Dyaks.– There are some tribes living in the vicinity of the people of whom we have just spoken and especially in the interior of the countries of which the Malays occupy the coasts, who are generally distinguished by the name of Alfusus. They have been often regarded as members of a separate stock, and a connexion has even been traced between them and the black race, but the greater part of these tribes ought to be considered as forming part of the Malay family. Among them are the Dyaks, a numerous people inhabiting the interior of Borneo, and the Turajas who dwell in the Celebes Islands.
The Dyaks (fig. 174) have well-made bodies, and the women’s faces are mild and agreeable in expression, but the men’s far from attractive. The constant warfare which they carry on with the Malays of the coast may be the cause why their features become ultimately so changed under the combined influences of fear, passion, and revenge.
The Dyaks who occupy the plains, and those living on the borders of rivers or in the woods, may be separately classed. Both groups are of similar stature, possess features alike, and the same lank, black hair, with large curls, which is however never woolly or frizzled; but those occupying the dense forests rising from the river banks have fairer complexions. Mutual hatred has been sworn between the two races, and they abandon themselves to incessant conflicts, and have ever to be on their guard against terrible surprises in which many heads are cut off. No Dyak would venture to present himself to a girl, without being able to show her the head of an enemy who had been overcome and sacrificed by him. A warrior’s renown depends on the number of heads he has acquired, and skulls dried in the fire form the ornaments and trophies of his hut.
These cutters off of heads are very cleanly, and bathe twice a day regularly. They have extremely severe laws, by which murder, outrage, and robbery are punished in the same way. They profess great veneration for old age as well as towards the dead. Their chronological system is based upon the yongas, or ages, as among the Hindoos, and they believe the present to be the age of misfortune. Their notion is, that some day during an eclipse of the sun or moon, a dragon will devour the stars; consequently whenever such phenomena occur, they make a terrific uproar in order to scare the monster away, a proceeding which has been invariably successful!
In her travels along the rivers Lappas and Kapouas (western side of Borneo) Madame Ida Pfeiffer visited a tribe of independent Dyaks, who are called “Head-Cutters” by the English and Dutch. She saw an immense cabin about sixty yards long, in the verandah of which fabrics made of cotton or of plaited bark of trees, splendid mats and baskets of every shape and size, were displayed. Drums and gongs hung on the walls, and large piles of bamboos, bags of rice, and dried pork, showed that the Dyaks had exhibited all their wealth for the occasion.
Nor were their own persons by any means forgotten. They had loaded their necks down to the breast with glass beads, bears’ teeth, and shells; brass rings covered the lower part of their legs, reaching half-way to the knee, their arms were adorned in the same way to the shoulders, and similar decorations were in their ears. Some wore a sort of red stuff cap, embellished with pearls, shells, and little flat bits of brass; others had wound round their heads a fillet formed of a piece of bark, the deeply fringed ends of which stuck out like feathers. A man decked out in this fashion, covered with ornaments from head to foot, presents a rather comical appearance.
The women had fewer adornments; they wore no earrings, nor bears’ teeth collars; a few displayed some glass beads; but more were satisfied with an incalculable number of brass or leaden rings.
Madame Pfeiffer, while among the Dyaks, witnessed a sword-dance, which was executed in the most skilful and elegant manner.
This travelled lady also visited another tribe located higher up the river, where she observed the same things, and in addition saw two human heads lately cut off. When showing them to Madame Pfeiffer, the Dyaks spat in their faces, and the children cuffed them, and spat on the ground.
174. – DYAKS.
The shocking custom of decapitation owes its origin to superstition. If a rajah falls ill, or sets out on a journey among another tribe, he and his subjects undertake to sacrifice a human head in case of his recovery or safe return; and should he die, they chop off a skull or two. The heads which they have sworn to immolate must be obtained at any cost. The Dyaks hide themselves in the long jungle grass, behind felled branches of trees, or under the dry leaves, and lie in wait for entire days. If anybody, man, woman, or child, comes in sight, they shoot a poisoned arrow at him, and rush like tigers on their prey. At one blow the head is severed from the body, and placed in a little basket reserved for this purpose, and ornamented with human hair.
