The Head-hunters of Borneo: A Narrative of Travel Up the Mahakkam and Down the Barito; also, Journeyings in Sumatra

(Amsterdam: Time-Life, 1984) 705415120. 'Classics of Exploration' series. Text facsimile of the 1881edition by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington. 8vo; original brown padded leatherette cover, lettered in gilt, with borders ruled in gilt, red, and blind; a.e.g.; marbled effect to endpapers; pp. 344, incl. index; etchings in text; colour plates and map; silk marker; loosely inserted publisher's synopsis. A few light fox spots to rear free endpaper recto. Near-fine condition. "Travel in Borneo posed special dangers, for besides having to cope with trackless forests, turbulent rivers and miasmic swamps, explorers risked attack by head-hunting Dyaks - forest tribes whose custom of taking the heads of their enemies and consuming their brains persisted until the Second World War. Carl Bock, a Dane with a particular interest in ethnography, was undeterred by the risks. In 1879 he set out on a 700-mile journey through south-east Borneo in search of Dyak communities. The Head-Hunters of Borneo, published in 1881, records his adventures and paints an intimate portrait of a people who until then had barely impinged on the European consciousness. … The appeal of [Bock's] book lies in the lively prose, the sharp descriptions of people and places, and the detailed picture of the head-hunters' culture - their courtship and marriage customs, methods of hunting with poisoned arrows and, of course, the grisly ritual of head-hunting expeditions. A talented draughtsman, Bock supplemented his descriptions of Dyak life with numerous drawings; and like many 19th-century artists, he appealed to the prurient interests of his Victorian readers by depicting many half-naked figures." .