Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

136 AUSTRALASIA.people in the whole of Indonesia. Nearly all ai'e perfectly frank and honest.They scrupulously respect the fruits of their neighbours' labour, and in the tribeitself murder is unknown. For a period of twelve years imder the rule of RajahBrooke only one case of homicide occurred in the principality of Sarawak, and inthis case the criminal was a stranger adopted by the Dayaks. The natives alsocontrast favourably with the Malay, Chinese, or European immigrants for theirtemperance and forbearance. Although cheated and plundered on all sides, theypreserve their good temper and cheerful disposition, indulge freely in merrymaking,and display much ingenuity in inventing all kinds of games.Born artists, they not only" raise their dwellings on piles high above theperiodical floods and bcj^ond the reach of nightly marauders, but also dispose thebamboo frames and gables in forms pleasing to the eye. They are eager collectorsof porcelain and " old china," and to certain choice pieces are attributed divineproperties. The tombs of their chiefs, and in some districts those of their dogs,are solidly constructed of iron-wood and embellished with carvings representingheads, birds, dragons' mouths, rivalling those of Bxirmah and Siam in delicacy ofdetail and instinctive harmony.In the centre of most villages stands the Imlai, or " chief house," a round orelongated building, erected, like all the others, on piles, but containing a vastapartment where the unmarried young men and all strangers pass the night, andwhich serves as an exchange, forum, and council chamber. Some of these Dayakpalaces, occasionally treated as citadels, have a circuit of no less than 1,000 feet.Keppel saw one on the banks of the Lundu which was over 600 feet long, andwhich accommodated a whole tribe of four hundred souls. The natives also giveproof of their engineering skill by throwing cleverly constructed bamboo bridgesacross rivulets, and sometimes even across rivers considerably over 300 feetbroad.But they never lay down roads, and rarely even paths, almost their onlyhighways being the water-courses. Their best tracks are made of the stems oftrees placed endwise, over which they run rather than walk. At the least alarmthe trees leading to their village are scattered and the track destroyed.The Sarawak Dayaks are good husbandmen, raising on the reclaimed land twocrops in rotation, first rice, then sugar-cane, maize or vegetables.Then the grovindlies fallow for eight or ten years, during which it is again invaded by scrub andeven forest growths. The granaries are a kind of basket fixed on high trees andapproached by ladders or inclined planes of bamboo. The inland Dayaks arechiefly occupied in collecting the natural pi-oducts of the forest, ratan and guttaperchafor the European market, swallows' nests and bezoar stones for the Chinese.When absent from their homes in search of these objects, the women send littlelamps of cocoanut shell adrift on the stream, as is also practised on the banks ofthe Ganges. These floating lights, burning in honour of the spirits of air andwater, intercede with them for the absent toilers in the forests.Notwithstanding the almost inexhaustible natural resources of their fertiledomain, even those half-civilised Dayaks who have given up the practice ofhead-hunting do not appear to increase in numbers. Their abundant crops