Sarawak, Borneo;
1957

The shores of the Rejang, near its mouth, are scarcely visible & when approached, unpromising: boring mangrove swamps with Malay houses perched high above the waters & Nipah palms, tall & slender, their 40-foot fronds arching out from their bases. Gradually the muddy river narrows, the trees become taller - some reaching 150 feet, casting shadows - the water becomes cooler, mountain-clear, and the dripping, tree-fern jungle draws closer, until soon we are beneath it, fighting our dugout up white rapids in mountain country.

Each night I sleep in a different longhouse, its veranda dark, smoky, hung with skulls; its interior rooms decorated with brass gongs & great Chinese jars, fiercely beautiful by candlelight.

Today the Penghulus, the longhouse chiefs, have assembled in splendor. Tattooed & armed, in leopard jackets & feathered headdresses, they sit facing Temonggong Jugah, chief of chiefs, who paces back & forth in front of them, pointing at me, then sneering at them: "You with your tattooed fingers [for heads taken]: his hands are clean. You with your spears; he has come to collect them to show to children. You with your parangs [swords]: he is unarmed; he mocks you. Why? He reads. He has come so far in a day, you could not travel it in a lifetime. You will not disobey me: your children will come out of the fields and go to school."

Here's a man who recognizes that power today lies in media, not weapons.