The Dyak Chief
and Other Verses

The Dyaks, a “brown” race, are the savage inhabitants of Central Borneo, and are said to have come originally from the Malay Peninsula, but to have since been gradually driven into the center of the island by the influx of the present Malays, who now inhabit the coasts and often far inland, especially up the rivers.

The Dyaks, though an old, aboriginal Malay stock, differ radically from the Malays in nearly every particular.

They are a dark-skinned, strong, well-knit, square-shouldered and beautifully muscled type of men, neither tall nor short, fat nor lean, but comparable to the typical American cavalryman or football halfback or trained middle-weight boxer or wrestler.

They have small, dark, heady, snake-like eyes, high cheek bones and straight black hair, often “bobbed” at the neck and frequently with a band around it, giving them much the appearance of North American Indians, were it not that their eyes and noses are smaller. They affect a breech-cloth only, excepting for the sake of warmth, when they don a light cloth jacket or a fibre coat, the latter being a simple affair, hanging straight, with a slit at the top through which the head is placed, after the manner of a present-day American Army “poncho.”

A chief is distinguished by having pheasant feathers falling down the back of one of these coats, and in the town or “kampong” of Olong Liko I was the recipient of the unusual privilege of having a friendly{161} Dyak chief take off his cloak-like garment that I had been examining, put it on over my head, and insist on my keeping it—which it is needless to say I was only too glad to do—and which I still have preserved as the most valued treasure of all the many that I brought back from my travels.

The women are of the typical heavy-waisted savage category, frequently wearing something above the waist, but whose usual costume consists merely of a long cloth, resembling a skirt, wrapped around their legs.

Truth compels me to ungallantly state the ladies are not prepossessing.

The chief occupations of the Dyaks are hunting, fishing and tending their little truck-gardens, which mode of life probably accounts for their average splendid physique.

The Moeroeng (River) is a long stream in Central Borneo that unites with the Djoeloi to form the Barito, the latter being one of the great rivers of Borneo, flowing from its center in a general southerly direction, and emptying into the Java Sea a short distance to the west of the southeastern extremity of the island. Pronunciation: Moeroeng=Mooroong: Djoeloi=Jooloi.

Kampong is a native Dyak village, and consists of from one to three or four long houses, and sometimes small detached ones. The long house, the characteristic building, is anywhere from fifty to two or three hundred feet in length, elevated, on poles, from eight to twenty feet in the air. The sides of the houses are of rough boards or of bark and the roofs usually of bark shingles. The age of the dwellings can be told by the height they stand above the ground, those on the highest poles being the oldest ones, because of the former greater savagery of, and more frequent warfare between, the natives. Here literally we have a case of the home being the fortress.{162}

Within, the long house is of one of two arrangements; either it consists of a huge hall, often decorated with the skull and horns of the chase, running practically the entire length, and with family rooms opening into it and bake-rooms or kitchens at both ends, or the house consists merely of one very long room without partitions, the different families, with their crude cooking hearths, “squatting” around the sides of the room at intervals of ten or fifteen feet. Occasionally some of the families will hang up cloth divisions. Here, truly, we have the communal scheme of living carried to its ultimate extreme.

The Dyaks are the famous “head-hunters” of Borneo, and although their inhuman proclivities of procuring heads for their belts, in order to give them certain distinctions, among them, the prerogative of marrying, have, at the present time been largely suppressed by the Dutch authorities, nevertheless a traveler’s trip through Central Borneo is dangerous owing to the fact that some actual head-hunting bands are still roaming the dense jungles through which he is passing.

Due to pure luck my path was not crossed by any of these outlaw nomad troops, which is possibly why I am writing this to-day, as one white man, even though armed with a long 38 Army Colt revolver could probably make little headway against a whole band of these savages. My three Malay coolies were highly trustworthy and efficient, but I am not positive as to exactly what extent I could have counted on them in the eventuality of an actual attack.

Long, bare, tropical, vine-like growths that sometimes wrap themselves around the trunk of it tree, and sometimes hang from the branches straight to the ground.

Little gray leeches, up to half an inch in length{163} that, as a barefooted person walks through the jungle, attach themselves to his feet and ankles and suck the blood, until removed or until, having gotten their fill and swollen to many times their former size, fall back to the ground satiated.

