The home-life of Borneo head-hunters

Early in the morning of the third day of our journey up the Baram, to visit Tama Bulan, far in the interior of Borneo, we stopped at a long-house, and as I saw the women descend on their errand to the river for water I was utterly amazed at their costume, and rubbed my eyes to make sure I was not dreaming. I looked and rubbed, and rubbed and looked! It was no illusion! The women who were descending the long notched logs to the river’s edge wore on their thighs and legs beautiful blue silk tricots or ‘tights,’ of an elaborate open-work pattern! and on their hands and forearms delicate black silk mits! I was not prepared for this elegant toilette in the Jungle, and my bewildering amazement continued until, on nearer inspection, I found that the airy tracery which I had mistaken for silken tights was tattooing.

I will not enter on any discussion of the origin or purpose of tattooing:—whether or not it began in the mark which God set on Cain after the killing of Abel, or as to its religious, or tribal, or social purposes, but will simply set forth the customs in regard to it as I observed them among the Kayans and Kenyahs, the patterns, and the mode of performing it. Inasmuch as the details will be dry and extremely uninteresting, and, in reference to the patterns, given with minuteness, because these patterns are in their general features almost immutable and are supposed to be symbolic, I would advise my readers to skip the following pages, and examine only the photographs, merely premising that, since Nature has inscribed at the entrance to the Torrid Zone, ‘All clothes abandon, ye who enter here,’ I fancy no one will dispute that, as a substitution for clothes, pervasive tattooing provides a device both attractive and modest.

The tattoo-marks on the Kayan men are small in size, and confined to certain portions of the body. There are only four or five, and they are placed on the thighs either in front, below the groin, or on the outer surface, just below the hip-joint, and on the flexor surface of the forearm. The designs consist of extremely conventionalised representations of ‘dogs,’ ‘scorpions,’ and the ‘head of a prawn;’ these are the native names given to the different patterns; in none of them is it possible to recognise the animal after which it is named.

Professor Alfred C. Haddon, whose opinion commands all respect, has expressed to me the extremely ingenious explanation, that, notwithstanding the native names, all these patterns represent the head of a dog. To this I modestly and most humbly demur, and incline to the belief that it is rather the head of that animal which enters so largely into all their ceremonials, namely, the pig. 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. The designs on the hands of these men are always very indistinct, owing to the constant exposure and rough treatment to which the tattooing is necessarily subjected before it is thoroughly healed; hence the lines become faint and merge into one another, so that the appearance of a head-hunter’s hands reminds one forcibly of Edward Lear’s nonsensical Jumblies, whose ‘heads were green and their hands were blue, and they went to sea in a sieve.’ I never saw a head-hunter’s hands that were freshly tattooed, nor did I ever see the stamps wherewith these designs are marked out. I am, therefore, unable to give a description of these important marks further than that the backs of the hands appear to be covered with narrow parallel lines running transversely, and the knuckles and their interspaces are covered with triangles with base and apex alternating; on the joints of the fingers are oblong patches of solid black.

The tattooing on the men, except, of course, the badge of a head-hunter, is done at about the age of puberty. It is not at all a ceremony; the youth himself decides when it shall be done and selects the pattern. In many tribes allied to the Kayans, in the Dutch possessions in South Borneo, some of the men are far more elaborately tattooed than the Kayans and Kenyahs of Sarawak, and extend the tattooing to the chest and back, and even to the cheeks and neck; but these elaborately tattooed men are the exceptions and not the rule in their tribe, and the marks are by no means as characteristic as are the ‘dog,’ ‘scorpion,’ and ‘prawn’ of the Baram Kayans. The Dayaks, or, properly speaking, the Ibans (the name Dayak is a mere Malay name, meaning ‘up-river people,’ and never used by the natives themselves to whom it is applied) tattoo on the wrists, forearms, chest, neck, and thighs, but never in large designs. On the chest, and on the point of the shoulder, they bear many-pointed stars, with a spiral sometimes double and interlocking in the centre. On the throat I have often observed narrow zig-zag lines connecting two designs like the escapement wheel of a watch. The zig-zag lines, they said, represent chains, but why a chain should be appropriate for the neck they did not say. The stars on the chest and shoulder, some maintained, represent flowers; others said they were silver dollars. With the exception of the few links of chain on the front of the throat, they do not seem to aim at the representation of ornaments, such as necklaces, bracelets, anklets, etc. In addition to these marks on the chest, arms, and neck, a very common position for a small design is directly on the prominent end of the ulna at the wrist; almost every Iban has over this prominence a small star, or a wheel-like design, with radii extending beyond the circumference.