These assassinations frequently give rise to bloody wars; for the tribe, a member of which has been thus sacrificed to the law of chance, takes up arms, and never lays them down until the most terrible reprisals have been exacted. Severed heads are borne back in triumph and solemnly hung up in the place of honour, the retaliation being celebrated by festivities which last for a month.
On one occasion, when Madame Pfeiffer had been received with profuse respect by a tribe, she found a freshly cut off head suspended over her bed, along with others already dried. She could not close her eyes. She felt in a perfect fever at being thus encompassed by frenzied men, at being smothered by the odour of these human remains, and at being lulled to rest by the sinister sound of skulls jangled together by the wind.
Yet in spite of chopped-off heads and festoons of human skulls, this lady considers the Dyaks to be honest, prudent, and endowed with some good qualities. She places them higher in the scale than the other tribes with which she had an opportunity of coming in contact. Their domestic life, which is truly patriarchal in its nature, is alluded to by her with pleasure, as are also their morality, the love they bear their offspring, and the respect evinced by the children towards their parents.
The independent Dyaks are richer than those living subservient to the Malay yoke. They cultivate rice, maize, tobacco, and sometimes the sugar cane; find in the woods Dammana resin which answers lighting purposes, and gather large harvests of sago, yams, and cocoa-nuts. Some of these productions are exchanged by them for pearl beads, brass, salt, and cloth. Their houses, or huts, are clean and well-kept (fig. 175).
A Dyak can take to himself as many wives as he pleases, but he usually contents himself with one, whom he treats well and does not burden with work. Their habits are purer and better than those of the Malays. They have no system of writing. Madame Pfeiffer did not see among them either temples or idols, priests or religious sacrifices.
175. – A DYAK HUT.
Polynesian Family
The tribes included by Dumont d’Urville under the name of Polynesians inhabit the entire eastern part of Oceania, namely, the Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas, the Friendly and Society groups, the Low Archipelago, New Zealand, etc.
The people of all these bear the closest affinity to each other. Their complexion is olive, verging on brown, but not copper-coloured; they are tall in stature, and have sinewy limbs, high foreheads, black, lively, and expressive eyes, and but slightly flattened noses. Their lips are generally larger than those of the whites, but they nevertheless have handsome mouths and splendid teeth. Their hair is black and frizzled. Throughout the whole vast expanse occupied by them they speak the same language.
Most of the tribes belonging to the Polynesian family are thorough savages, but their stock is diminishing day by day, and the final result of neighbouring civilization will be to replace the native element by European races. Meanwhile, the most cruel customs prevail among them, and even cannibalism is practised by some.
“Taboo” holds universally an important place among the populations of Oceania.
This word expresses a state of interdiction, during which the object struck with it is placed under the immediate control of the divinity. No man can infringe upon its power without becoming exposed to the most disastrous consequences, that is, unless he has impaired its action by certain formalities.
Thus, the piece of ground consecrated to a god, or which has become the burial place of a chief, is “tabooed,” and they place under the same spell a canoe which they desire to render safer for long voyages. To fight in a spot subjected to “taboo” is forbidden, and in order to prevent certain productions from becoming scarce, they are placed under similar protection. Anyone guilty of robbery or other crime, commits a fault against “taboo,” and the man who touches the dead body of a chief or anything he was in the habit of wearing, falls under a like ban, which time alone can remove, etc.
We shall allude chiefly to the aborigines of New Zealand, giving also some details about the natives of the Sandwich Islands, as well as about the Tongas, or Friendly Islanders.
New Zealanders.– The inhabitants of New Zealand, sometimes designated by the name of Maoris, are tall, robust, and of athletic frames. Their stature is generally from five feet seven inches to five feet eight inches, seldom lower, and their skin scarcely differs in colour from that of the people of the South of Europe. The expression of their countenance almost always indicates a gloomy ferocity. The face is oval, the forehead narrow, the eye large, black, and full of fire. The nose is sometimes aquiline, but oftener broad and flat, the mouth wide, the lips big, and beneath them rows of small, beautifully enamelled teeth.
