It's body is very beautiful. It is the biggest enemy of the Iban people. If we find it we kill it with our knife and we cook it. And I don't mean to be rude, but at this moment it's not a snack of python Devorah and I are longing for. It's perhaps a few moments of rest before heading out on the churning river below.
Huge trees drip vines over brown eddies.
We veer sharply back and forth from one side of the river to the other, we dodge rocks, fallen trees, floating branches small rapids . Some sections are so suddenly shallow we have to yank the motor up, and pole madly. The Iban call the Lamanak a five-night river. Five days and nights to go the length. The longhouse is around the next turn and just a twenty foot, slippery, steep embankment between us and it.