A Visit With Headhunters

There is no relief or escape from Borneo's suffocating jungle heat and humidity. Bullets of sweat burst enthusiastically from my furrowed brow, sloshing layers of oily insect repellent and sunscreen into my eyes. Mixing there with tears, the salty concoction cascades to my chin and drips to my pants, the steaming internal atmospherics of which could, I am certain, cook rice.

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After a long and adventurous journey upriver, during which we frequently jumped from the longboat to help our guide and two boatmen drag the wooden craft over rocks and up narrow rapids, we have finally arrived at the Kachong "longhouse," a remote group home of eleven Iban (pronounced EE-bon) families. In this vast, inaccessible jungle, there are no roads, no signs, no phones, no appliances, no other visitors, no guest quarters and, starkly apparent at the moment, no cold drinks.

Hacked from virgin forest, this settlement near the uppermost end of a river drainage near Malaysia's border with Indonesia is not on the tourist circuit -- or any circuit -- or, apparently, any map. That is one of many reasons why we are only the third American couple ever to tote our bags up the steep log stairway of this elevated wooden structure and to collapse on the deck in front of the "headman's" room. 

We are about to meet the most isolated decedents of the fabled headhunters of Borneo, people whose lives remain dominated by a need to appease the spirits - often in ceremonies involving the slaughtering of chickens and pigs. Although these people no longer remove human heads in combat, they live much as they did more than a century ago. We have endured a difficult journey out of a deep curiosity about the primal jungle lives of these people.

We had prepared physically and mentally for a steaming jungle environment, but the actual conditions here could not have been fully anticipated. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching as a giant, curious roach perches on the edge of a warped floor plank, I begin to question what possessed us to intentionally put ourselves into this circumstance. There are gaps between some of the roughly hewn floor slats, allowing me to glimpse beyond the roach's whipping antennae to the littered ground 10 feet below. There, beneath this rickety house on stilts, pigs squeal and grunt, roosters crow relentlessly, chicks peep, dogs bark and an unhappy-sounding cat in heat yowls. The melodious din is augmented by a full chorus of shrieks, chirps and mysterious sounds, music of the jungle as performed day and night by a million-creature symphony.

To me, for the moment at least, the soaring refrain is both discordant and overridden by ominous voices in the back of my head. They repeat the list of dread diseases - cholera, encephalitis, hepatitis, malaria, and dengue fever - lovely little maladies known to thrive here and which, I imagine, are quite busy competing enthusiastically for any chance to test my resistance. I am determined that open sores on my feet, a consequence of the river bottom's sharp stones, not provide a window of opportunity. As I dig into my medical kit, ringing comic overtones of the situation overcome me. I envision myself as a steamed human dumpling, bobbing helplessly in a giant, bubbling organic stew. 

But Mr. Roach is not the only one invading my personal space. Uncomfortably nearby, an ancient, shriveled, toothless, scrawny, tattooed Iban man squats in mute observation of my discomfort - motionless, except for frequent and violent spasms of horrific hacking and spitting. Acrid smoke from his hand-rolled banana palm cigarette hangs heavy and motionless in the thick air. Subconsciously I ponder a poem I once wrote, a lament focusing on the difficulty of discovering life's extremes.

There has to be some further goal
To give my life some strength and soul
To redirect these sad meanderings;

Where is that flash of colors bright,
Of high-speed green, of victory white,
The rich and jolting joys of life's extremes?

Hallelujah! No more searching for challenges. What efficiency. In one fell swoop we tracked down all the "rich and jolting joys" we could stand -- and obligated ourselves to surviving them. How better to sate one's sense of adventure!?

Before we left Washington, a few people -- namely, everyone we knew and a few strangers -- asked why would we do this. After all, a city slicker does not end up gasping pathetically on the floor of an Iban longhouse by merely taking a wrong turn en route to the 7-11. This adventure required a great deal of concerted effort and detailed planning. On the trip from Washington, DC to Kuching, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo -- via Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore -- we logged 10,000 miles, and were deposited near the opposite point on earth. It is quickly obvious that we traversed more than distance. This trek seems to have warped time, turning back the clock -- not by the zone, but by the millennium. Each step deeper into Iban country brings one closer to an ancient period when all human activity was governed by spirits and omens.