Far more elaborate, on the contrary, is the tattooing of Kayan women, which, in the case of married women, invariably covers the thighs, legs, forearms, hands, and feet.

On the arms, it extends from the second joint of the fingers, (whereon is a simple black patch about a half inch square,) to just a little below the bend of the elbow. The knuckles and intervening hollows are decorated with a row of solid black triangles with base and point alternating; on the back of the hand are four small ovals surrounded by five concentric ovals, the outer four merging into the contiguous series, so that the upper and lower arcs form merely wavy lines. This row of concentric ovals is enclosed in a border of five lines, following the margin of the back of the hand below the knuckles to the wrist.

On the back of the wrist is another row of four concentric ovals; above these, nine narrow lines and then two rows of five concentric ovals alternating with bands composed of five narrow lines. Above these, again, are intertwining zig-zags and scrolls composed of seven lines; this pattern, they told me, represents the root of the Tuba-plant, which is used in drugging, or poisoning, the water to get fish. The concentric ovals, so they say, are pictures of the moon. It is barely possible that an explanation of this frequent figure of the moon is to be found in a remark made to me by a tattooer, that when a woman died and passed to the next life, ‘her tattooing becomes luminous like a fire-fly’s light, and that without it she would wander in total darkness.’ Above the Tuba pattern are eleven, sometimes more, finely waving lines completely encircling the arm, like rings. From these rings to the wrist, along both sides of the arm, is a narrow recurrent line making four laps on itself, and dividing the patterns on the flexor and extensor surfaces of the arm.

On the flexor surface of the arm, the pattern begins at the wrist with a row of triangles like those on the knuckles; then a band of narrow lines and two large concentric moons; above these, a large triangle whose sides and base are composed of seven narrow, parallel lines,—this represents the spring bow-piece, affixed to a canoe when shooting rapids; above this, two more large moons and then the band of rings around the arm.

These patterns vary to a slight extent in different households, but the main features are always present; the concentric ovals may be replaced by a spiral coil surrounded by radiating lines; or the twists and zig-zags of the Tuba-root may be arranged according to the artistic ability of the operator. The concentric moons are, however, considered a higher grade of work than the spiral coils.

The pattern on the thighs extends externally from the level of the hip-joint to the calf of the leg; it consists of four panels, each enclosed in a border of five delicate and parallel lines. At the top of these panels are conventionalised designs of ‘scorpions,’ of ‘dogs,’ or of the ‘heads of prawns;’ at least they closely resemble these patterns in the tattooing of the men. Beneath these, are small Tuba-root designs, and then a chain of interlocking diamonds, whereof the smaller and underlying diamonds have their vertical apices terminating in little hooks and curves; these, they assert, represent a creeping vine with hooked tendrils, like many of the palms and rattans. Round the calf is a series of rings, sixteen, more or less, in number, which completely encircle the leg like the rings on the forearm. Directly down the back of the thigh, from the fold of the gluteus muscle to the rings on the calf of the leg, a strip about an inch wide is left blank; this is an invariable feature, but they could give me no explicit explanation of its meaning. Dr. Hose expressed to me his belief that the natives considered this space to be necessary in order that the ‘blood might run up and down.’ On several occasions I tried to verify this interesting explanation, sedulously avoiding all leading questions, but always failed to elicit satisfactory answers. It would be remarkable should it prove that they knew anything about the circulation of the blood. As far as my observation goes, even the most experienced old Dayong, who, as an haruspex, must cut up, yearly, hundreds of pigs and fowls and examine their internal organs, has not the slightest accurate knowledge of the function of any organ, not even of the heart. By one tattooer I was assured that if this space were not left unmolested the leg would swell excessively and the tattooing prove a failure. It is not impossible that she had herein found the true reason for this ‘safety valve,’ as it were, of healthy skin. When a limb is girdled with tattooing, done under such septic conditions as always obtain in Borneo, the inflammation and swelling are very considerable; the skin becomes tense and non-elastic, and if there be no healthy area of elastic skin whereby to relieve tension, consequences might prove serious.