The New Zealanders wear their hair long and falling in scattered locks over the face; chiefs alone take the trouble to comb it back on the head in a solitary tuft. It is rough and black, and seems occasionally reddish, because some individuals sprinkle it with powdered ochre.
Women who are not slaves possess strong vigorous figures, and are rarely under five feet and a few inches in height. The young girls have a broad face, masculine features, coarse lips frequently stained black by tattooing, a large mouth, flat nose, and uncombed hair hanging about them in disorder. Their bodies are disgustingly filthy, and impregnated with an odour of fish or of seal oil, which is revolting in the extreme.
They possess a few advantages as a set-off against the repulsiveness of this picture. The teeth of a New Zealand female are of excessive whiteness, and her black eyes beam with intelligence and fire, but household work and the birth of a family soon cause these attractions to disappear. The women have, moreover, the most deeply-rooted dirty habits. A thick layer of mud covers their bodies, which are nearly always smeared with seal or porpoise oil. Both sexes are capital swimmers.
There is little difference between the costume worn by males and females. The natives know how to weave very elegant textures from the fibres of the Phormium tenax (or New Zealand flax), and a broad mat of this material floats carelessly over their shoulders and body, while another is wrapped round the waist, descending to the knee. In winter they throw over the former garment a thick, heavy cloak generally made from the peelings of a kind of osier, but which, in the case of chiefs, consists of dogskins sewn together. These fabrics are also varied in design, some being smooth and without any pattern, while others are covered with very delicate ornamentation. The slave girls stick unthreshed slips of the Phormium tenax in their skirts, thus giving immoderate fulness to their bodies.
A warrior’s rank and bravery are denoted by a great number of little pins made of bones or green talc, which are worn across the breast at the edge of the matting. The original use of these articles was to scratch the head and kill the insects on it.
Like all the other races, the New Zealanders have a fancy for personal ornaments. They like to stick plumes in their hair, and a tuft of soft white feathers is thrust into the ears. Their unkempt locks are seldom covered by any kind of head-dress; but Lesson, the naturalist, from whom we derive these details, saw a few young girls in whom a coquettish taste was more developed, and who wore graceful wreaths of green moss.
The women adorn themselves with shell necklaces, from which little dried hippocamps are sometimes suspended. They are very fond of blue glass beads of European make. The most precious ornament of this people, however, consists of a green talc fetish, which hangs on the breast attached to some portion of a human bone. There are religious ideas connected with this amulet, and it is worn by men only.
One of the Zealanders’ superstitions is to fasten a shark’s sharp tooth to one of their ears, with the point of which the women lacerate their bosoms and faces when they happen to lose a chief or one of their relations. The greatest value attaches to these objects when they have been handed down from ancestors, and have become “tabooed,” or sacred; the happiness of a native’s whole existence seems bound up in their possession; yet they are rated as completely worthless when derived from a slain enemy.
Tattooing plays an important part among the New Zealanders, and they submit annually to the painful operation which it requires. This marking usually covers the face all over, and, as it is renewed very often, produces deep furrows stamped in regular rings, that impart the oddest expression to the countenance. Circles, one within the other, are also punctured on the lower part of the loins, and the women have a broad zone of lozenge-shaped figures engraved round their waist. Deep black lines are cut in the lips, and a design like a spear-head is traced at the angles of the mouth and in the middle of the chin. The young men draw large flies on their noses, staining them black, and the girls sketch similar insects in blue. None but slaves and persons of the lowest class are without tattooing of some sort, and it is considered a downright disgrace to have the skin in its natural state.
176. – NEW ZEALAND CHIEF.
In a region subject to the terrible storms of the Southern Hemisphere, the dwellings ought to be, and are in fact, small and low. Villages are never found in a plain, because there they might be surprised and pillaged, but are situated in steep localities difficult of access; the huts cannot be entered except on all fours; families sheltered by them, sleep huddled together on the straw in a narrow space; and there is no furniture inside, beyond a few carved boxes, and some red wooden vessels thickly covered with designs.