Here in this isolated, steaming time capsule, ancient regimens hold forth. "Spirit houses," dollhouse-sized structures on the edge of the village, offer rice and popcorn and the occasional slaughtered chicken to ward off evil spirits. Similarly, spirit baskets hang from vines stretched across the river. But the proudest Iban families demonstrate a more revealing and gripping glimpse of past traditions. Blackened human heads stare grimly from wicker baskets. They hang from the longhouse ceiling nearest the personal quarters of their proud owners. Whatever else these heads were good for when still functioning, it is abundantly clear that they were not used for deep analysis. After all, these very heads recommended to their previous owners that it would be a fine idea to engage Iban warriors in jungle combat. It would be difficult to imagine a greater lapse in judgment.

While a difficult journey to Borneo is not for everyone, it precisely matched our needs. The striking insights we gained about people whose lives could not be more different from ours greatly outweighed the physical and societal challenges. In being forced to deal with discomfort and inconvenience, we rejuvenated and amplified our self-confidence and self-sufficiency. By observing the serenity and joy of isolated people who have little in life but each other and their ability to live off the land, we rethought our own definition of true wealth. By examining the social interaction of people whose lives have always been totally controlled by the mystical - to the extent that a bad dream by a newlywed puts the marriage on hold until it can be determined whether the Gods disapprove - our understanding of family relationships was tested. Through this intense examination of a distant corner of our world we began to temper the criteria by which we judge others. It helps to widen the filters, which can too effectively limit exposure to life's extremes.

Camping With The Ibans

A large snake is swimming in the water ahead of the boat. Our guide, Selvam, thinks it is a Python. I anticipate a hasty retreat. But Selvam and the two boatmen leap into the water and chase after it, yelling excitedly. I saw danger. They saw dinner.

Seldom having, "company," eight members of the longhouse family voluntarily join our hike into the jungle. Arriving at an open clearing along a river, one of the women tips an empty basket into the shallow water and begins overturning rocks just upstream. Within minutes several small fish and an eel are captured. Other women collect firewood. Using a homemade spear gun, one of the boys catches a huge fresh water crawfish. One of our boatmen has hacked the truck of a bamboo tree into two-foot lengths of hollow tube. Another is placing rice on palm leaves, sliding the rolled leaves into the tubes and tossing them onto the open fire. Where I saw but a barren, rocky area alongside a small river, they saw a restaurant and the menu.

We have arrived at a sharp bend in the river. On one side the water is slow and deep. Impenetrable jungle climbs the steep hillside. A shoal on the other side is littered with large rocks. Within moments our escorts have disappeared. The sound of machetes furiously at work is followed by the return of our new Iban friends. One is bearing long poles, another drags a 100-foot vine, others have firewood, another carries a load of palm leaves, and one has speared a still struggling catfish. We bathe in the river while the fascinating minuet continues. 

Within the hour our home for the night has been constructed, dinner is underway and an amazing transformation had taken place. Where I had seen only poles, they envisioned a shelter. As I marveled at the long vine and recalled Tarzan movies, they stretched it across the river as a clothesline. I saw only palm leaves; they saw an essential ingredient for our bed. I thought, when I saw women picking ferns and leaves in the jungle, that a demonstration of flora and fauna would follow. But the Ibans were plucking fresh "vegetables" to stir-fry with onions and garlic. Swiftly, my understanding of these people and their jungle home was advancing.

Lessons Learned

I didn't realize until later, but as the jungle was being transformed, so were my perceptions of these people, and my respect for them. At first I saw only a forbidding jungle. They saw the place that provides all their needs. I called it forbidding. They call it home. While I had at first surveyed an imposing pile of rocks, they viewed it as the safe, secure camp it was quickly transformed into.

When we met our first Ibans, we saw people who seemed to have eluded progress and development. We felt sympathy for them. They appeared backward, deprived and disadvantaged. After a mere six days we had begun to understand the fascinating abilities and family bonds of these unique people. When it was time for us to go, we were saddened to leave.

Sociologists express concern that too many outside influences will hurt these people, that the trappings of the modern world will destroy their traditions and skills, the things that define and guide them. Perhaps it is heartening that after our interaction, with them they seemed totally unchanged -- while we began to place our own values and perceptions under review.

Borneo provides a matchless opportunity to learn about people who are very different from us. But there is an equally important reason to travel there. We sat on the floor of an Iban longhouse, face to face with people who have none of the things we consider essential in life, but who are nonetheless happy, secure and fulfilled. 

We began to realize that the considerable expense, trouble and discomfort of our trip was more than justified by the things we saw and learned about these people. Just as we discovered the many things that are lacking in their lives, they - with their incredible self-sufficiency and uniquely supportive extended families - helped us to discover things lacking in our own.

Don Hardy