The markings on the feet are plain, broad stripes running from the bend of the ankle in front, over the dorsum of the foot, following the metatarsal bones to the toes; these stripes are interrupted once, dividing off the upper third over the instep. There is also an oblong patch of black on the second joint of each toe.

The persistence of the Tuba-root design in all of these patterns is, possibly, due to the fact that Tuba-fishing is considered more or less a feminine sport, although men participate in it and do the greater part of the work; nevertheless, it is the only sport wherein women join, and it is always a picnic and jollification.

The conjecture may be hazarded that the bands of rings close to the elbow and around the calf of the leg may possibly represent the ‘Unus,’ or rings of braided fern-root, worn by men and boys. The wavy lines look much like the impressions which these narrow braids make in the skin.

The tattooing of girls is begun when they are about four or five years old; the fingers and toes and knuckles are then decorated with the squares and the triangles, but here the process ceases until the girls become of marriageable age, when the tattooing of arms, and next of legs, is completed.

In connection with the operation of tattooing (which, by the way, they call ‘Bityek,’—a disyllabic Bit-yek), there seems to be no particular lali or taboo; no objection to spectators was ever made either by the operator or by the patient; nor at being photographed was there shown any more than the usual reluctance.

As an indispensable preliminary, before the skin is touched, several beads must be given to the operator, who may not keep them all, but must hand over some to the ‘Toh,’—the demons who are always lurking about to see that the rules of the house are obeyed. It is lali to draw human blood in a house unless the Toh be previously informed that it is for a lawful purpose. Some of the beads are, therefore, flung broadcast out of doors, for the Toh to gather up at their leisure. The girl is put on no special diet while undergoing the operation.

All tattooing is done by women, (be it remembered that I am here speaking only of the Kayans,) who, as far as I could ascertain, have no privileged position in the community, nor is any qualification demanded of them other than artistic taste and manual skill. The office is not hereditary, although it often happens that the profession descends from mother to daughter, merely because the daughter from an early age is employed as an assistant, and thereby acquires a familiarity with the process, and naturally inherits her mother’s instruments.

The pattern to be tattooed is marked out on the skin by means of wooden stamps whereon the raised patterns have been carved out, leaving the designs in high relief; these stamps are inked and pressed on the skin, leaving a print which sufficiently guides the operator. For tattooing, three needles are bound tightly together, and inasmuch as it is considered advisable to force them obliquely into the skin, they are inserted slightly slantwise in the head of the wooden holder (shaped somewhat like a hammer), and enveloped in gutta-percha to about an eighth of an inch from their points, which holds them firmly in place and regulates the depth to which they may penetrate the skin. Not infrequently the handle and the head of the needle-holder are ornamented with carving.

The ink is made of the juice of sugar-cane, thickened with the soot of damar gum; it is kept in a bowl of soft wood, wherein the needles can be dipped without dulling the points; and finally the operator provides several pieces of soft bark-cloth for wiping away the blood, which flows profusely. All these instruments are usually kept in a cob-webby, sooty, blood-smeared box; but as heirlooms and tools they are of almost priceless value.

During the operation the girl sits or lies upon the floor; beside her squats the operator, with her toes pressing upon the skin to be tattooed; an assistant on the opposite side keeps the skin stretched. At the edge of the design marked out by the wooden stamp is placed a roll of soft bark-cloth, so thick that when the handle of the needle-holder rests upon it the needles exactly touch the skin. The needles, well dipped in the ink, carry enough fluid to tattoo lines several inches in length. Using the roll of cloth as a rest, the operator follows out the design and punctures the skin to a proper and uniform depth by means of quick taps with a small iron rod on that portion of the handle which rests on the roll. The assistant, following the track of the needles, wipes away superfluous ink and blood. (Experto crede, when I say that the pain of the Kayan operation, even for small designs, is very considerable; when endured for more than an hour, it becomes torture. Having also experienced for many consecutive hours the Japanese method, I can affirm that in comparison the Kayan verges on the inhuman.) A roll of bark-cloth or a stick is held by the victim, and, as an anæsthetic during the operation, clutched with desperate strength. (The photograph herewith given necessarily had to be taken in a very dark room. A magnifying glass will greatly assist an examination of the details.)

