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A Tribal Diary -- Borneo

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Update 6

Monday, November 13th, 2000 -- Vince Hemingson

It was clear that David and his sons were beginning to get excited by the prospect of a family reunion. As we neared the shore, people poured out of the longhouse and spilled onto the beach. As our long boat crunched onto the gravel of the rivers edge, dozens of outstretched hands offered to help us ashore.

A crowd of people surged up the hill to the long house. At the top waited Aki basai, the "big grandfather". He and David embraced and there were greetings all around in a torrent of Iban. Thomas and I shook many hands and those who could not get our hands, reached out to touch our arms and pat us on the back. When they saw our tattoos their smiles grew even wider, if that was possible. Aki basai took both of our hands in his and greeted us with a big smile and a little head bow.

Aki basai is a striking figure. With three wives at the age of 86, he wears a perpetual smile, made all the more remarkable because all of his teeth are gold and his lips are stained a deep crimson from the juice of the beetle nut he constantly chews. To complete the image of the smiling Buddha is his bald pate, rounded belly and eye-brows permanently tattooed in an impish arc.

Aki basai had just recently resigned as Headman of the Longhouse and passed on his responsibilities to a son-in-law. He loved everyone's tattoos and asked David when he was finally going to get one himself!

David mentioned that it was too bad we hadn't arrived just the day before because apparently there had been a large cock-fighting tournament which everyone was still talking about. That was all the encouragement Thomas and I needed. That and the rice wine and warm beer we were soon drinking.

Thomas and I got David to haggle vigorously on our behalf. Thomas and I wanted Champion Roosters. No pretenders to the throne. The volume of the conversation grew to a roar. There was much shouting and laughing about who had the best fighting cocks. Finally we settled on a price of fifty ringhat apiece for two roosters.

The crowd roared with laughter when Thomas and I were presented with our birds and we each held them aloft. It was clear the crowd was divided over who the winner would be. Thomas and I had made it clear that we did not want our cocks fitted with spurs, and in fact the roosters natural spurs had been trimmed to nubs. But these two birds were issuing challenges to each other at the tops of their lungs.

The Iban had picked out a rooster for me that was red, as red in fact as my beard. Tom's was a pale, mottled yellow. We christened them "Big Red" and "Little Yeller". A huge circle formed and Tom and I released our roosters, the Ibans roaring with laughter as Tom and I danced around like a couple of fight managers at a Championship Bout. Because the roosters were basically unarmed without fighting spurs attached, our cockfight wasn't much more than a glorified sparring match.

The birds were impressive athletes. The jumped and danced, spun around each other and lunged at each other with beaks and feet. They even somersaulted over each other in the air like they'd been watching too many Bruce Lee movies. Within two minutes they were panting heavily. Each had lost one or two feathers.

Thomas and I called it a draw (although frankly, Big Red definitely won the bout on points) and scooped up our roosters before they could get hurt.

Traditionally, the Iban eat the losing rooster but Tom and I wouldn't hear of it. I announced to the crowd that Big Red was retired from the fight game and presented him as a gift to Aki basai. Aki basai is a big cock-fighting aficionado and was very pleased with Big Red. I paid for Big Red to be put out to stud and picked out what I thought were a couple of pretty cute hens...

Tom presented "Little Yeller" to the Iban man who had haggled on our behalf. Everyone thought the entire proceedings were a great success. I intend to follow the careers of Big red's sons with great interest.

With the sun nearly down everyone filed inside the long house.

The day isn't over yet...

Later Monday, November 13th

All the Iban men gathered closely around Thomas. Most of them reached out to touch his tattoos to see if they were real. Around the outer circle gathered the women and children. Once again two or three children shied away from me, but they didn't know what to make of Thomas. They asked if Tom was a "black man" because he has so many tattoos covering his body.

Once again it was generally the much older men who had the tattoos. When I asked how they had acquired them, they spoke of their adventures and travels to Miri and Brunei. Akai basai got his first tattoo when he traveled on a plane for the first time. And there, tattooed on both shoulders, were representations of crude airplanes, propellers and all.

The older men were interested in my tattoos, especially when I told them that Tom was the artist. And again they asked if the Celtic zoomorphic animals were Iban designs. This was an interesting development.

Here in this longhouse there was another single older woman who had a beauty tattoo. It had been done by an Iban man, because only men and never women tattooed.

I asked the Iban if tattoos had any other purpose than to recount their life's journey's and adventures. Several older men said that in the old days, in the days of their fathers and grandfathers and grandfathers before them, tattoos were charms. Especially from tiger attacks. And they gave two differing reasons for this. Many of the tattoos were circular in design and some said the tiger wouldn't attack a man if he thought he was being watched by the "tattoo eyes". Another said that the tiger would mistake an Iban man covered with tattoos for another tiger and not attack for that reason. Also the tattoos could protect the Iban from evil spirits in the forest who would do you harm.

The talk then turned to charms. The Iban believe that charms could make bullets miss them in battle. The British Army had formed a Battalion of Iban Rangers in the Second World war to fight the Japanese and later the Communists in the Uprising in 1948-1960. There were different kinds of charms. Some made you invisible to bullets, some made the bullets go around you and still others would let the bullet hit you, but it wouldn't penetrate you. All the Iban Rangers we spoke to believed they were still alive to this day because their charms had worked.

Some of the skulls that Thomas and I were shown were of Japanese and Chinese Communist origin. But the Iban didn't like to mention this fact too publicly.

Charles Brookes, the first White Rajah had officially banned head-hunting in 1882. But that didn't stop the Iban. That was British Law, not Iban law...

The Iban Rangers were told during WWII and the Insurrection of 1948-1960 that if they took heads they would have their pay docked and they could face court-martial. To the Iban this was a crazy British paradox. Why would you kill your enemy and not take his head? Taking his head was the whole point of killing your enemy.

Then you acquired his strength, power and status. You would take care of your enemies head. Give it a good home, show it respect and venerate it. To not take your enemies head after killing him was an insult to your enemy. Shaking their heads at British logic, the Iban for the most part stopped taking heads. For the most part...

After all this talk of Iban warrior tradition we were asked if we'd like to see the traditional dances. Of course we said yes, and paid 60 ringhats as a show of respect. Out from various corners of the longhouse came the traditional musical instruments, gongs and drums. Soon all the men and women and children were clapping their hands in time to the music.

The older men changed into their traditional costumes and demonstrated the war dance for us. It was eerie there in the long house, as the lights flickered with the ebb and flow of power from the generator. To give the night an even more surreal edge, ants were swarming. Around every light were tens of thousands of the winged insects. After a few minutes Thomas and I were pulled up to dance. We emulated the dancers as best we could as they crouched low to the floor and cried out their war whoops. The more enthusiastically we danced the more the crowd roared it's approval. Within a few minutes I was drenched with sweat and covered with flying ants. Finally I had to stop before I collapsed. Several women came over to fan me.

At different intervals others got up to dance and you could just imagine this same ceremony being repeated down through centuries of time....

I thanked my lucky stars that I had been allowed to see, and hear and taste and feel everything that I had done this day. It was a day I would not soon forget.

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