T A B L E_T A L K Expats wonder: Can you ever truly know the Japanese? Share your thoughts on the divide between American and Japanese culture in Table Talk's Wanderlust area R E C E N T L Y Mondo Weirdo Island oddities Flying Caribbean style and Koh Samui blues (06/01/98) Letter from Jakarta: Part 2 By Jeff Pulice Expats drink, rumors run amok, Habibie has an amazing week (05/29/98) Who stole Tomorrowland's soul? By Janelle Brown Disneyland's revamped Tomorrowland presents fresh façade and a few thrills -- but where's the old magic? (05/28/98) Hitchhiking Vietnam By Karin Muller Renting a horse -- and other examples of how tourism is changing Vietnam (05/27/98) Getting into Chechnya By Thomas Goltz A journalist's heart-stopping adventure slipping by Russian border guards (05/26/98) Browse the Wanderlust Features archives		A day in the life of a ________- - - - - - l o n g h o u s e DRINKING AND DANCING WITH THE HEADHUNTERS OF BORNEO FORGES SOME UNEXPECTED CONNECTIONS. BY MAXINE ROSE SCHUR Suddenly the Engkari river becomes shallow. Our pelvis-wide longboat is wedged between rocks with turbulent waters eddying all around. One good bang against these rocks would capsize us. At the back of the boat, the pilot cuts the engine and at the bow the barefoot oarsman stands and pushes his pole against the rocks to free us. With a gondolier's grace, he prods and pokes us slowly through the passage. With the motor now silent, we can hear the electric buzz of insects and the musical calls of the broadbills ringing through the jungle like doorbells. When at last we're free, the pilot restarts the engine and our narrow ironwood boat weaves through the sun-sparkled river -- a needle through silk. We're a small group of adventurers -- a photographer named Patrick, myself and our tribesman-guide -- sailing into the heart of Borneo. This morning we are heading toward the Stamang longhouse, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, where we are to be guests of the Iban tribe, Borneo's former headhunters. I don't know exactly what to expect, but I have heard that these people once infamous for their fierceness are now renowned for their hospitality. The narrow green river is sinuous as a snake. Above us the hills loom lush with a thick green rug of secondary rain forest: red-bark meranti, eutika, ironwood, rattan and palm. Some of the hills show the legacy of recent logging: a scattering of tree stumps rising up haphazard and gray as old tombstones. Other hills have been terraced in semicircular green steps and planted with mountain rice. Along the river's edge, large ferns tangle mysteriously, and every now and then we pass enormous red blooms of rhododendrons and the beautiful pianggu fruit whose heavy pink-orange globes bow their branches nearly into the water. We round a bend in the river and are greeted by Iban children in prim blue school uniforms washing their white enamel lunch plates in the river. In the shadow of their wooden schoolhouse, the children smile and with suntanned arms wave their plates in greeting. The river narrows even more and gleams like glass in the dappled sunlight. The air is sweat-hot as we glide through a tunnel of foliage. From the highest branches creepers cascade to the ground like waterfalls. I'm so enchanted with this unfamiliar tropical world that I lose track of time -- and all of a sudden we dock. We're face to face with a man in a loincloth whose body, except for his chest, is blue with tattoos. Dragons, scorpions, crocodiles, prawns, ferns and flowers flow over his throat, back, arms and legs. He appears to be in his late 50s, although his toddler mouth shows only two lower teeth. I know at once that he is the Tuai Rumah -- the chief -- for he wears a headdress of pheasant feathers and is followed by an assembly of royals. The entourage includes his sister, a plump woman in a black flowery sarong whose royal status is evidenced by her gold necklace and the tattoos that encircle her elbows; the chief's wife, a thin, quiet-looking woman; and the shaman, a lean, older man, small as a fifth-grader. "Hallo!" the chief calls to us. "Hallo!" we call back. "Hallo," he calls again, making the greeting sound like a command. "Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!" Leading his retinue, the Tuai Rumah turns and ascends a notched tree trunk up to the bamboo verandah of the longhouse, where straw mats are piled high with peppercorns set out to dry. We follow, climbing the trunk and leaping over the peppercorns. "Take your shoes off," our guide whispers. We do and enter. Slowly my eyes become accustomed to the shadowy air and when at last I can see, I'm overwhelmed, all my senses assaulted. Trying hard not to stare at anything, I stare at everything. I am standing in the wide hall of a wooden house as long as a city block perched on stilts 15 feet above the ground. I feel I'm in a never-ending tree house. As far as I can see, there are people sitting about on mats -- although some have now come to stand at a polite distance to look at us. Aside one whole wondrous length of the hall runs the bamboo verandah. On the opposite side, behind a hanging jumble of masks, tops, drums, blowpipes and baskets, stretches a row of 34 doors. And believe it or not, one of the doors has a cardboard sign that says "Chief." Our little group stands about awkwardly. The chief and the royals stand about awkwardly. We say nothing. They say nothing. There's a slight tension in the air. What's going on, I wonder. Then our guide nudges me and I realize that I am the cause of the awkwardness. I am standing on an intricately woven flax mat -- the royal mat! I jump off, allowing the Tuai Rumah and the shaman to take up their places cross-legged on it. "Hallo!" the chief calls, beckoning us to sit. We sit on the plain mats, and at once the women bring in a tray holding a large aluminum teapot, sugar, plastic cups and saucers, small glasses, and a forbidding old soy sauce bottle about two feet high. The chief takes this bottle and pours glasses of tuak, the tribe's homemade rice wine. He lifts a glass and downs the entire amount in one go. This is the signal for us to drink too, but it's not easy. The brew tastes like industrial-strength sake and I can only sip it demurely. "No time!" the chief warns me. "No time!" N E X T+P A G E | Bottoms up!