The House of Skulls on the road into Nis surprised the Dayak. It was not often you could relay the experience of such a visit and there could hardly be any better than a Dayak for it, of course.
Hundreds of skulls originally housed, before the souvenir hunters depleted the stock over the years. One of the great resistance leaders was still there on a high shelf, the attendant had assured. Just there, see.
A man who from earliest days knew the wilds of the Borneo jungles didn't exactly drop his jaw to the table-top hearing of such a place. There was though a light in the eyes on the other side of the table.
This was Europe we were talking. White men. Jungles and tigers were quite unnecessary. Paved roads in Nis, Southern Serbia.
Man had some kinda orientation for Serbia & Montenegro, from the last wars it seemed, even though he had been in teen years himself at the time.
Heads on stakes too, in living memory more or less. In Europe; not in prehistoric times.
To keep people out.
Nizam hadn’t needed to guess that.
A thoughtful, liberal, though firm Muslim now could understand the ingrained antipathy for the Turks, the Ottomans, through the generations.
When they went into the jungle in Nizam’s parts an hour from the Sarawak border on Borneo, they did so in large numbers, the whole community together it sounded like, youngsters included and led by the elders.
Bird calls guided their progress. A particular bird calling from one side, the left or the right, warned against further advance. After hearing it the people needed to return to their houses. There might be visitors arrived back there; possibly intruders.
The call straight ahead on the other hand encouraged advance. Onward they ventured.
They used parangs to clear the way, carefully cutting down greenery. Cutting carefully and respectfully, as there were spirits throughout the jungle.
A little cradling gesture Nizam made in the telling here. Something like cupping a butter-cup, perhaps.
When jungle was cleared for planting it was the same, gentle, delicate cutting only of what was necessary to clear.
There were spirits all through the jungle; spirits everywhere in the kampung. Behind trees, in the undergrowth, in the caves. One never wielded the parang slashing thoughtlessly.
Nizam was surprised to hear the prescribed method of slaughter for the recent Hari Raya Haji festival commemorating Ibrahim (Abraham) and Ismail (Issac), voiced by a kaffir.
Proper prayers for each individual slitting of the goat or sheep’s throat. Out of sight of the other animals waiting their turn, it was laid down. Zainuddin the Sufi had always underlined that last, too.
Every likelihood all of that was known to the Dayak Nizam, even though there was not so much animal husbandry in the jungle villages in Borneo.
At a prior meeting along the walkway at the Haig Nizam had quickly divulged the animist past. Another real animist standing before you. In Jogja a couple weeks before Adhie at the losmen had told of the passing of his paternal great uncle, the tall, imposing painter & animist. The man had walked from Jogja to Jakarta and after arriving in the capital had fallen ill, dying shortly afterward.
Adhie’s wife, Tri, had first revealed the matter in her limited English; later Adhie was consulted to confirm.
The uncle had in fact made that 350 mile trek on foot a number of times, as well as the other way, eastward to Surabaya.
This now was a living animist from the north of the Malay Archipelago who had attained a good level of English.
At the brief meeting a couple weeks before when some initial commonality was anticipated, Nizam was told of Montenegrin thatched houses in mountain kampungs; told of firewood gathering & carting, and animal herding. There operated a kind of animism there too amidst rocks, the big sky, trees and thunder, when the priest’s visits were far and few between.
Wind Nizam had added to the catalogue. Wind he had not wanted omitted.
Yes indeed. Too true. And not just wind as foe either—as a friendly presence.
There was no wind on the equator, we jointly lamented.
We were very much on the same page.
They had caves too in Borneo; Kalimantan. The maternal aunt who brought up Nizam lived over the border in Sarawak. The colonial powers had drawn lines to suit themselves all over the globe—here in the Malay world, throughout the Balkans and everywhere else.
The 200m longhouses the Wiki entry mentioned was a bit of a stretch for Nizam in his Iban region, although he did give the case of a house even in the present day holding forty families.
Double check: forty; not fourteen.
We didn't get to the old Hindu legacy on Borneo mentioned in the Wiki. Nizam had been late arriving after getting caught in the traffic a couple times. (A modern day true Dayak in a series of traffic jam...)
Twenty years Nizam had been in Singapore, still feeling himself very much an outsider. Comments had been overheard from members of the well-to-do family into which he had married.
But of all things, a Dayak.
A White outsider was news to this guy. White outsider?… Contradiction in terms. Professional white to boot. Difficult to get one’s head around.
Nizam was very light-coloured. The thick jungle again the factor. The more easily identifiable wild men of Borneo came from other communities on the island. Like Papua, there were scores of distinctly different cultures and languages on Borneo.
A White guy claiming to be more of an outsider than himself had sent the young man spinning that night. It was more than a bit rich. (On his side, the Dayak had certainly sent the White guy off.)
Further was needed. It would take some time to get a fuller picture. We had promised to meet again.
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