418 Part V: Southeast Asia
mostly consisted of raids from war parties seeking loot or heads or slaves. The
Iban were said to have an insatiable desire for heads (Metcalf 2010:52). Even in
non-Iban areas, heads were prominently displayed on the verandas of virtually
all longhouses, and most groups participated in head-hunting, which was
required at the conclusion of mourning for an important person. Thus, work-
ing alone in the fields or coming back along a trail at dusk could put you at risk
of capture by head-hunting parties, but once you reached the shelter of the
longhouse, you were safe.Death in Borneo
Charles Hose, the administrator for the White Rajas who invited Haddon
to Sarawak, was keen to put a stop to head-hunting. He collected and pub-
lished documentation of the widespread practice of head-hunting in his area in
the late nineteenth century, such as photographs of Iban women dancing with
skulls (Andaya 2004:16). The war parties intent on taking heads disrupted
trade and made travel in the interior dangerous; anyone’s head was fair game,
and even an old woman gathering firewood was a good enough choice and an
easy target. Hose tried to channel these warlike instincts by setting up annual
races of the war canoes from all villages. This was apparently a great success,
and Peter Metcalf tells us the races are still popular (1991:114). And because
the taking of heads was the obligatory conclusion of lengthy funeral rites, Hose
began keeping a store of heads that villages could simply borrow as needed (p.
114). These and other efforts by colonial governments proved effective, so that
head-hunting has become largely a thing of the past since the end of WorldExterior of Sea Dayak longhouse, 1897.