2 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



to be conceived merely as a vital principle, virtue, 

 or energy inherent in the grain, rather than as an 

 intelligent and separable soul/ 



It has been said of some peoples of lowly culture 

 that they have no conception of merely mechanical 

 causation, and that every material object is regarded 

 by them as animated in the same sense as among 

 ourselves common opinion regards the higher 

 animals as animated. On the difficult question 

 whether such a statement is true of any people we 

 will not presume to offer an opinion ; but we do 

 not think that it could be truthfully made about 

 any of the peoples of Borneo. It would be absurd 

 to deny all recognition or knowledge of mechanical 

 causation to people who show so much ingenuity 

 in the construction of houses, boats, weapons, and a 

 great variety of mechanical devices, such as traps, 

 and in other operations involving the intelligent 

 application of mechanical principles. These opera- 

 tions show that, though they maybe incapable of de- 

 scribing in abstract and general terms the principles 

 involved, they nevertheless have a nice appreciation 

 of them. If a trap fails to work owing to its faulty 

 construction, the trapper treats it purely as a 

 mechanical contrivance and proceeds to discover 

 and rectify the faulty part. It is true that in this and 



^ The following statement, which was written by us of the Kenyahs in a 

 former publication, holds good also of the Kayans : "They may be said to 

 attribute a soul or spirit to almost every natural agent and to all living things, 

 and they pay especial regard to those that seem most capable of affecting their 

 welfare for good or ill. They feel themselves to be surrounded on every 

 hand by spiritual powers, which appear to them to be concentrated in those 

 objects to which their attention is directed by practical needs ; adopting a mode 

 of expression familiar to psychologists, we may say that they have differentiated 

 from a * continuum ' of spiritual powers a number of spiritual agents with very 

 various degrees of definiteness. Of these the less important are very vaguely 

 conceived, but are regarded as being able to bring harm to men, who must 

 therefore avoid giving offence to them, and must propitiate them if they 

 should by ill-chance have been offended. The more important, assuming 

 individualised and anthropomorphic forms and definite functions, receive 

 proper names, are in some cases represented by rude images, and become 

 the recipients of prayer and sacrifice " {/otirn. of Anthrop. InstiHite, vol. 

 xxxi. p. 174). 



