The National tribune., 1900-08-16
CLEVER DEVICES OF SAVAGES.
Things in Which UnciviliZed Man Is Won
drously Skiliful.

A certain "Steeple Jack" of Liverpool,
according to the st. James Budget, has
won renown by devising new method
for the performance of his work. He
fixes iron brackets in the masonry at the
hight of his ladder, builds a platform on
that support, hauls up the ladder and re-
peats the operation until the top is
reached.
But the naked sayages Of Borneo have
practiced this method of climbing trees
from date immemorial. They use it espe-
cialIy for taking bees nests. That saga
cious insect-the honey-bearing species,
at least-knows better than to fix its
beasts can easily attain. The tapong tree
rises a hundred feet or more without
branch. The bees may well think them
selves safe in a hole on that smooth stem,
80 yards, perhaps, above the ground.
But in some prehistoric time Dyak
genius found means to reach them. Bor-
ing n hole in the trunk, he drove peg
therein; standing on that he drove in an
other; then planted a bamboo in the soil
and lashed the free ends of his pegs to it,
making one side of a. ladder, of which the
tree trunk was the other. Thus he worked
upward, adding rung to rung, until the
top of the bamboo was reached, spliced
another to it, and proceeded.
These structures, so fragile in appear
sometimes over 100 feet, until lost in the
thick foliage. The strongest head among
US would turn giddy climbing up and down
that slender ladder, of which the rungs
stand three feet apart. But Dyaks swing
aloft with no thought of danger, standing
in mid-air to shout n humorous observa-
ton to their comrades down below. 1t
may be added that accidents never happen
unless the bees make an unexpected on
saught. They are always attacked at
night, the Dyaks carrying torches, which
more or less distract them. But the
torch occupies one hand, and with the
other the man has to work enlarging the
hole and extracting the honey.
This is but one side of the mechanical
possibilities which lie wrapped up in the
mind OF the savage man. Another one is
the suspension bridge, with all it's scien-
titic principles, except only the contrac-
ton of metals, which is not required,
which has been in use among the DyakS
beyond human memory. They choose q
spot where big tree on each side over
hangs the chasm, and also, if it be wide,
where trees stand in the middle. They
push stout bamboos from the bank into
the crest of these latter and faSten them.
network of rattans, always regular and
graceful, suspends this foOtway at either
end, with perpendicular rattans attached
to check oscillation, just as our engineers
contrive it.
A slight hand-rail is fixed on each side
to help the passenger in keeping his bal
lance. 1t must not be grasped, for any
pressure would cause the bridge to slide
SO violently in the opposite direction that
a monkey could not keep his feet. If
this arrangement seems imperfect, it is
due to our perfections. 1t has no fault
for those who use it, or they would as
suredly make change.
Less known are the Dyaks' ingenious
ways of making fire. They can, of course,
rub sticks; but that is rarely practiccd.
Every man carries dry fungus and chip
of European pottery, with other things, in
the neat bamboo box at his waist. He
lays bit of fungus upon the chip, placing
his right thumb over it, strikes the side of
the bamboo box sharply and his tinder is
alight. This invention is the more curious
because it must be later than the intro
duction of pottery from Europe; native
earthenware will not work the trick.
Some carry short, slender rod of metal
followed out to cup at one end, and
bamboo in which it fits tightly. Filling
the cup with tinder, they hold it upright
in the left hand, adjust the bamboo over
it, strike smartly so that the case runs
down and over the rod, withdraw it, and
the fungus is glowing. 1t could not have
been by accident that they discovered this
principle, with which doubtless they had
long been acquainted while our forefath
ers were swearing and scraping their
knuckles over flint and steel.
The most skillful of our artists would
give it up Indignantly If he were asked
to pierce an eight-foot rod Of the hardest
timber, harder by far than oak, with no
awl and piece of string-the hole, more
over. to be ma:hematically true from end
to end. But this feat is performed by
the widest of the forest tribes, whom
Dyaks will not recognize as human beings
-the Pakatan and Ujit. Thus somehow
they manufacture the "sumpit" or blow
pipe for poisoned arrows. which the peo.
plies ntre advanced buy Of than. 1t must
be heavy, or the aim would not be true:
and hard, or the bore could not be cut eX-
actly. A very slight irregularity will
cause the arrow to defect. Some are
eight feet long, an inch and a quarter