Of course, the complete pattern on women is never finished at one sitting; it would involve more suffering than can be borne without, perhaps, serious shock; but the martyrdom is often endured for a couple of hours, and then, to fill in chance gaps and weak places, that which has been already pricked in, and is become an exquisitely tender welt, is mercilessly jabbed and hammered over again, not only once but even twice. The instant that the poor wretch of a girl is released from the hands, and toes, of her tormentor, she runs with the swiftness of agony to the river, there to soothe with the cool flowing water the frightful, burning ache. The absorption of so much foreign matter by the lymphatics often induces high fever; suppuration also not infrequently results from the septic manner in which the operation is performed; this naturally injures the sharpness of the lines. After one session, the tattooing is not resumed until the skin is entirely healed, unless an approaching marriage necessitates the utmost speed; should a woman have a child before her tattooing is completed, she is lastingly disgraced. The Kenyah women are tattooed only on the forearms and hands and on the dorsum of the foot, not on the legs or thighs.

Woe worth the behests of Bornean fashion! Tattooing is not the only torture that the Kayan or Kenyah damsel must endure who would fain be a belle; her ear-lobes must be pierced and stretched with weights until they hang down to her very bosom in long, slim loops of skin. One evening, in Tama Bulan’s house, I was entertaining his daughter, Bulan, with the pictures in some illustrated papers that I had brought with me, and was trying my best (my fluency in Malay, at that time, was limited) to make them intelligible to her. As I have mentioned above, she was filled with boundless amazement at the slim and wasp-like waists of the women, and utterly failed to understand how any woman could endure the hourly suffering entailed by being horribly squeezed in by steel bands, which, I managed to tell her, were the secret of the extraordinary and unnatural shape. 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.

With a prophetic eye to future charms, they begin early. The ear-lobes are slit when a baby is two or three days old, and as soon as ever the cuts are sufficiently healed several small pewter rings are inserted, and gradually increased in number until their weight amounts to five or six ounces, and by the end of the first year the lobe has been lengthened three or four inches.

This gradual increase of weights is kept up with girls until the lobe stretches seven or eight inches. I have seen many a loop of skin, thus formed, sufficiently large and elastic to allow it to be slipped over the head.

It is by no means uncommon to see women with as many as three pounds of copper rings dangling in their ears; of course, this precludes all rapid motion unless the weights are supported by the hands. When they stoop over their work the rings are tossed behind on the back.

It often happens that the weights in the ears are increased injudiciously, and the thin band of skin gives way; it may be that the loop catches on a twig in the jungle or on some projection in the house, and, in a minute, all the long years of suffering have been in vain; immaculate beauty is for ever gone. To be sure, the ends may be spliced by instantly binding them fast together; but an ugly, tell-tale lump is the result, and nevermore are the two ears of a symmetrical, lovely length, and nevermore can they, like John Gilpin’s bottles, ‘keep the balance true’ by bearing equal weights of copper rings. The patched lobe remains the weaker.

The women of the Berawan tribe, instead of weights, insert discs of wood three or four inches in diameter, often carved on both sides in delicate star-shaped patterns, and sometimes brightened by bits of colored glass or mirrors inlaid in the centre.

The Kayan and Kenyah men never stretch their ear-lobes to the same length as do the women; it is effeminate in a man to have his ears depend further than just to graze the shoulder. Men seldom wear more than one small copper ring, which is heavy enough merely to keep the loop taut.

The men of these same tribes, although they escape from extreme length of ears, must endure a second mutilation of this appendage. But this time it is in the upper part that a hole is punched, wherein, when they attain to full manhood and have been on a war expedition, there is inserted a tiger-cat’s canine tooth decorated at the large end with a tuft of bead-work, or a silver cap, to keep it in place. Before they are entitled to this adornment, the hole, at least half an inch in diameter, is kept open by a simple wooden plug, which is generally worn, even by warriors, except on ceremonial occasions, and especially when in mourning for the dead.

