfully at the black bottle, and perhaps regretted that the spirit should be kept entirely for the men. This diversion infused new life into the party, and the hum of voices was soon heard all over the hall.

At this juncture, a strongly built and very brown old gentleman left his seat and moved towards me with ponderous dignity. A handkerchief was twisted round his head, and he wore a cotton scarf held tightly across his bony shoulders. We had already greeted one another in the general “shake-hands” earlier in the evening, but it all had to be gone over again. “Long I have not seen you,” he said, as his hand shaped itself into the customary claw in which I dipped my fingers. He fairly beamed on me; his smile was patronizing and friendly, and although I knew his face I could not remember his name. I turned to Mingo, who was standing at my elbow, and a whisper from him soon put matters straight between us. I was glad to see that Rawieng, who only the year before had kept the district in a state of terror owing to the head-hunting propensities of his tribe, had mended his ways; his presence at the party being an irrefutable proof of the purity of his future intentions. It was interesting to notice how friendly were the relations existing between Rawieng and Mr. Bampfylde. Only two or three years previously, owing to an atrocious murder committed on the main river by some of Rawieng’s followers whom the old chief refused to give up to justice, Mr. Bampfylde (then Governor of the Rejang) was compelled to lead a fleet of boats into Rawieng’s country, attack his village, and burn his paddy. Nor was this result obtained without a good deal of risk and difficulty to the attacking party, for owing to Rawieng’s conservative ideas he had pitched his house on a precipitous hill, only to be reached after scaling innumerable rapids and marching a considerable way inland. Rawieng was a rich old man, and was heavily fined for the atrocious murders his tribe had committed. The long line of jars ranged along the walls of his house (the chief glory of the village, as they were supposed to have been made by spirits and given by them to Rawieng’s ancestors) were taken by Mr. Bampfylde and stored in the Fort as pledges and hostages for Rawieng’s future good behaviour.

There we were, that evening, the recent enemy and I, sitting over the spot where the precious jars were stored. Rawieng’s conduct at our party showed that he did not bear malice, though it was but a few weeks since he and his people had tendered their submission to the Rajah’s Government. His tribe had become weary of wandering as outcasts in the forests, and the only food they could obtain—​wild fruits, game, and anything they might pick up—​was not sufficient. Although there were many warriors present who had followed Mr. Bampfylde’s expedition and lent a helping hand in punishing Rawieng’s tribe, it was amusing to hear the old man holding forth before these people as to the completeness of his defeat. “Tuan Bampy (for so he pronounced Mr. Bampfylde’s name) was a very pandi (clever) Tuan. He could fight for the Rajah and punish evil-doers, and, above all, he knew not what fear was.” Imbued as all these people are with a veneration for courage, Rawieng expatiated at length as to the risks run by the white man’s attacking force, and how thoroughly he and his people had been vanquished. Then, The Bald-Headed Hawk, The Cobra, The Torrent of Blood, and other old chiefs seeing that Rawieng and I were holding an animated conversation, and disliking being left out in the cold, joined us, and thus turned the channel of our talk into other directions.

The refreshments having again been handed round, and other dances being in the programme, Mingo decided that some of the Dyaks should now entertain us.

Three warriors came into the cleared space in the centre of the room, dressed in bark waistcloths, their black hair streaming down their backs. One man played the keluri, a Kayan instrument, made of bamboos of different lengths and sizes, fixed on a gourd, and in sound resembling bagpipes, although softer and more musical. To the tune of the keluri these men danced the deer dance, the monkey dance, and the mouse-deer dance, winding up with the head dance, this being considered the “clou” of the evening. Two performers wore their war dress for the occasion. Their arms were thrust into sleeveless jackets, covered with rows upon rows of hornbill’s feathers, which stood out like the quills of a porcupine at every movement of the dancers. In one hand they grasped long, narrow-pointed shields, ornamented with a monstrous human face—​two round staring eyes, a stroke that served for the nose, and a wide mouth with teeth sticking out—​painted in red and black, over which hung patches of human hair. In the other hand they held sharp swords, which play a great part in such performances.

This principal item, the head dance, contains a shadowy kind of plot. Two men are supposed to meet in a forest; they are unacquainted with one another, therefore they are enemies. From the first moment they are supposed to catch sight of one another through the entanglement of tropical vegetation, they crouch and jump about like frogs, looking first to one side and then to the other, from behind their shields. One of the dancers suddenly springs to his full height, and rushes at his opponent, who is ready to receive him. A struggle begins, and they appear to be in deadly earnest. They wave their swords with such rapidity that it looks as though a number of steel Catherine wheels were flying about the room. They hack at one another, but never thrust. After this sort of thing has been going on for some time, one of the performers becomes exhausted, and falls to the ground, when his opponent seizes the advantage, grips him by the throat, kneels on his fallen body, and pretends to saw at the head until it is apparently separated from the body. This part of the play, somewhat disagreeable to me, was received with yells of delight from the warriors present, who made a noise as though a number of dogs were baying at the moon. The victor then takes the cap from the fallen man’s head, to represent the real head he is supposed to have cut off. He then takes high jumps and rushes about the room in the exhilaration of his victory. As he is about to hang the trophy to his waist-belt by the lock of hair left for the purpose, he looks at the dead face and discovers the head to belong to his brother. Another dance is gone through, but now the steps denote dejection. The man goes about with bent knees, dragging his feet; he rubs his eyes with his knuckles, and fondles the headless body, imploring it to return to life. But even this tragedy ends happily. A friendly spirit passes by and whispers advice in the bereaved brother’s ear. Acting upon the spiritual counsel, the murderer fits the head into its place between the shoulders of the corpse, when in a short time it is supposed to grow again on the body. The brothers are reunited, and another dance of whirling sabres, of leaps and bounds, takes place, after which the head dance is ended. Through it all, the lightness of the dancers is extraordinary, for however high they jump, or however far their stride may be, these Dyak dancers are invariably graceful and noiseless as panthers.

