Violence and Song

I was in Kuching - the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo - in mid-February of 2006. I went especially with the intention of visiting The Ibans, a tribe famed for their aggressive war tactics (headhunting, to be exact). Since this ethnic group lives mostly in the dense jungle on the Malaysian-Indonesian border, it took me a full day by private car, longboat, and foot to reach an Iban village welcome to outsiders. Among one of the first things I noticed, besides awesomely tattooed men practicing with their blowpipes, was a human skull hanging from the ceiling of the longhouse. The man who originally collected this artifact of war was the village chief, covered in ink from head to toe. He and his buddy both looked pretty menacing. Click HERE to view pictures. However, after they smoked some local herb and started drinking a pungent but delicious homemade brew, I felt it was ok to join in. I’m not sure how much time we spent together, but before the night was over I was stumbling around learning how to do a traditional dance. Watch below to laugh along with the guy who shot the video:



After leaving the jungle, on my way to Kuching and eventually off the island, I went to a culture festival and captured a video of a local artist playing some wonderful music. It’s funny to go from bathing in a river, using a blowgun, killing chickens, and being taught how to cut a person’s head off by someone who has actually cut a person’s head off, to a couple hours later, sitting in a clean auditorium in a developed city listening to tranquil, almost angelic music.



One more addition to this post which makes it even more random: A song by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones that reminds me very much of the piece above. It’s called Big Country and it's totally awesome. Watch below:



For anyone with a music background (that’s a shout out to you, Josh is Jazz), I would love to know if my ears are hearing things right. What about these two songs is similar? I can’t quite place it…