The journey in the primitive jungle of Borneo with the “magic bird” CD and skulls
The island of Kalimantan (formerly Borneo) is a very special region of Malaysia. Unlike the mainland, it is inhabited by warlike tribes of dajaks, which translated from Malay means dismissive of “Gentiles.” “Ribbon.<url>” went to the tropical jungle in search of fragments of a primeval world.
Nomads against farmers
A few decades ago, the Dayak were pretty bloodthirsty: for example, to become a man, it was necessary to kill the enemy and bring his head — only after this “feat” was to marry. For ritual purposes, though rarely, practiced cannibalism.
By the way, during the Second world war weird customs of the Dayak used with great success for the British. They announced a ten dollar reward for the head of every Japanese, and then the jungle began to disappear Japanese patrols.
Traditional house of Dayak, the so — called “long house” (Batang), inhabited by 50 families. The village had from one to eight such houses. The Dayak farmers, growing mainly rice and corn. If the Malaysians thought the Dayak savages, those, in turn, looked down on the nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers. By the way, the “nomads” were quite peaceful and deheading did. The dajaks in full slighted these harmless “savages” and often took them into slavery.
Today, these wild customs in the past. Along the coast are luxury hotels, and the descendants of the bloodthirsty warriors well-adapted to modern civilization and work in the tourist business. Find “long house” near the coast is not difficult, but now it is a regular tourist sites. The Dayak come here only during the daytime to drive excursions and for the sake of avid for the exotic tourists to tell “scary stories” about the old mores. However, in the depth of Kalimantan, in almost impassable jungle, still left the village with these “long houses”.
The skulls and the Church
To get to the traditional village with batangari, you first need to fly in a small plane in the Indonesian side of the border, and then another few hours to go on the boat.
Before the settlement of the “wild” Dayak can be reached only by river
Photo: Igor Rotar
Externally, Batang resembles an ordinary hostel where each family lives in his room. However, in reality, even living in the Dayak batanga already corrupted by civilization. External exotics seems to be enough — for example, every house in the place of honor stands a pile of skulls obtained in the battles of the ancestors; the hands of the local women covered with tattoos and earlobes under the weight of massive jewelry are extended to the chest. However, this identity does not prevent the Dayak to live successfully in the modern world. Tourists are offered for a certain amount of hard cash to organize “a village feast”.
Dance for tourists — for a fee
Photo: Igor Rotar
In each room “long house” have TVs and CD players. There are traditional villages and schools — in class, students come barefoot, but the training is partly conducted in English. Dexcom in each settlement there is a Church, built of the ubiquitous Protestant missionaries. But the cemetery’s traditional villages still pagan: on the grave mount the statue “magic birds”, helping the dead in the afterlife.
On the river among the jungle
In such perverse tourist villages you can find a guide who will take you to a tribe of hunter-gatherers who have not met the “white man”. To do this, however, will have to rent a boat and ten hours to sail down the river.
In the village of hunters and gatherers
Photo: Igor Rotar
Traces of modern civilization during such a journey are rare. Only approximately a hundred kilometers from each other across the so-called “towns” loggers. Such settlements represent a few trailers where the workers live. There is a shop, which also serves as the point of buying the game. As a rule, natives are not interested in money, they simply changed the hunting trophies on their favorite products. However, among the inhabitants of these settlements of indigenous people will not meet. And loggers, and the owners of the shop is a Malaysian Chinese.
The first European
Village of hunter-gatherers turned out to be the usual barracks. Having seen the correspondent “Tapes.<url>”, crowds of people, dressed in loincloths, ran helter-skelter. The situation was saved by an energetic man in shorts and a watch on his arm. “Welcome! My name is Abdullah, I am the elder of this village. No offense to my countrymen, they had never seen Europeans, and needs to get used to it”, — speaks quite decent English aborigine.
The school children go barefoot, but teaching is partly in English
Photo: Igor Rotar
As explained by Abdullah, his father is ethnic Malay, and his mother from a tribe of nomads. The village headman was born in the city, went to school. Learning that his guest from Russia, Abdullah did not fail to boast of his knowledge about our country: “There is always cold and the people, as in America, speak English”.
The government has sent Abdullah to look after the nomads ” due to his education. “Seven years ago this tribe roamed the jungle. But then the government built them this house and convinced to live sedentary. I was offered the place of elders in the new village. I came here, settled down, married the daughter of a tribal chief,” says Abdullah.
In the afterlife the soul of the Dayak protects a magic bird
Photo: Igor Rotar
The mayor should ensure that aboriginal people sent their children to boarding schools and convince them to not only deal with hunting and gathering, and agriculture. Alas, until more than a modest success: no child never went to school. “I can’t explain to people what is a school and they do not want to let their children”, — complains Abdullah.
Attempts to involve nomadic to farming also ended in failure. The mayor forced the people to plant rice, but couldn’t convince them to follow him, so the whole crop was gone.
Hunting and gathering
Hunting remains the main occupation of the natives. On the edge of the village stands a wooden idol, to which must be approached before going to the hunters and to ask him for good luck. Basically, the natives hunted for wild boars. The government forbids them to have guns, so the main guns are hunters spears and… dogs. Four-legged assistants keep track of the people of the beast and dig their teeth into his leg. The challenge for the aboriginal — run to the victim and kill it with spears.
From the idol are asking for help and support in the hunt
Photo: Igor Rotar
The gathering is no less important than hunting. In the morning the local women went into the jungle in search of fruit. Basically they collect wild bananas. Then they are roasted on the fire, and it turns out the dish, taste like ordinary baked potatoes. In the jungle you can find and wild tobacco. By the way, natives — heavy smokers. They do not realize that it is a bad habit, so by rolling around even six-year-old toddler.
“In principle, in the jungle, you can live well without any money. The forest gives us everything: meat, fruit,” — said the head of the village.
Dark times
Today, however, for hunters and gatherers come black times. Logging disturb the habitual world of the jungle, the animals go into the forest, and the natives increasingly difficult to find food for sustenance. From submerged wood in the river water became black, the fish dies.
Because of active logging, the water in the rivers of Borneo brown
Photo: Igor Rotar
Paradoxically, the most prominent advocate of the ecology of Kalimantan was not native, and Swiss journalist Bruno Highlights. In the 90-ies of the last century, he lived a long time with one tribe of hunters and gatherers in the jungles of Borneo, learned their language, customs, and eventually was elected leader. “White leader” explained to the aborigines that the government infringes upon their rights, expanding logging. He managed to raise a powerful protest movement, backed by international environmental organisations.
Alas, their rights the natives defended not too noble methods: they committed acts of violence and even kill loggers. And although Bruno Highlights stated that it is opposed to violent methods of struggle, the government of Malaysia does not believe him: he was declared persona non grant, and for his head appointed a prize of 50 thousand American dollars. Nevertheless, the brave, the Swiss continued to secretly sneak into Malaysia, crossing the border illegally from Indonesia. In may 2000, Bruno had disappeared in the jungles of Malaysia. However, many aboriginal people still believe that the Swiss alive and directs the movement of protest against logging.
“Bruno Highlights opened the eyes of the natives, and now they can fight for their rights themselves, — said Abdullah. — Yes, the natives often commit acts of violence against the loggers. Of course, this is very bad, but in fact the indigenous population to provoke such actions. Advancing civilization deprives them of their usual means of subsistence, and not giving anything in return.”
