THE MALAY HEAD-HUNTERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2132, 2 December 1890, Page 3

THE MALAY HEAD-HUNTERS.

To obtain heads, which are dried and preserved, just as the Indians dry and preserve scalps, is the height of Uyak ambition. To secure these trephies there are no dangers which a Djak will not risk, albeit on ordinary occasions sufficiently cautious of that skin of his. The tribes are always at feud with one another, this mania for “ heads ” being a continual cause fur quarrel. To use the language of Mr Boyle, speaking of the great tribes of Sarribas and Sakkarang, “ Every year a cloud of murdering pirates issued from these rivers and swept the adjacent coasts. No man was safe by reason of his povertyand insignificance, for human heads were the booty sought by these rovers, and not wealth alone. Villages were attacked in the dead of night, and every adult borne off; the women and grown girla were fre-

quently slaughtered with the men, and children alone were preserved to be 1 the slaves of the conquerors. Never 1 was warfare so terrible as this. Headhunting, a fashion of comparatively modern growth, became a mania, which spread like a horrible disease over the whole land. No longer were the trophies regarded as proofs of individual valor; they became the indiscriminate property of the clan,

and were valued for their number alone. Murder lurked in the jungle and on the river; and the aged of the people were no longer safe among their own kindred, and corpses were secretly disinterred to increase the grisly store. Superstition soon added its ready impulse to the general movement. The aged warrior could not rest in his grave till his relations bad taken a head in his name; the maiden

disdained the weak-hearted suitor whose hand was not yet stained with some cowardly murder. Bitterly did the Panegrans of Kuching regret the folly which had disseminated this frenzy. They themselves had fostered the blood-thirsty superstition in furtherance of political ends, but it had grown beyond their control, and the country was one red field of battle and murder. Pretexts for war were neither sought nor expected; the possession of a human head, no matter how obtained, was the sole happiness coveted throughout the land.”—From The Peoples of the World.