14 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



river's brink; it holds a spear in the right hand, a 

 shield in the left ; it carries about its neck a fringed 

 collar made up of knotted strips of rattan ; the head 

 of each room ties on one such strip, making on it a 

 knot for each member of his roomhold. Generally 

 a wooden image of a hawk, Bali Flaki, stands 

 beside it on the top of a tall pole. 



The Kenyahs carve such images more elaborately 

 than the Kayans, who are often content merely to 

 indicate the eyes, mouth, and four limbs, by slashing 

 away with the sword chips of wood from the surface 

 of the log, leaving gashes at the points roughly 

 corresponding in position to these organs. The 

 Kenyahs treat these rude images with rather more 

 care than do the Kayans ; and they associate them 

 more strictly with particular deities. The children 

 of the house are not allowed to touch such an 

 image, after it has been once used as an altar post ; 

 it is only when it is so used, and blood of fowls or 

 pigs sprinkled upon it, that it seems to acquire its 

 "uncleanness."^ 



Bali Utong brings prosperity to the house. Bali 

 Urip is the god of life ; he too has a carved altar- 

 post, generally crowned with a brass gong. Balingo 

 is the god of thunder. 



Bali Sungei is the name given to a being which 

 perhaps cannot properly be called a god. He is 



^ There are four words used by the Kayans to express the notion of the 

 forbidden act, malan, lali^ parity and tulah. All these are used as adjectives 

 qualifying actions rather than things ; but they are not strictly synonymous 

 terms. Malan and parit seem to be true Kayan words ; lali and tulah to have 

 been taken from the Malay, and to be used generally by Kayans in speaking 

 with Kenyahs or men of other tribes to whom these words are more familiar 

 than the Kayan terms. 



Malan applies rather to acts involving risks to the whole community, parit 

 to those involving risk to the individual committing the forbidden act : thus, 

 during harvest it is malan for any stranger to enter the house, and the whole 

 house or village is said to be malan ; but it is parit for a child to touch one of 

 the images. Again, it is not malan for the proper persons to touch the dried 

 heads on certain occasions, but it is always in some degree parit for the indi- 

 vidual, and for this reason the task is generally assigned to an elderly man. 

 Lali and tulaA seem to be the lingua franca equivalents of malan and of 

 parit respectively. 



