sarawak culture - Page 7

Despite being a mythical creature, the dragon appears in various folklore of many cultures around the world.

In Western culture, it is typically depicted as winged, horned, four-legged and capable of breathing fire.

Meanwhile, dragons in Eastern culture are usually wingless (but capable of flight) short-legged, serpentine creatures.

Would it be interesting to know that the dragon in Iban folklore is a bit of both worlds?

Here are at least five things you should know about dragons in Iban folklore:

1.The physical appearance of a dragon in Iban folklore

According to an Iban legend, the dragon or naga is a huge snake with a horn protruding from its forehead.

Unlike its fellow dragons from other folklore, an Iban dragon has a luminous bezoar or gombala stone in the centre of its brow. It works like a flashlight for the dragon to lights its way at night.

It also has several pairs of wings, legs, arms, eyes and sharp claws and teeth.

2.There are two species of dragons.

According to Iban ethnologist Benedict Sandin, there are two species of dragons in Iban folklore. One species loves the water so it lives in the sea, pool or in the river. Meanwhile, another species prefer the mountain top.

The one which lives on the mountain top kills with its crested tail. It can also spit venom and breathe fire .

3.It is believed that a dragon protected the Ibans during the infamous Cholera expedition

Benedict wrote in The Sarawak Gazette on Nov 30, 1964, “It was said by the Ulu Ai Ibans during the Cholera Expedition against Penghulu Bantin of Delok in 1902, before the arrival of the Government forces at the mouth for Delok river in the upper Batang Ai, that they saw a huge dragon track going down from the hill to the river. During the following night Bantin had a dream. He dreamt that he met a huge dragon which told him not to worry about the enemy as he (the dragon) would fight for him.”

Eventually, one fifth of the 10,000 men recruited to fight the alleged rebels died of Cholera hence the name ‘Cholera Expedition’.

4.A dragon also helped fight the Japanese during World War II

When an Iban leader, the late Temenggong Koh fought against the Japanese during World War II, he gave offerings to the dragon god seeking its protection.

Benedict shared, “It was due to this that whenever the late Temenggong Koh was worried by the enemy he would throw an offering into the river to appeal for immediate help from his dragon god. He did this during the fighting against the Japanese soldiers at the own of Song during liberation days in 1945.”

5.There is a guardian dragon cited in a mourning song

In the olden days, according to Benedict, the Iban believed that whenever a person died in this world, thousands of their relatives who died before them will come from the other world to fetch their soul to live with them in Mandai Mati.

“On their way to Mandai Mati, on reaching the Pintu Tanah (Door to Earth) which separates this world from the next, a guardian dragon is mentioned in the following mourning song,” he added.

Here is the English translation of the song:

Then spoke the maiden Simba
Who, when she died was transformed into a hawk
“Where are you maiden Jawai
Who wears a single red pelaga stone,
And you maiden Iyak,
Who is lively and gay?
Please open the door of the dragon snake;
The door of red soil;
So that we can have a way to return to our country,
In the forest full of small mango trees;
With flowers all upside down.

We have no time!
Replied the dragon snake,
Because we are doing most important work,
Having been asked by Pungga and Laja,
To weave for them coloured petticoats,
Which they will wear on a short expedition,
To the mouth of the Kantu river
If they return from thence,
They will bring for us two lumps
Of precious (gombala) stones,
As big as areca nuts.

While most Sarawakians know the practice of headhunting was part of our history, most of us are not informed about how the heads were received after being taken.

The common understanding is that headhunters were received with a heroic welcome and a great feast after a successful headhunting trip.

But how were the heads received by the villagers? What did the celebrations look like or who performed the ritual?

Here at KajoMag, we look at different accounts recorded in the 19th century on how old Sarawak communities received heads which were taken by their warriors:

1.Hugh Low in Sarawak, its inhabitants and productions (1848).

Low had no love for the headhunting ceremony, although he described that the Dayak viewed this ceremony with sentiments of satisfaction and delight.