The industry for which these islanders are chiefly noted, is the manufacture of matting; we have already alluded to the beautiful materials made from the fibres of the Phormium tenax by the women and girls.
The soil of New Zealand does not, like that of Equatorial Asia, furnish a large supply of edible substances. The basis of the inhabitants’ food consists of the root of a fern tree, resembling our Pteris, which covers all the plains. The natives catch a large quantity of fish in the bays along the coast, and dry or smoke the greater portion of it, in order to guard against famine in time of war, and to be provided with sustenance whenever the fury of the elements makes it impossible for them to launch their boats. Europeans have introduced several vegetables among them, which grow readily in the easily tilled and fertile land.
Their cookery is as simple as their food; they drink nothing but pure water, and hate strong liquors. Their victuals are laid on the ground, and each one eats with his fingers; the warriors, however, sometimes use instruments, made of human bones, and Lesson bought from one of them a four-pronged fork, fashioned from the large bone of a man’s right arm, minutely carved, and adorned with many raised ornaments in mother-of-pearl.
New Zealand canoes are remarkable for the carving which embellishes them. Most of these boats are hollowed from the trunk of a single tree, and are generally about forty feet long. Lesson measured a specimen, made in this way from one piece, the depth of which was three, the breadth four, and the length sixty feet. They are painted red, and have their sides festooned with birds’ feathers. The stern rises to a height of about four feet, and is covered with allegorical carvings; the prow exhibits a hideous head, with mother-of-pearl eyes and a tongue protruding to an inordinate extent, in order to show contempt for an enemy. These canoes are capable of holding about forty warriors. The oars are sharp pointed, and can be used, in case of need, as weapons against an unforeseen attack. The sails consist of reed mats, coarsely woven, and triangular in shape.
Although they are eminently warlike, the New Zealanders possess no great variety of destructive implements. Arrows are unused by them: a paton-paton, or tomahawk, of green talc, which is fastened to the wrist by a strap of hide, is the weapon above all others with which they smash or scalp the skull of their enemy. They rush headlong one against the other, and conquer by dint of sheer weight and force. The badge which betokens a priest’s functions is a heavy whalebone stick, covered with carvings. Their tokis are hatchets, also made of talc, with carefully worked handles decorated with tufts of white dog’s hair. A great many of their clubs are of extremely hard polished red wood.
In latter days the numerous tribes inhabiting the islands resorted to by English and American whalers, receive firearms in exchange for the fresh provisions with which they supply the European vessels.
The chant of the New Zealanders is solemn and monotonous, made up of hoarse, drawling, and broken notes. It is always accompanied by movements of the eyes and well-practised gestures that are very significant. Most of those chants turn upon licentious subjects. Their dance is a pantomime in which the performers seldom move from one place, and consists of postures and motions of the limbs, executed with the greatest precision. Each dance has an allegorical meaning, and is applicable to declarations of war, human sacrifices, funerals, &c.
The only musical instrument that Lesson saw in the hands of the New Zealanders was a tastefully worked wooden flute. The language of these tribes is harsh: some poems of high antiquity have been transmitted to them by oral tradition. They possess a religion, a form of worship, priests, and ceremonials. Marriages are made by purchase; a chief who had some dealings with the crew of the ship to which Lesson belonged, had bought his wife for two firelocks and a male slave.
The friendship which the aborigines of the same tribe entertain for each other is very warm, and Lesson has depicted for us the strange manner in which they evince it. When one of them came on board, and met there an intimate whom he had not seen for some time, he went up to him in solemn silence, applied the end of his own nose against that of his friend’s, and remained in that attitude for half an hour, muttering some confused sentences in a doleful tone. They then separated, and remained for the rest of the time like two men utter strangers to each other. A similar formality was observed by the women among themselves.
No race cherishes the desire of avenging an insult longer than that of which we are sketching an account; consequently, eternal hatreds and frequent wars desolate their islands.
The loss of a chief is deeply felt by the whole tribe. The funeral obsequies last for several days: should the deceased be of high rank, captives are sacrificed who will have to attend him in the other world, and the women, girls, and female slaves tear their bosoms and faces with sharp sharks’ teeth. Each tribe forms a sort of republic. The districts are ruled by a chief who has a special kind of tattooing, and who is the most generally esteemed for bravery, intrepidity, and prudence.
