Carl Bock in Borneo
"His eyes have a wild animal expression, and around them are dark lines, like shadows of crime. At that very time, as I sketched his portrait, he had fresh upon his head the blood of no less than seventy victims, men women and children, whom he and his followers had just slaughtered, and whose hands and brains he had eaten." This is how the Norwegian explorer Carl Bock painted the picture of the chief of a Dayak cannibal- tribe in glowing terms. It is just one of the many fanciful descriptions in the account he wrote about his expedition into the interior of Borneo in 1879.
By Kiki Bunder
The nineteenth century was the age of discovery. The European urge for knowing, understanding and, preferably, ruling the world had resulted in the booming of natural science, the foundation of various geographical societies and, of course, numerous expeditions in Africa and Asia. The Indonesian Archipelago alone was the goal of over a hundred scientific expeditions. Some of the men who took the trouble to travel the unbeaten tracks through jungles and deserts were driven by scientific motivations; others did so in search of adventure and excitement, providing scientific material for others.
One of the latter was Carl Bock (1849-1932), quite a celebrity in his own time. He was born and raised in Oslo and went to England at age 19. He worked in Grimsby for several years before going to London to pursue his interest in natural science. Apparently he was a fairly successful young man, because he managed to gain access to both scientific and aristocratic circles in the capital. He became acquainted with the president of the Zoological Society, Arthur Hay, the Marquis of Tweeddale, an amateur ornithologist, who owned his own biological collection of birds, insects, reptiles, and mammals, and he appointed Carl Bock to complete his collection with species from the Malay Archipelago. Bock went to Sumatra in 1878 where he travelled around for several months. Another trip he had planned to Timor had to be cancelled for his employer died that same year.
In Batavia, the capital of the former Netherlands East Indies, Bock met Governor-General Van Lansberghe, who asked him to make an expedition to Koetei (Kutai), south-east Borneo. Bock's task was to write an account of the various Dayak tribes living in the interior of the area. Little was known about these "savages" -- who firmly rejected Dutch authority -- apart from the fact that they were head-hunters, some even cannibals. To Bock it was quite a challenging assignment because he would pass through areas never before penetrated by Europeans, passing along the Mahakam (or Koetei) River and then turning southwards from there either to Banjermasin or Pontianak. He chose the latter alternative.
Bock had to overcome many problems. One of the first he faced was engaging servants to accompany him to Borneo: "The offer of high wages, so high as to amount to a positive bribe, was of no avail [...] all valued their heads too highly to risk them among the Dayaks of Borneo." According to Bock head-hunting was very common practice among these Dayaks. But, luckily for himself and his servants, he was unable to record one single new case during the six months he spent in Borneo.
Although some Europeans had perished in the same area, Bock had one big advantage over the explorers who had preceded him: he had managed to persuade the sultan of Kutai to accompany him on his travels. This definitely facilitated his contact with the Dayaks. The sultan was in fact essential if Bock were to make contact with the cannibal tribe of the Trings. When Bock sent messengers bearing invitations and various gifts to show his goodwill to the Tring village, no one returned: "Were the crew killed and eaten?" he wondered. Well, such was not their fate, but only after the sultan had sent a group of well-armed dignitaries did they return with a group of forty, reluctant, cannibals.
Explorers like Bock, who were not averse to exaggerating their adventures slightly to titillate their readers, were
not the only ones to spread wild storied about the cannibals. Other Dayak tribes also played their part in fanning
the rumours. They were "not disguising their fear of them, and their disgust at their cannibal practices."
The tailed people
The threat of cannibalism and head-hunting was, although exaggerated, real enough, which cannot be said of the
existence of the so called orang buntut; the tailed people.
The missing link between man and the apes had received a lot of publicity since the promulgation of Darwin's
theory of evolution, even from scientists. Their existence was sworn to by different people from different places
in Borneo. Bock put a great effort into finding the orang buntut. He began to have doubts after he heard someone
making the incredible statement that these people had little holes in the floors of their homes in which to put their
tails so that they could sit comfortably!
The whole search disintegrated after a rather hilarious misunderstanding. Bock had sent a messenger to the neighbouring sultanate of Pasir, where the orang buntut were supposed to live, asking the sultan to supply him with a pair of orang buntut. After a few weeks the messenger returned: "For a long time all the answer I got to my questions was a shake of the head, which, though so far conclusive, did not afford sufficiently information." As it turned out, the sultan of Pasir was very offended by the request to send down a couple of his orang buntut. After all those men were literally his 'tail people', his retinue. Anyone who wanted them had to come and take them by force!
Bock probably wrote his official report on his way back to Europe. It was published in Dutch in 1881 and generally well-received. He was praised for his courage and determination, his apt descriptions and remarkable colour plates. But Bock also came in for a good deal of fierce criticism because there was almost nothing new and a lot that was dubious in his ethnographic accounts. Some of the Dutch criticism may well have been motivated by envy. The Dutch geographical society in particular felt passed over and castigated Van Lansberghe for commissioning a foreigner. They considered it an insult to Dutch scientists and explorers, and complained about the lack of cooperation from the Batavia authorities.
Bock probably could not have cared less. His search was more for fame and fortune as an explorer than as a scientific authority. He added a good deal of anecdotal detail to his manuscript and published this as "The Head- hunters of Borneo". This book should be judged as a travel-book rather than a scientific account. Bock was a keen observer and wrote down his experiences with a good feeling for humour. It was a popular book in his own day, and one of the few about Borneo available to the English reader. Although it was written more than a hundred years ago, it still offers a very enthralling read and can compete with much of the travel literature published since.
The Head-Hunters of Borneo by Carl Bock
first published in 1881, London
this edition with an introduction by R.H.W. Reece
Oxford University Press 1985
Kiki Bunder is a historian, trained at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.