“The fleet, returning from a successful cruise, on approaching the village, announce to its inhabitants their fortunes by a horrid yell, which is soon imitated and prolonged by the men, women and children, who have stayed home.

“The head is brought on shore with much ceremony, wrapped up in the curiously folded and plated leaves of the nipah palm, and frequently emitting the disgusting odour peculiar to decaying mortality.

“This, the Dyaks have frequently told me, is particularly grateful to their senses, and surpasses the odorous durian, their favourite fruit.”

Low added that the head was treated with the greatest consideration, lavishing it with all the terms of endearment.

After that, they offered sireh leaves and betel nut to the head while placing a cigar between its lips, “to propitiate the spirit by kindness, and to procure its good wishes for the tribe, of whom it is now supposed to have become a member.”

Then the ceremony continued with dancing, drinking and plenty of gong music.

2.Henry Keppel’s A Visit to the Indian Archipelago in HMS Meander (1853) on the Melanau community

Sir Keppel became the commanding officer of HMS Meander in November 1847. During that time, he was deployed in operations against pirates along the coast of Borneo.

He came across the Melanau communities of Sarawak and recorded what he observed.

“Although the Millanows do not preserve the heads of their enemies, a young warrior will occasionally bear home such a trophy with the same sort of pleasure a young fox-hunter takes home his first brush.

“On this occasion, a juvenile aspirant to love and glory, who had accompanied the expedition and wished to display a prize he had won, was met on landing by the women, who had already spied the relic from their elevated platform on the bank.

“They descended to meet it with a stick in each hand, and began to play on the unfortunate head, as if it had been a tom-tom. After this performance, each in turn rushed into the river, as if to cleanse herself from the pollution.

“Although these gentle creatures did not strike with any violence, it was as much as the young hero could do to prevent his trophy from being pummelled into a jelly.”

3.Henry Keppel on the people in Lundu

Keppel also witnessed the ceremony of receiving a head in Lundu.

He stated, “In one house there was a grand fete, in which the women danced with the men. There were four men, two of them bearing human skulls, and two the fresh head of pigs; the women bore wax-lights, or yellow rice on brass dishes. They danced in line, moving backwards and forwards, and carrying the heads and dishes. They danced in line, moving backwards and forwards, and carrying the heads and dishes in both hands; the graceful part was the manner in which they half-turned the body to the right and left, looking over their shoulders and holding the heads in the opposition direction, as if they were in momentary expedition of someone coming up behind to snatch the nasty relic from them. At times the women knelt down in group, with the men leaning over them.”

4.Spenser St. John on the Land Dayak’s head feast in Life in the Forest of the Far East

St. John described the head feast for the Land Dayak was a great day for the young bachelor.

“The head house and village are decorated with green boughs and the heads to be feasted are brought out from their very airy position being hung from one of the beams. An offering of food is made to the heads, and their spirits, being thus appeased, cease to entertain malice against, or to seek to inflict injury upon, those who have got possession of the skull which formerly adorned the now forsaken body,” he wrote.

Then the young men cut a coconut shell to make a cup and dyed it in red and black colours. They decorated the cup to look like a bird and poured alcohol into it.

St. John recorded, “The cup is filled with arrack, and the possessor performs a short wild dance with it in his hands, and then with a yell leaps before some chosen companion, and presents it to him to drink. Thus the ‘loving cup’ is passed around among them, and it need not be said that the result is in many cases partial, through seldom excessive, intoxication.”

Headhunting is the act of taking and preserving a person’s head after killing that person.

Generally, scholars agree that headhunting practice’s primary function was for ritualistic and ceremonial purposes.

Some even theorized that the practice came from the belief that the head contained a life force which could be harnessed through its capture.

In Borneo particularly, some of the reasons for headhunting included it being a sign of manhood, as a dowry of sorts for marriage, as casualties during the capture of enemies as slaves, looting of valuable properties, tribal conflicts and territorial expansion.

