reputation for prowess. Others asserted that he takes
heads merely to gratify the vanity of his women. There are still others
who hold the opinion that the Dyak believes that he inherits the
courage and cunning of those he kills. In certain of the Dyak tribes
the heads are treated with profound reverence, being wreathed with
flowers, offered the choicest morsels of food, and sometimes being
given a place at the table, while in other tribes they are hung from
the ridgepole and displayed as trophies of the chase. My own opinion is
that, though prestige and vanity and superstition all contribute to the
prevalence of head-hunting, in the inherent savagery of the Dyak is
found the true explanation of the custom.

I have already made passing mention of that characteristic weapon of
the Dyaks, the sumpitan, or, as it is called by foreigners, the
blow-gun. The sumpitan is a piece of hard wood, from six to eight feet
in length and in circumference slightly larger than the handle of a
broom. Running through it lengthwise is a hole about the size of a
lead-pencil. A broad spear-blade is usually lashed to one end of the
sumpitan, like a bayonet, thus providing a weapon for use at close
quarters. The dart is made from a sliver of bamboo, or from a
palm-frond, scraped to the size of a steel knitting-needle. One end of
the dart is imbedded in a cork-shaped piece of pith which fits the hole
in the sumpitan as a cartridge fits the bore of a rifle; the other end,
which is of needle-sharpness, is smeared with a paste made from the
milky sap of the upas tree dissolved in a juice extracted from the root
of the tuba. With the possible exception of curare, this is the
deadliest poison known, the slightest scratch from a dart thus poisoned
paralyzing the respiratory center and causing almost instant death. The
dart is expelled from the sumpitan by a quick, sharp exhalation of the
breath. In fact, M. de Haan told me that among certain of the Dyak
tribes virtually all of the men suffer from rupture as a result of the
constant use of the blow-gun. Though I have heard those who have never
seen the sumpitan in use sneer at it as a toy, it is, at short
distances, one of the most accurate weapons in existence and, when its
darts are poisoned, one of the deadliest. In order to show me what
could be done with the sumpitan, the Regent stuck in the earth a bamboo
no larger than a woman's little finger, and a Dyak, taking up his
position at a distance of