These holes for the tiger-cat’s tooth are not punched at the same time that the lobe is slit; the operation is not performed until the boy is about ten years old. The best time for it, so they claim, is in the evening; the wounds then have the benefit of the quiet, cool night, whereby the pain and chance of severe inflammation are notably lessened. A very opportune occasion is during a war expedition, when quietude and idleness are the rule, frequently for days, while the seers are finding the Omen Birds, and consulting them as to the success of the expedition. Young boys always accompany head-hunting raids, and serve in all menial capacities, such as, baling out the boats, collecting wood, starting the fires, etc. Inspired by the excitement of the hour, they are more than willing to undergo the pain of having their ears punched, in anticipation of the respect with which they will be regarded by their playmates when they return.

The operation is never performed unless the boy has had an auspicious dream the night before. It is auspicious to dream of bathing in clear, cold water, or of fruit trees laden with fruit, or of fish in large schools. It would be absolutely prohibitory of all thought of the operation were the lad to dream of fire or of eating anything hot, such as chillies or wild pepper. To make ready for the operation, the boy stands against a tree or post, so that the back of his ear stands out from his head with the firm support of the wood behind it; the hole is then punched out with a cylinder of bamboo of the proper half-inch size, which has been sharpened round the edge so that it makes a clean cut when driven by a smart blow from a billet of wood.

In the hole a plug of wood is at once inserted, and there remains until the wound is healed. The poor little chaps suffer horribly from the swelling and inflammation that always ensue. But have they not advanced the first step toward that happy day when they may be so blest as to kill a foe, and ever after entitled to wear a tiger-cat’s tooth?

It was not until I saw the women of Tama Bulan’s household dressed out in all their very best during the ceremonies of The Naming of the son and heir, that I noticed that they, too, had the upper part of the ear pierced for the insertion of a small tassel of beads. The hole is very small, and lies concealed in the fold of skin at the margin of the outer ear.

The Ibans do not stretch the ear-lobes more than an inch or two; but they make up for it by puncturing the edge of the outer ear in a series of small holes about an eighth of an inch apart, extending from the lobe all round the ear to where it joins with the skin of the head. In these diminutive holes they insert either a series of small white-metal rings or an elaborate ornament of open brass rings, either plain or strung with cowrie shells, and connected, opposite the opening whereby they are slipped into the holes in the ear, with a narrow band of brass, from which are suspended many small diamond-shaped pieces of the same metal, which clink and jingle and glitter. The rings at the top of the ear are about half an inch in diameter, but they increase gradually in size until at the lobe they are an inch or more. When an Iban is bedizened with these aural adornments, and has a red and yellow cloth wound around his head, and ten yards of Turkey-red calico tied and twined about his waist, elegance of Iban costume can no further go.

In the way of improving nature, there is yet a third form of cosmetical adornment in which, it is safe to say, almost every tribe in Borneo indulges, namely, blackening the teeth. White teeth are universally considered frightful disfigurements, and he or she, who for a few days neglects to renew the stain, is sure to be jeered at by all companions with the scoffing remark that white teeth are no better than a dog’s. I have had that reproach cast at me many a time by little children. The staining is effected with a paste made of a greyish-black shale rock, called ‘Tunai,’ powdered very fine and mixed with water and the ashes of a wood, which probably contains a considerable quantity of gallic or of tannic acid; two or three applications of this paste impart to the teeth a brilliant, shining black, which color remains for several days, and then must be renewed by fresh applications.

The Ibans use a mixture of the ashes of cocoanut husks and of a wood, known to them as ‘Garang,’ and the burnt juice of a green rattan. This mixture produces the same evenly tinted black as the Tunai stone.

Incomprehensible as it may seem, a row of regular, well-shaped teeth of inky jet is not devoid of charm; at a distance, I admit, the mouth looks cavernous, but near enough to distinguish the teeth at all, I venture to say it is attractive.

