The rapid growth of the
practice among the Ibans was no doubt largely due to the influence
of the Malays, who had been taught by Arabs and others the arts of
piracy, and with whom the Ibans were associated in the piratical
enterprises that gave the waters around Borneo a sinister notoriety
during the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Until
the middle of the nineteenth century, the settlements of Ibans were
practically confined to the rivers of the southern part of Sarawak;
and there the Malays of Bruni and of other coast settlements enlisted
them as crews for their pirate ships. In these piratical expeditions
the Malays assigned the heads of their victims as the booty of their
Iban allies, while they kept for themselves the forms of property of
greater cash value. The Malays were thus interested in encouraging in
the Ibans the passion for head-hunting which, since the suppression of
piracy, has found vent in the irregular warfare and treacherous acts
described above. It was through their association with the Malays in
these piratical expeditions that the Ibans became known to Europeans
as the Sea Dayaks.
It seems not impossible that the practice of taking the heads of
fallen enemies arose by extension of the custom of taking the hair
for the ornamentation of the shield and sword-hilt.
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