UP THE NOTCHED-LOG LADDER

My father had been traveling with the two national workers, Patty and Adipatty, to several longhouses, and as they approached a longhouse called Balai Ranjuk to which they had been invited, they had misgivings because it was so quiet.  No babies were crying, no chickens were cackling, no roosters were crowing, not even any dogs were barking.  It seemed as though no one could be there, but the chief had asked them to come.

      They walked up the notched-log ladder, and as their eyes reached the level of the longhouse floor, there they saw about three hundred people sitting on the floor.  The crowd waited until the three visitors had just stepped inside, then they all rose en masse and came to greet them with their hands stuck out in front of them.  My father had never had a reception just like this; he nodded at them, they didn’t nod back; he smiled at them, they didn’t smile back.  He asked one of the national workers what was happening, but he didn’t know.

      Later that evening they found out that when the chief, who had invited them, went back to his village and told the people about his invitation, he had said, “When they come don’t offer them rice gin, because they don’t drink rice gin.  And don’t offer them tobacco, because they don’t smoke.  But we have to make them welcome, so when they come, you go down and shake hands with them.” 

      But shaking hands is not a custom of the Dayaks and so they asked, “What do you do?  How do you shake hands?”

And the chief replied, “Well, when I give you the signal, you just go up to them with your hand stuck out, and they’ll do the rest.”

      So they came, with their hands stuck out, waiting for my father to do the rest.  But they held their hands up so high that my father and the two other men couldn’t get their hands into theirs.  They reached up and tried, but it was impossible.  Instead, they just reached up and tapped this hand, and tapped that hand, until finally everybody was tapped and they seemed to be satisfied.

      After they had been given some coconut water to drink and a few delicacies (usually rice balls that enclosed a little sugar in the center), the people all sat down on the floor and my father began to talk to them for about an hour.  Then he turned the teaching over to one of the national workers, then the other national worker, and the people all continued to sit and listen.  They were given an opportunity to say something if they wished, but did not.  Finally, it was my father’s turn to speak again, and when he closed some of the Dayaks said,

“Tuan, aren’t you going to eat?”

      “Well, I’ve been waiting for you to invite us to eat.”

      “Tuan, we’ve been waiting for you to stop so we could invite you to eat.”

      The chief announced that everyone was going to eat, but as soon as they were finished, they were going to gather again for another meeting. At this point the Dayaks went into their individual family rooms, called biliks, and ate whatever food they had.  My father and the two other men sat on the floor, and their meal was served to them on a little tray.