With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters

Frederick Sadleir BreretonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
754K words
Chapters
76

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Jungle ExplorationAdventure JourneyTribal ConflictTest of CourageComing of AgeColonial NarrativeBorneoExotic CultureFolk CustomsHeadhunting Custom

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters by F. S. BreretonAuthor: Brereton, F. S. (Frederick Sadleir), 1872-,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Dec 21, 2013

Editor's review

This is a typical late-Victorian to Edwardian boys' adventure novel; Brereton was known for his prolific output of adventure stories. Set in Borneo, the book builds its narrative around the legend of the Dayak "head hunters," combining exotic geography with brisk plotting. Its value lies not in anthropological accuracy but in how it shows how Western popular literature of the period imagined the inland peoples of Southeast Asia: it praises courage while inevitably carrying colonial bias and simplification. For today's readers, it works best as a mirror for studying the adventure genre, the history of juvenile reading, and imperial narrative. The prose is direct and the chapters move quickly, making it suitable for light reading or English extensive reading; read with historical annotations, it reveals the era's assumptions more clearly. The free public-domain e-edition is easy to obtain and fits theme reading lists or classroom discussion.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read one chapter first, then look up the Dayaks and Borneo's geography, comparing the text's imagination with historical fact.
  2. Use it as extensive reading material, one or two chapters a day, noting new words and period expressions.
  3. Read it alongside other adventure novels of the same period, comparing narrative conventions and ethnic portrayals.
  4. Watch the narrator's stance as you read, marking colonial phrasing and adding brief annotations.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners? Not really for absolute beginners. The text is a late-nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century English adventure novel, with period sentence patterns and vocabulary; intermediate reading ability or above is recommended, ideally with an annotated edition or a dictionary.
Are the book's portrayals of the Dayaks reliable? It should not be used as ethnographic material. It is an adventure novel serving plot and period imagination, and its presentation of "head hunters" tends toward simplification and stereotype. For accurate culture, consult modern anthropological research.
Why is reading with a historical perspective recommended? Because one of the book's values is showing how Western popular literature of a particular era wrote about Southeast Asian peoples and colonial adventure. Reading with historical awareness lets you enjoy the plot while recognizing the text's conceptual limits.

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About the author

Frederick Sadleir Brereton Author · United Kingdom · 1872–1957

Frederick Sadleir Brereton (1872–1957) was a British Army medical officer who later became a writer of adventure stories for boys. Born in Surrey in 1872, he served in the Second Boer War and the First World War, rising to honorary lieutenant colonel and receiving the CBE. His works, 18 of which are held in this collection, celebrated heroic deeds of the British Empire and drew on colonial wars and expeditions—titles include Jones of the 64th, How Canada Was Won, On the Road to Bagdad, With Rifle and Bayonet, With Wolseley to Kumasi, A Gallant Grenadier, With the Dyaks of Borneo and With Wellington in Spain. These military adventures are tightly plotted and centre on brave, resolute young heroes, bearing a clear mark of their era; full details of his life and writings remain limited in publicly available sources.