Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-12-20
REAL Wild men ARE FOUND IN BORNIO, .-',,,
SAYSMAN WHO HAS TRAVELLED THROUGH COUNTRY

y nOSS VIM nave 0CCh odddCuCu ".
the discrepancies between circus bill
board advertising and what they hav'
j actually seen in side-shows may lear
from Daniel Denison Streeter. field
agent Of the United States biological
survey, that there are really and trul!
some wild men of Borneo. Mr.. Street
er knows. because he has been all thu
way across the island and severa
times felt the sensation of being 81
near death at their hands that only
superstition or two saved him.. The
biologist visited and mingled viii
people whose chief amusement is col
lectfng the heads OF members of riva
tribes. He observed female fashions
than those he was accustomed to see
ing in this country Some Of the
women he saw in the jungles were
ewilling to suffer far more physical
discomfort than the women of civi
lized countries; they underwent tor
ture every few days for ten years in
order to look just right. Mr.. StreeteI
left his home in Brooklyn in April
1912, for Africa and the Far East in
search OF specimens of rare beasts
and reptiles. Failing to find what he
wanted in Africa, the Malay Peninsr'
La, or Sumatra, he went to Borneo
He experienced many thrills during
the journey, and tells about some of
them In an interview, with Brook.
lyn Eagle reporter, from whose arti.
Gle we quote: ID 49, + ~ sz
NY landing place was Kuching, but
i proceeded across the bay to the
mouth OF the Reliant river, along
which i continued for about ninety
miles to the island of Sfbu, where !
met the only American was to find
during my entire travel across
Borneo. He was a former missioner,
who had given up hope of converting
the Indifferent natives, and was con-
Quoting a prosperous rice-growing
plantation, having imported about
1000 Chinese for the purpose. Pro
ceeding so miles farther, ! reached
Kapit, where ! obtained canoes and
engaged 1S natives as guides for my
trip into the interior. They repre-
scented three different tribes and COM
priced one Punan, who was a tree
dweller and ead-hunter; two Kayans,
and the rest Lanans. For two
months assistance ] gave the band
what would in American money ag-
gregate SIS, and of all the natives
who aided me in my Borneoa travel
they were the only ones that asked
compensation. They we're typical OF
the Borneo tribesmen, about Ave feet
tall, good looking, with straight black
hair and with remarkable muscular
development.
The women, strange to say, were
far more homely than the men, and
I saw but one good looking girl during
my entire trip across Borneo. She
was the wife Of a Kayan raja, and he,
with the Difference that my strange
appearance excited, offered her to me
as q present
As wer proceeded to penetrate fur
Their into the jungle, where no white
man had ever passed, it was neces-
sarys TO send the natives ahead with
their peculiar knife-like blades, and
to heW down the heavy underbrush
and soft but thickly growing trees,
for IN such surroundi where 1T
was Impossible to see foot on either
side, it would have been obviously i'm
possible to have made any advance.
It was by cutting down the trees, too,
that the reptiles and animals, fright
ened at this first intrusion into their
dense woodland domain, would dart
across the cleared area, and thus
make possible their capture.
For weeks we continued thus, and I
shall never forget,4as We approached
the heart OF the interior, the sensa-
ton that was mine, when, through the
jungle blackness, we suddenly saw an
opening ahead, and came upon one
of the strangest of strange villages, to
be found only in such a land as Bor-
neo ~
The first object to meet the eye
was long, grotesque.looking house,
built of wood on piles about Is feet
off the ground, an elevation neees.
sary, as Iafterward learned, not only