The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

VII DAILY LIFE 121
kerosene lamps. The men gather round the fireplaces
in the gallery and discuss politics, the events
of the day, the state of the crops and weather, the
news obtained by meetings with the people of
neighbouring houses, and relate myths and legends,
folk-tales and animal stories. The women, having
put the children to bed, visit one another's rooms
for friendly gossip ; and young men drop in to join
their parties, accept the proffered cigarette, and
discourse the sweet music of the keluri} the noseflute,
and the Jew's harp (Figs. 17,
Romeo first strikes up his plaintive
18, 19). Or
tune outside
the room in which Juliet sits with the women folk.
Juliet may respond with a few notes of her guitar"
(Fig. 20), thus encouraging Romeo to enter and
to take his place in the group beside her, where
he joins in the conversation or renews his musical
efforts. About nine o'clock all retire to bed, save
a few old men who sit smoking over the fires
far into the night. The dogs, after some final
skirmishes and yelpings, subside among the warm
ashes of the fireplaces ; the pigs emit a final squeal
and grunt ; and within the house quietness reigns.
Now the rushing of the river makes itself heard in
the house, mingled with the chirping of innumerable
insects and the croaking of a myriad frogs
borne in from the surrounding forest. The villagers
sleep soundly till cock-crow ; but the European
guest, lying in the place of honour almost beneath
the row of human heads which adorns the gallery, is,
if unused to sleeping in a Bornean long house, apt
to be wakened from time to time throughout the
night by an outburst of dreadful yelpings from the
dogs squabbling for the best places among the ashes,
by the prolonged fit of coughing of an old man, by
an old crone making up the fire, by the goats squealing
and scampering over the boats beneath the
1 See Chap. XVIH. 2 See Chap. V,