No school again today. The waters had, if anything, risen since yesterday, but we were well-entertained. Jaya, one of the school’s teachers, came to the house while we were finishing breakfast, + took us over to the longhouse we’d visited last night, called Tanjung Mawang. Today was apparently the last day of mourning for an old person recently died, so to mark the occasion there was a big gathering. Just like on such occasions back home, there was booze to loosen things up, local brandy substituting for tuak. Jaya, Val + I were given a glass each, but for most other people there were a couple of young men circulating with bottle + glass. It was pleasant to sit + watch, observing the people around us. One young feller in particular caught my eye, a boy of 5 or 6 with a Superman t-shirt (with attached cape – they seem to be all the rage here) sitting + puffing on a home-rolled ciggie. He had such a serious expression, an old person’s face in a young body. Luckily, we had borrowed Lihan’s flash gun, so I was able to take quite a few photos.
There was a meal served up to the whole assembly a bit later, + very tasty it was too, rice with meat + boiled cucumber, as much of it as one could eat. And when that was cleared away, there was some dancing, tho’ it didn’t really catch fire. They had a tape of some traditional music, played on some sort of harmonic stringed instrument, + individuals would take it in turns to dance for everybody else, with more or less co-ercion from the self-appointed MC, a drunken + increasingly obnoxious young man, who seemed to enjoy dragging unwilling + fiercely resisting young girls onto the dance floor. The dance was the same for both men + women, a slow + graceful turning, + twisting movements by the arms extended, the hands turning at the wrists in delicate + expressive gestures. Some of the dancers were excellent, in control of their bodies thro’ difficult movements – unfortunately we only saw a couple of girls dancing, + then only briefly. It’s a pity they were too embarrassed to do more, for they were fine to watch.
Val + I were both enticed onto the floor, but we danced, or attempted to do so, for the bare minimum time. Which makes us the same as those girls, I suppose – except that they knew what they were doing + we didn’t. Unsurprisingly, we weren’t very good, tho’ Val was better than I was. Lihan appeared a little while after the dancing finished + arranged for me to join in with a hunting party that was going out looking for mouse deer (a type of deer about the size of a smallish dog.) I was told we would be moving quite fast, so I popped back to the house to collect my boots. They’d take a soaking, but they’ve taken quite a few soakings in the past, + I would probably get a thorn in my foot if I tried to do without.
There were about 12 of us altogether who climbed down the ladder from the longhouse + splashed into the swampy water, + a pack of dogs were ferried down the river to where they could join us on slightly higher + less wet ground, tho’ they were still floundering around a fair bit. It seemed the tactics were going to be to use the dogs to drive any prey towards the waiting marksmen. I was not the only one without a rifle, so it seemed quite a few others were also coming along for the exercise + to watch the sport. It was quite clear that I was not expected to take any active part in the proceedings, + this suited me fine, more for fear of messing things up than because of any ideological aversion to the activity. I was pleased when we finally climbed out of the soaked valley + onto drier ground. I wasn’t able to move very fast thro’ the water, + had slipped over twice in the gooey mud, tho’ luckily I hadn’t brought the camera, but on firmer ground (+ more important, ground, where one could see where one was putting one’s feet) I had no trouble keeping up.
The group divided a couple of times, + eventually I ws one of a group of 3: a teacher + myself without guns, + a young bloke called The Hunter – I call him that because I don’t know his real name, + because Lihan had described him to be an excellent hunter when we had first met him in Marudi. He was short + slight, a member of the Kelabit tribe originally, I believe, + both friendly + likable – the very companion I would have chosen, in fact. We took ourselves off to some high ground, + then sat down to wait patiently. It was just as well the teacher didn’t have any responsible task to perform, since he was not in a good way. Obviously he had imbibed the brandy a little too heavily, + he shortly took himself off behind a tree to throw up – both the Hunter + I found that highly amusing.
The Hunter showed me his rifle – he had made it himself from scratch, welding together lengths of pipe, the firing pin being a heavy nail. It was a remarkable piece of engineering – + effective too, apparently – he had had it for 10 years, + by all accounts been very successful with it. There was no opportunity for him to demonstrate his prowess, however – the only wildlife we so much as smelled were mosquitoes – of those there were far too many.
