20-1 WALLACE ON BORNEO. [Nov. 10, 1856. 



the comparison to their mental qimlities as exhibited by their 

 sports, their weapons, and their general habits. In these too there 

 is a very considerable general resemblance, though much difference 

 in the details. The Dyaks are more lively, more talkative, and less 

 diffident than the Americans, and therefore pleasanter companions. 

 They have more amusements and are more social, while at the same 

 time they have less variety of weapons, and are less skilful in their 

 methods of obtaining game and fish. Both these circumstances will 

 lead us to place them one degree higher in the scale of civilization. 

 Among the Indian boys of the Amazons, I never observed any other 

 amusements, than imitations of the more serious occupations of the 

 men. The bow and spear, the blowpipe or the canoe, were employed 

 in their sports and games, which were thus the school in which they 

 became qualified for the duties of manhood. This is a characteristic 

 of the truly savage state. The Dyak youths, on the other hand, 

 have their social games, their trials of strength and of skill. They 

 amuse themselves with pegtops like our English schoolboys, and 1 

 was surprised to find them fully initiated in all the mysteries of the 

 in-doors game of " scratch-cradle," of which they had modifications 

 unknown to us. They possess besides numerous puzzles and tricks 

 of great ingenuity, with which they amuse themselves on dull 

 evenings or during wet weather. These apparently trifling matters 

 are yet of some importance, in arriving at a true estimation of their 

 social state. They show that these people have passed beyond that 

 first stage of savage life, in which the stniggle for existence absorbs 

 their whole faculties, in which every thought and every idea is 

 connected with war or hunting or the provision for their immediate 

 necessities. It shows too an advanced capability of civilization, an 

 aptitude to enjoy other than mere sensual pleasures, which, properly 

 taken advantage of, may be of great use in an attempt to raise their 

 social and mental condition. 



The moral character of the Dyaks is undoubtedly high. They are 

 truthful and honest to a remarkable degree. It is often impossible 

 from this cause to get an opinion from them, for the}^ say, " If I 

 were to tell you what I don't know, I might tell a lie ;" and if they 

 relate any thing voluntarily, you may be sure that they are speak- 

 ing the truth. The fruit-trees about their houses have each their 

 owner, and it has often happened that on asking a Dyak to gather 

 me some fruit from a tree, he has replied, " 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 a European, without asking permission. They 

 will pick up scraps of torn newspapers or crooked pins, and ask as a 



