women, and the heavy weights they constantly carry. A Dyak woman generally
spends the whole day in the field, and carries home every night a heavy load of
vegetables and firewood, often for several miles, over rough and hilly paths; and
not unfrequently has to climb up a rocky mountain by ladders, and over slippery
stepping-stones, to an elevation of a thousand feet. Besides this, she has an
hour's work every evening to pound the rice with a heavy wooden stamper,
which violently strains every part of the body. She begins this kind of labour
when nine or ten years old, and it never ceases but with the extreme decrepitude
of age. Surely we need not wonder at the limited number of her progeny, but
rather be surprised at the successful efforts of nature to prevent the extermination
of the race.
One of the surest and most beneficial effects of advancing civilization, will be
the amelioration of the condition of these women. The precept and example of
higher races will make the Dyak ashamed of his comparatively idle life, while
his weaker partner labours like a beast of burthen. As his wants become
increased and his tastes refined, the women will have more household duties to
attend to, and will then cease to labour in the field—a change which has already
to a great extent taken place in the allied Malay, Javanese, and Bugis tribes.
Population will then certainly increase more rapidly, improved systems of
agriculture and some division of labour will become necessary in order to
provide the means of existence, and a more complicated social state will take the
place of the simple conditions of society which now occur among them. But,
with the sharper struggle for existence that will then arise, will the happiness of
the people as a whole be increased or diminished? Will not evil passions be
aroused by the spirit of competition, and crimes and vices, now unknown or
dormant, be called into active existence? These are problems that time alone can
solve; but it is to be hoped that education and a high-class European example
may obviate much of the evil that too often arises in analogous cases, and that
we may at length be able to point to one instance of an uncivilized people who
have not become demoralized, and finally exterminated, by contact with
European civilization.
A few words in conclusion, about the government of Sarawak. Sir James
Brooke found the Dyaks oppressed and ground down by the most cruel tyranny.
They were cheated by the Malay traders and robbed by the Malay chiefs. Their
wives and children were often captured and sold into slavery, and hostile tribes
purchased permission from their cruel rulers to plunder, enslave, and murder
them. Anything like justice or redress for these injuries was utterly unattainable.
From the time Sir James obtained possession of the country, all this was stopped.