After about half an hour, we moved to a new position, with no greater success, + so moved again, 2 or 3 times more, on each occasion sitting + waiting for 20 mins or so. Once we met up with most of the rest of the group, + a lot of noise was made, some compensation, I suppose, for the previous necessary silence. They pulled up a plant + sucked on the bulbous roots. I tried one too – it provided juice, but no flavour, so I didn’t bother again. After a couple of hours out, obviously some sort of consensus was reached that we weren’t going to have any luck this afternoon, + we headed back. I don’t know if I was disappointed or not really – I think I would have preferred to have been on a successful mission, just so that I could have observed the whole business.
Val had been on a far more profitable venture, having gone with the women to pick wild cucumbers. (She would have liked to have come hunting too, but it was made clear it was considered a males only occupation, so she settled for the cucumbers.) She had a good time too, probably better than I had had. She’d taken the camera too, but had the good sense to entrust it to the care of one of the other women. They had returned laden with cucumbers, + my 2 companions, Val + I, devoured 2 or 3 of them in the Hunter’s room. He invited us to return there for a meal this evening. He also said that he + a couple of others were going out night hunting tonight. I declined their invitation to join them for this – I’d had enough for one day, + in any case my night vision is pretty appalling.
We returned to take a bath, + while we were doing so Lihan turned up in his speedboat, + offered me a turn at the controls. I was happy to give it a whirl, but was very nervous all the same – a narrow, winding river, with occasional floating logs, is not the best place to learn how to control a speedboat with an outboard motor, + Lihan would keep encouraging me to go faster. I had no instincts at all about the hand-throttle, so was as likely to speed up as slow down. And the situation regarding steering was if anything even worse, since my instincts were to turn the thing exactly the opposite to what I should. Still, I managed, + didn’t hit anything, even if the final docking manoeuvre was a bit hairy. Lihan then took Val + I for a ride, + showed us how it should be done, showing off a little. The sensation of speed in a boat like that is really very high. I’ve decided, tho’ , it doesn’t approach that greatest of thrills, bombing downhill on a bike.
We returned to the longhouse at what seemed a sensible hour for dinner – no hour had been quoted – but it looked as tho’ there had been some misunderstanding, since our host wasn’t there, having already departed on his expedition. We felt rather awkward – we could hardly go back to Lihan, + say sorry, we made a mistake, would you feed us instead, so we simply hung around + waited. And the Hunter’s wife (or mother – I never did find out which) did call us for a meal eventually, so maybe she had expected to do so. It was all very odd.
After the meal, when we were sitting watching telly, another old lady appeared, + beckoned me to follow her. So she went off, Val behind, me last, along the dark veranda, + here I met my literal downfall. The floor of the longhouse is made either of planks or of split bamboo, depending on which is available, I suppose. In the dark, I trod on a weak part of a section floored with bamboo. It cracked, broke, + my leg disappeared thro’ as far as the thigh. It was more laughable than painful, but I discovered, once I’d extricated myself, + gone into the private room, that I was bleeding quite heavily from a cut under one of my toes. There was a large crowd of people in there, but the old woman who’d fetched us bustled across with a plug of tobacco, + a rather grubby-looking rag. I made a discovery at this point, that tobacco, applied to an open wound, hurts. Hurts like buggery, in fact. But I gritted my teeth, + this attended to, could take stock of our surroundings.
We had evidently been invited to a religious ceremony of some kind. The people were sat in a circle, + in the middle were a couple of candles in brass candlesticks, a couple of bottles of wine, some bowls of prawn crackers. We thought at first it must be connected with the mourning period in some way, but we were soon disillusioned of that idea, for when we were ready to begin, the TV set was switched, off, unplugged, + placed in the middle of the room. It seemed we had been summoned to witness the blessing of a television set. The man officiating read some things out of a book, a prayer was said, some holy water was sprinkled about, + using the water, he made the mark of a cross on the forehead of an old woman with a goitre, a small child (oldest + youngest, symbolising everyone maybe?) + the top of the set – I hope it didn’t mess up the electrics. This done, the candles were blown out, the now-blessed telly could now be put back on the table + switched on once again, + the wine + crackers were passed around. We stayed long enough to appear decent, then said pour thanks + farewells.
The moment I put my foot in the water to wade back to Lihan’s, I made my second discovery, that wet tobacco on an open wound hurts all over again. Only worse. We rounded off what had been a most eventful day with English football on TV back at Lehan’s, watching Norwich whop Aston Villa in the Cup. Very poor reception, but good enough to follow it.
Really quite a day, with social occasions, dancing, hunting and vegetable gathering, speedboat driving. and discoveries abiut the medicinal properties (and unfortunate side-effect) of tobacco. Gathering vegetable pictures rather than hunting ones, since Val had the camera.