But how did the olden communities first think of taking off someone’s head and preserving it afterwards?

Here are three different accounts on how the headhunting practice originated in Borneo:

Headhunting practice originated from the act of sacrifice

A.M. Phillips wrote a letter to The Sarawak Gazette which was published on Apr 30, 1958. There, he shared about a legend concerning the origin of headhunting practice in Borneo.

Long time ago, the Dayaks in Saribas were still living in upper Batang Ai. There was a Dayak man who had no child of his own.

One day, he decided to take a jar along with a small party to an area where current day Kalimantan, Indonesia is.

At one of the longhouses there, he found a family who was willing to give up their son for him to adopt. After some celebration, the man and his party together with his newly adopted son set to return to Batang Ai while leaving the jar to the family as a token.

On their way home, the group had some misfortunes and sickness that two of them died. The man who started the expedition had a dream one night.

In the dream, he was told to kill his adopted son and keep only his head to be taken back to the longhouse. There the head would need to be preserved to ward off anymore misfortunes.

Once he woke up, he told the rest of his group about the dream. The idea of cutting off someone’s head was unheard of at that time. Nonetheless, the group persuaded him to do what he had been told in the dream.

The man reluctantly killed his adopted son. He then returned to his longhouse with the rest of the survivors of his group in good health. Meanwhile, the head was kept and preserved and the longhouse prospered.

A tale of vengeance

Sometime after that, a visitor from the boy’s longhouse came to visit. He heard the story about how the boy was killed and his head was hung at the longhouse. The visitor returned to his longhouse and told the boy’s biological parents.

Phillips wrote, “They were extremely incensed, for they had trusted the stranger, despite the fact that he was from another group and had hoped that friendship would have resulted between them.”

In a classic tale of vengeance, the parents together with the rest of the longhouse people set out to the man’s longhouse.

They took back the boy’s skull, but not without killing their now sworn enemies. Vengeance followed vengeance, and that was how headhunting practices started in Borneo.

It was a frog who inspired the headhunting practice in Borneo

W.F. Alder’s Men of the Inner Jungle (1923) gave one interesting legend on how the headhunting practice started in Borneo.

“One time during the progress of a tribal battle one of the warriors was sorely wounded and went to a stream to wash his hurts,” Alder wrote.

While bending over the edge of the stream he heard a voice speak to him. When he turned around, there stood a frog.

“The frog warned him that he would never succeed in battle until he took the head of his enemy and hung it from the roof of his house.”

The frog added that, only then all would fear him and because of that fear, would fall easy victim to his sword.

The man laid in the cool water until nightfall. When night came and the jungle was dark, the man made his way to his enemy’s house. There, the man crept on his enemy, struck him with a club, killing him instantly.

Alder wrote, “He then silently dragged the body of his victim into the jungle and cut off the head and at daybreak placed it upon the roof pole of his own house.”

The headhunting practice was started to please a woman

Guys, how far would you go to impress somebody? According to this legend from Skrang, one of the ‘chief incentives’ of collecting heads was the desire to please the women.

Harriette McDougall, wife to Bishop McDougall recorded an old legend about the daughter of the Skrang people’s great ancestor who refused to marry.

Well…not until her betrothed brought her a present worthy of her acceptance.

The legend goes, “The man went into the jungle and killed a deer, which he presented to her; but the fair lady turned away in disdain.” (Some women just can’t be pleased.)

So the man went out again, this time he returned with the body of an orangutan. Again, the woman was not happy with her gift. (What did these poor animals ever do to her?)

“Then, in a fit of despair, the lover went abroad, and killed the first man that he met, and throwing his victim’s head at the maiden’s feet, he exclaimed at the cruelty she had made him guilty of; but to his surprise, she smiled, and said, that she now had discovered the only gift worthy of herself.”

Hence, that is how headhunting practice originated – as part of a marriage proposal.

Do you know any legends on the origin of headhunting in Borneo? Let us know in the comment box.