pleasures, which might be taken advantage of to elevate their whole
intellectual and social life.
The moral character of the Dyaks is undoubtedly high--a statement which
will seem strange to those who have heard of them only as head-hunters
and pirates. The Hill Dyaks of whom I am speaking, however, have never
been pirates, since they never go near the sea; and head-hunting is a
custom originating in the petty wars of village with village, and tribe
with tribe, which no more implies a bad moral character than did the
custom of the slave-trade a hundred years ago imply want of general
morality in all who participated in it. Against this one stain on their
character (which in the case of the Sarawak Dyaks no longer exists)
we have to set many good points. They are truthful and honest to a
remarkable degree. From this cause it is very often impossible to get
from them any definite information, or even an opinion. They say, "If
I were to tell you what I don't know, I might tell a lie;" and whenever
they voluntarily relate any matter of fact, you may be sure they are
speaking the truth. In a Dyak village the fruit trees have each their
owner, and it has often happened to me, on asking an inhabitant to
gather me some fruit, to be answered, "I can't do that, for the owner of
the tree is not here;" never seeming to contemplate the possibility of
acting otherwise. Neither will they take the smallest thing belonging to
an European. When living at Simunjon, they continually came to my house,
and would pick up scraps of torn newspaper or crooked pins that I had
thrown away, and ask as a great favour whether they might have them.
Crimes of violence (other than head-hunting) are almost unknown; for
in twelve years, under Sir James Brooke's rule, there had been only one
case of murder in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committed by a stranger
who had been adopted into the tribe. In several other matters of
morality they rank above most uncivilized, and even above many civilized
nations. They are temperate in food and drink, and the gross sensuality
of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them. They have the usual
fault of all people in a half-savage state--apathy and dilatoriness,
but, however annoying this may be to Europeans who come in contact
with them, it cannot be considered a very grave offence, or be held to
outweigh their many excellent qualities.
During my residence among the Hill Dyaks, I was much struck by the
apparent absence of those causes which are generally supposed to check
the increase of population, although there were plain indications
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