By this time it was getting late, the room was stuffy and hot, so I left the party as quietly as possible and went to the other side of the Fort, fitted, for the time being, as my private room. The rain had ceased, and the moon in its last quarter was struggling through the clouds. I lay in a long chair, and could see through one of the port-holes some of our guests returning to their boats, the lighted torches they carried being reflected in the turbid waters of the river. Only a night-light was burning in my room, and I fancied myself alone, when a nervous cough behind me made me start. I called for lights, and when they were brought, I saw a row of people sitting on the floor against the wall. I was surprised, for natives are usually very tactful. Salleh was the culprit on this occasion; he had come with his wife Penus, and his daughters Remi and Remit, to ask me if I could see an Ukit woman, who had been too shy to come forward and speak to me before so many people at the party. Having heard that morning that she was in the neighbourhood, I told Salleh to bring her to me one day when I should be alone, so I suppose he did not see why he should not effect the introduction there and then. After all, I was anxious to see and talk to an Ukit woman, and as Penus was present and understood her language, this was a good opportunity.

Judging from what I had heard about the wild habits of the Ukit people, I was surprised to find my visitor an engaging little person. She was curious looking, but not quite ugly. An enormous breadth lay between her high cheek-bones, and there was absolute flatness between her eyes, which were small, narrow, and raised in the outer corners. Her figure was slight, and her wrists and ankles delicate to a degree. She usually wore a short petticoat of bark, but Penus had evidently attempted to improve her appearance for the occasion by lengthening it with a broad piece of red calico falling over her feet. Her hair hung down to her knees, and she wore a little crown of black and yellow beads, a head-dress usually worn by these people. The little thing soon lost her shyness, and talked away quite unreservedly. Her language sounded soft and guttural. She had a pretty voice, and very nice manners. Her weird, fantastic appearance attracted me, and I took a great interest in this creature of the woods. She addressed some remarks to me, and was evidently asking for something. Penus, interpreting her words, told me she wanted some of the “sweet-smelling gutta” that white people rub over their skins when they wash themselves. I sent for a piece of soap (I had brought a good deal of this commodity with me); it was wrapped in mauve paper, made glorious to such eyes as hers with gold letters. I gave the package into her hands, and showed her how to take the paper off. She followed my instructions with great care, folded up its mauve wrapper with its tissue lining, and stuffed both in her hair inside her crown. She sniffed at the soap and handled it as though it were brittle. “Now I shall sweeten the air for a great space as I walk along,” she said, and moved off to crouch near the wall of my room, with the soap at her nose the whole time. But she had a husband, and he had been looking for her. Mingo ushered him into my room. He looked more like her grandfather than her husband, for he was very old, and she almost a child. He was a dirty old man too, and belonged to another branch of this Ukit tribe. He came up to me grumbling, and as I put out my hand, he pinched the tips of my fingers. He then showed me his wrist, round which was tied a piece of mouse-deer’s bone to take away his sickness, as he had sprained his arm whilst cutting down trees in the forest a few days previously. He did not remain long with us, but told his wife to come away. She obeyed meekly, and he followed her, scowling, and chewing betel-nut. We wondered whether he were jealous of his attractive wife, and felt sorry for the little creature, whose soft and charming manners had, even in so short a time, won our hearts.

I bade Salleh and his party good-night, but Penus stayed behind, as she wanted to have a parting word. Moreover, she had brought a basket she had made for me, thinking it would be useful in packing some of my things on my boat journeys. The basket was a large cylinder, made of palm-straw, and woven in intricate patterns of black and white, with a dome-shaped cover fitting into its top. These kind of baskets are quite impervious to rain, and the Tanjong people excel above all other tribes in their manufacture. I thanked Penus for her kind present. “It is good to see you here,” she said, “and our hearts are glad, I only wish my daughter, who died last year, had been here too.” Penus was very sad about the death of this daughter. She had never spoken about her to me before, but I suppose the lateness of the hour, the night, and our parting of the next day, made her more expansive than usual. “Do you think the dead come back, Rajah Ranee?” I could not answer her, for I don’t suppose I knew more about the matter than she did. But I asked her if she believed in Antus (spirits), or if she had ever seen one. “Oh yes,” she said; “a spirit often comes to our house. When it gets dark, and night is not yet come, he stays in the rafters of our room, and the spark from his cigarette comes and goes in the darkness.” “Do you ever speak to him?” I asked. “Oh no; because Antus never answer human beings. If I could speak to him I would ask him the road by which my dead daughter went, so that I could follow her.”

We touched hands, and Penus left me to join her friends. As I fell asleep, I heard the murmur of the people as they settled themselves for the night in their boats anchored in the river.