Lesson declares that the New Zealanders are openly and cynically cannibals; that they relish with extreme satisfaction the palpitating flesh of enemies who have fallen at their hands, and regard as a festival the day on which they can gorge themselves with human flesh. A chief expressed to Lesson the pleasure which he experienced in eating it, and indicated the brain as being the most delicate morsel, and the buttock as the most substantial.
After a victory the bodies of the chiefs who have been killed in the fight are prepared for serving up at this horrible banquet. The head belongs to the victor, the fleshy parts are eaten by the men of the tribe, and the bones are distributed among them to be made tools of. Common warriors are scalped, chopped into pieces, roasted, and devoured. Their heads, if they had any reputation, are sold to the Europeans in exchange for a little powder.
A chief’s head is preserved. If the victorious clan wishes to make peace it sends this trophy to the defeated tribe. In case the latter raises loud shouts, a reconciliation will take place, but should it preserve a gloomy silence, it is a sign that preparations are being made to avenge the chief’s death, and hostilities are recommenced. When a tribe has regained the head of its chief it preserves it religiously and venerates it; or else, knowing that it will bring a respectable sum, sells it to the Europeans.
M. Hochstetter during a recent voyage visited these same islanders. A chief of Ohinemuta, named “Pini-te-Kore-Kore” came to see the travellers. He was attired in European fashion, wore a cloak and straw hat, and carried a white banner which bore in blue letters the inscription, “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.” He was a Christianized chief, and modified as to exterior appearance. He had been brought up at the missionary school, was about thirty years of age, and tattooed only on the lower part of the face. He had acquired much from his French masters both in manner and demeanour, and being extremely communicative gave M. Hochstetter some curious particulars about the horrible wars to which his forefathers had devoted themselves.
For the last thirty years the conflicts have not been carried on as they were formerly, that is to say, they consist no longer in a series of duels, as it were, but of musketry firing kept up by bodies of troops, from a distance, in the European style.
The traveller had occasion to pay a visit to the Maori king “Potateau-te-Whero-Whero,” before the door of whose dwelling was posted a solitary sentinel clad in a blue uniform cloak with red facings and brass buttons, forming the whole guard of the palace. About twenty persons were assembled in a hut, where his Majesty, who was blind and bent double, sate upon a straw mat. His face, though overloaded with tattooings, was fine and regular, and a deep scar on his forehead bespoke him as a warrior who had taken part in severe battles. He was wrapped in a blanket of a dark brown colour. Like Homer’s Nausicaa, the daughters of this supreme chief of a proud and warlike race were engaged in washing. His son, seated near him, was a young man with black and sparkling eyes.
The Maori tribes had risen in rebellion a few years previously, with a desire of founding a national government as soon as they had recovered their independence. But the natives were overcome after much bloodshed, and fell again under the yoke of their former ruler.
Tongas.– The inhabitants of the Tonga or Friendly Islands resemble Europeans, but their physiognomy presents such varied expressions that it would be difficult to reduce them to a characteristic type. At the first glance flatness of the nose seems a distinguishing mark of their race, but according as we examine a large number of individuals we find the different shapes of that organ grow more numerous. It is the same with the lips, which are sometimes fleshy and sometimes thin. The hair is black; but brown and light chestnut are also to be met with. The colour of the complexion is equally changeable. Women and girls of the better classes who avoid the rays of the sun are but little coloured; the others are more or less dark.
The population of these islands has been carefully described by Dumont d’Urville in an account of the voyage which he made in command of the Astrolabe, during the years 1826, 1827, 1828, and 1829.
“The natives of the Tonga Islands,” he says, “are in general tall, well-made, and of good proportions. Their countenances are agreeable and present a variety of features that may be compared with those observable in Europe. Many have aquiline noses and rather thin lips, while the hair of nearly all is smooth. Finally, the colour of their skin is only slightly dark, especially among the chiefs. Women may be seen whose tall stature, stately step, and perfect forms are united to the most delicate features and a nearly white or merely dusky complexion.”