In the case of a white man, they will burrow through the seam at the back of his sock to get the blood they crave.

Pronounced prow, and is any small crude Dyak or Malay Bornese boat, propelled by paddling.

A spear with a hollow shaft through which the Dyaks blow a light, wooden dart or arrow. I have seen these in Java and the Philippines also.

Pronounced mandow, and is the typical Dyak sword with a straight blade broadening gradually until near the end, then abruptly narrowing again to a point. It is sharpened on one edge only.

High wooden flag-like poles, carved near the base, and with long tassels falling from the top. Erected in front of the long house in memory of dead kampong (village) chiefs.

The Moeroeng River has magnificent rapids, which I and my three Malay coolies shot on my return by river from Olong Liko to Poeroek Tjahoe.

Round, drum-like, metal musical instruments, beaten with a stick having a large knob.

Refers to the fact that salt is precious to the Dyaks, and must be gotten from the distant coasts, through traders.{164}

The heating of the tom-toms, with the playing of other “musical” instruments, when a Dyak is sick. The nearer death, the louder the beating. Supposed to be very efficacious. In this particular case the “Sick-man’s Drums” were, of course, beaten ironically.

Thick, round, half-cooked, greasy, Dyak cakes, utterly indigestible and unprepossessing.

Slang for “not drinking.”

The guard-house or soldier prison.

The Philippine Islands.

“Solitary confinement” is punishment meted out to particularly obstreperous prisoners or to those under very severe sentence.

Guard-house or soldier prison.

Guard-house or soldier prison.

A prisoner’s sentence of ten years and a dishonorable discharge from the Army.

Refers to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, used as a discharge station for time-expired soldiers returning from the Philippines after the Insurrection of 1899-1902. On Angel Island there was also a military convict station for serious offenders, who had to break stone.{165}

“the makings” 39.

The paper and tobacco for cigarettes

The Major’s name was Sour—if we speak in antithesis.

One of the Great Moguls of India, who at Agra built the lovely, white marble Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, who died in 1629.

Near the city of Aurangabad, in the northwestern part of the state of Hyderabad, is the so-called “Little Taj,” the Mausoleum of Rabi’a Durrani, the wife of a later Great Mogul, Auraugzeb. Though built only of stucco, and not kept in the same immaculate condition as the Taj Mahal, the “Little Taj,” with its inset, pointed arches, viewed at an advantageous distance of several hundred feet, from just within the ground’s entrance, is to me really more beautiful than the splendid Taj Mahal itself, because the height of the “Little Taj,” and, inclusively, of its arches, is greater in proportion to its base than is that of its famous predecessor. The result is a more delicate, lofty and inspiring effect—which effect appears, obviously, to be the most apropos and essential one to obtain in erecting mausoleums of this nature.

Close, detailed inspection of the two tombs would present a diametrically opposite analysis, but in work such as this, it would seem that the most crucial aspect is the ensemble and not the minutiæ or finis.

When in Rajputana, a great state of northwestern India, I was impressed by the brilliancy of the stars on a clear night. It may have been due to atmospheric or other conditions, but whatever the cause, in no other part of the World have I seen such magnificent stars.{166}

The large, splendid, curved sword of India.

The trees that spread out like great umbrellas, covered on top with masses of blood-orange colored blossoms, and called “Flame of the Forest,” though in the Philippines we usually nicknamed them “Fire Trees.”

Let us be charitable, and hope that through contact with outside nations the Japanese will eventually be able to eradicate their traits of character, though the probability, much less the possibility, that the leopard can really change its spots, is remote indeed. Among the poorer classes and in the rural interior of Japan, you will, however, sometimes find at least two mitigating attributes, simplicity and kindliness.

The loves here referred to are picked at random from among the many of the World Wanderer. The second stanza refers to the breeze of the South Seas; the third stanza, to the North Wind; the fourth stanza, to the Sea; the fifth stanza, to the Sunrise; the sixth stanza, to the Sunset.

The old “C. Q. D.,” or present-day “S. O. S.,” the wireless telegraphic signal of ships in distress.

The great British scientist. Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1824. Died near Largs, Scotland in 1907. His name is among those the British Government has honored by carving into the floor of Westminster Abbey.{167}