Seventeen years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo; a ... - Sabrizain.org

CHAPTER XX
SOME PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
The itinerant missionary — Visit to a Dyak house— Reception—
Cooking— Servants—The meal— Teaching the Dyaks — Christians
— Services — Prayer - houses — Offertory — Reception of the
missionaiy — Dangers of sea travelling during the north - east
monsoon— My boat —In swamped the — jungle Losing my way —
A Dyak's experience.
AS the long Dyak village houses are often built at
great distances from each other, the missionary
who wishes to do effective work among the Dyaks
must travel from house to house. Only by visiting
distant villages, and living with the Dyaks as their guest,
can the missionary learn to understand the people, and
know their real inner life.
Let me try and describe a visit to some Dyak house,
which no missionary has visited before, and where there
is hope of breaking new ground. After travelling by
boat or on foot I come to the house, and at the foot of the
ladder leading up to it, one of my Dyak companions shouts
out, " Jadi rumah ?" (" Is the house tabooed ?"—that is
to say: "May we walk up?") The usual answer is
" Jadi," which implies that there is no reason against our
entering the house. We climb up the ladder leading to
the common hall and walk to the middle of the house,
where the headman and the more important inhabitants
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