[The Malay Archipelago Volume I. (of II.) by Alfred Russell Wallace]@TWC D-Link bookThe Malay Archipelago Volume I. (of II.) CHAPTER VI 5/12
In a Dyak village the fruit trees have each their owner, and it has often happened to me, on asking an inhabitant to gather me some fruit, to be answered, "I can't do that, for the owner of the tree is not here;" never seeming to contemplate the possibility of acting otherwise.
Neither will they take the smallest thing belonging to an European.
When living at Simunjon, they continually came to my house, and would pick up scraps of torn newspaper or crooked pins that I had thrown away, and ask as a great favour whether they might have them. Crimes of violence (other than head-hunting) are almost unknown; for in twelve years, under Sir James Brooke's rule, there had been only one case of murder in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committed by a stranger who had been adopted into the tribe.
In several other matters of morality they rank above most uncivilized, and even above many civilized nations.
They are temperate in food and drink, and the gross sensuality of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them.
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