Cook and Forster had previously affirmed that the women of the Tonga Islands might serve as models for an artist.
In their first dealings with Europeans these aborigines displayed themselves in the most favourable light. Tasman, Cook, Maurelle, and Wilson bore witness to their gentleness, politeness, and hospitality; Cook even gave the name of “Friendly” to their islands. The crew of the Astrolabe was at first led astray by these appearances; but the natives gave many and repeated proofs that at the very moment when they were overpowering the navigators with caresses and marks of friendship, they were meditating how to attack and plunder them.
These men are also endowed with a force of character and energy by no means common. Their bravery often approaches the most reckless temerity, and they do not recoil an inch from the greatest danger. They possess, nevertheless, a general tone of suavity and courtesy, and a natural ease of manner, which no one would in the least expect to find among a people verging so closely upon the savage state. Their intelligence is more developed than that of the Tahitians. They treat their wives with kindness, have great love for their children, and profess deep respect for old age.
They make canoes which are remarkable for their proportions and the elegance and finish of their handiwork; carve whales’ teeth for necklaces, and incrust their various instruments with the same material; know how to construct houses, as well as stone vaults for the burial of their chiefs; and trace delicate chasings on their clubs with a sharpened nail fastened in a handle. The culinary art has advanced to a higher degree among them than among any other of the Polynesian islanders. They prepare from thirty to forty different dishes, consisting of pork, turtle, fowl, fish, bread-fruits, bananas, cocoa-nuts, &c., mixed according to certain processes, and dressed in different methods. The peasants till the land by means of stakes flattened and sharpened at the extremity, and furnished a little way from the end with a stirrup for supporting the foot.
The manufacture of cloth, mats, and reed baskets is the special occupation of the women. In order to make the cloth in most common use, they take a certain quantity of the inner bark of the paper-mulberry tree properly prepared, beat it flat, stain it with different vegetable colours, and print patterns of all kinds upon it. Mats of the finest quality are woven from leaves of the Pandanus; others, stronger, are made from the bark of a kind of banana-tree; those resembling horsehair are worn by the common people in the canoes to protect them against wet. Mattings of other descriptions, ornamented in different patterns, and formed from the young leaves of the cocoa-tree, are used to preserve the walls of their buildings against the inclemencies of the weather.
Women of a certain rank amuse themselves by making combs, the teeth of which are formed from the ribs of cocoa-leaves. The manufacture of thread appertains to females of the lower classes, and the material for it is extracted from the bark of the banana-tree.
These islanders tattoo their bodies in various places, especially the lower part of the stomach and the thighs, with designs which are really elegant and present a vast variety of patterns, but they leave the skin in its natural state. Their tattooing never exhibits deep incisions and does not seem to be a sign of distinction or of warlike prowess. The women only tattoo the palms of their hands.
Their houses are neatly and solidly built; the master and mistress sleep in a division apart, while the other members of the family lie upon the floor without having any fixed place. The beds and their covering are composed of matting.
The clothing of the men, like that of the women, consists of a piece of cloth six feet square, which envelopes the body in such a way as to make a turn and a half round the loins, where it is confined by a belt. Common people are satisfied with wearing an apron of foliage, or a bit of narrow stuff like a girdle.
The natives of the Friendly Islands bathe every day. Their skin, besides, is constantly saturated with perfumed cocoa-nut oil. When preparing themselves for a religious feast, a general dance, or a visit to the residence of a personage of high rank, they cover themselves with oil in such profusion that it drips from their hair.
The ornaments of both sexes consist of necklaces composed of the red fruit of the Pandanus, or fragrant flowers. Some of them hang from their necks little shells, birds’ bones, sharks’ teeth, and pieces of carved and polished whalebone or of mother-of-pearl, and high up on the arm they wear bracelets of the last material or of shells. They have also mother-of-pearl or tortoise-shell rings, and hanker greatly after glass beads, especially those of a blue colour. The lobe of their ears is pierced by large holes for the reception of small wooden cylinders about three inches in length, or of little reeds filled with a yellow powder used by the women as paint.