Now comes the fourth mandate of fashion, of an ineffably excruciating character:—

The Ibans, not content with blackening the teeth, actually drill holes through and through the faces of the six front teeth, and therein insert plugs of brass, whereof the outer end is elaborated into stars and crescents. Then they finish up by filing the teeth to sharp points! No dentist’s chair can hold a more hideous torture than this. The drill,—usually no more delicate an instrument than the rounded end of a file,—bores directly through the sensitive pulp of the tooth, tearing and twisting a nerve so exquisitely sensitive that but to touch it starts the perspiration and seems the limit of human endurance; yet an Iban will lie serene and unquivering on the floor while his beauty is thus enhanced by some kind and tender-hearted friend. Of course, the tooth dies and becomes a mere shell, tanned inside and out by repeated applications of the astringent blackening; the gums recede, exposing the fangs of the teeth and sometimes portions of the alveolar process,—I need not add that the mouth of a middle-aged Iban is anything but attractive.

The brass plugs can be inserted or removed at will. When a young Iban lad whom I took with me as a servant to Singapore and Siam, noticed that the people in the streets stared at his bestudded teeth, he at once removed the brass studs and kept them carefully locked up in his private box.

For a fifth time Nature and the Borneans are at odds:—

Nature’s beneficent provisions of eyelashes, eyebrows, beard, and moustache are all disdained, and plucked incontinently away. On the score of beauty, I draw the line at blackened teeth. The depilation of eyebrows and eyelashes is a backward step, and mars every face subjected to it, and is the cause, naturally enough, of much discomfort, if not of actual disease. At almost every house where we stopped we were called upon to treat cases of severe conjunctivitis, for which we could find no more reasonable cause than that it was due to the irritation caused by the depilation of eyelashes, coupled with bathing in muddy water. Furthermore, the absence of the slight shade given by the eyelashes in the glare of the sun seemed to me to be the cause of that anxious, distressed expression, or of a fierce and wild scowl, observable on so many faces. The moustache is very seldom allowed to grow, except on one side, and then only in a tuft at the corner of the mouth. The beard likewise is usually limited to a few straggling hairs on one side of the chin.

There is a certain tribe,—the Malanaus,—among whom the custom obtains of flattening the foreheads of female children; the practice is begun about the fifteenth day after birth, and continues for several months, until the bones of the skull begin to harden. The process is as follows:—On the forehead of the child a small padded board is held in place by means of cords, which pass through its ends and are attached to a band of cloth which passes round the back of the child’s head. On the upper surface of the board the cords pass through a perforated coin, one from above downward and the other from below upward, so that by turning the coin the cords are twisted and the band shortened. By this means the pressure is exerted regularly by just so many turns of the coin each day. The compression is applied only during sleep, and, unless very carefully done, there is danger lest under too great pressure the skull be forced apart at the fontanelles. The Malanaus maintain that a forehead thus flattened imparts to the face a very beautiful and mild expression. Inasmuch as this compression is restricted to very early infancy, I am inclined to think that the skull resumes its shape. I did not observe any deformity of the foreheads in adults or even in the young girls.

None of the tribes mutilates the nose either with rings or sticks through the septum, or with studs through the alæ. Nor do they ornament themselves with scars, except as practised by the boys to show their fortitude. In this display of valour, they have adopted a species of moxa,—small pieces of tinder are placed along the forearm, set on fire, and allowed to burn out undisturbed by any sign whatever of pain. The straight line of scars bears an enduring testimony to the fortitude of the youth, and is infinitely precious in the eyes and to the heart of his dusky love.

What with browless and lashless eyes, inky teeth, brass plugs, looped ears, and blue legs, I am afraid I have given but a sorry picture of those whom I would fain have my readers regard with as much kindliness as my memory now holds for the originals. These freaks of fashion are, however, merely external; underneath I found honesty, hospitality, gentleness, and a child-like simplicity. The Kayans and Kenyans harmonise with their surroundings. The very word ‘jungle’ possesses an indefinable charm,—it is full of gay, exuberant life in insect and flower; but in its depth, side by side with these, lurks swift death. Deep seated in the heart of the joyous, child-like Borneans there reigns in their bosoms, true to their jungle home, an inextinguishable yearning for a head not their own. Nevertheless, I like them.