The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

VI.] BORXEO—THE DYAKS. 69some fruit, to be answered, " I can't do that, for the owner of thetree is not here ";never seeming to contemplate tlie possibilityof acting otherwise. Neither will they take the smallest thingbelonging to an European. When living at Simunjon, they continuallycame to my house, and would pick up scraps of tornnewspaper or crooked pins that I had thrown away, and ask asa great favour whether they might have them. Crimes ofviolence (other than head-hunting) are almost unknown; for intwelve years, under Sir James Brooke's rule, there had been onlyone case of mui'der in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committedby a stranger who had been adopted into the tribe. In severalother matters of morality they rank above most uncivilized, andeven above many civilized nations. They are temperate in foodand drink, and the gross sensuality of the Chinese and ]\Ialays isunknown among them. They have the usual fault of all peoplein a half-savage state—apathy and dilatoriness ; but, howeverannoying this may be to Europeans who come in contact withthem, it cannot be considered a very grave offence, or be held tooutweigh their many excellent qualities.During my residence among the Hill Dyaks, I was much struckby the apparent absence of those causes which are generallysupposed to check the increase of poi^ulation, altliough therewere plain indications of stationary or but slowly increasingnumbers. The conditions most favourable to a rajjid increase ofpopulation are, an abundance of food, a healthy climate, andearly marriages. Hei-e these conditions all exist. The peopleproduce far more food than they consume, and exchange thesurplus for gongs and brass cannon, ancient jars, and gold andsilver ornaments, which constitute their wealth. On the whole,they appear very free from disease, marriages take place early(but not too early), and old bachelors and old maids are alikeunknown. Why, then, we must inquire, has not a greater populationbeen produced 1 Wliy are the Dyak villages so small andso widely scattered, while nine-tenths of the country is stillcovered with forest ?Of all the checks to population among savage nations mentionedby Malthus—starvation, disease, war, infanticide, immorality,and infertility of the women—the last is that which heseems to think least important, and of doubtful efficacy ; andyet it is the only one that seems to me capable of accounting fortlie state of the population among the Sarawak Dyaks. Thepopulation of Great Britain increases so as to double itself inabout fifty years. To do this it is evident that each marriedcouple must average three children who live to be married at theage of about twenty-five. Add to these those who die in infancy,those who never marry, or those who marry late in life and liaveno offspring, the number of children born to each marriage mustaverage four or five ; and we know tliat families of seven or eightare very common, and of ten and twelve by no means rare. Butfrom inquiries at almost e\ery Dyak tribe I visited, I as-