158 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



the child himself is still more strictly preserved from 

 such contacts. Further, nothing used by or about 

 the child — toys, garments, cradle, or beads — must be 

 lost, lent, sold, or otherwise allowed to pass out of the 

 possession of the parents ; though, if one child has 

 thriven, its properties are preferred to all others for 

 the use of a younger brother or sister. It is im- 

 portant also that no stranger shall handle or gaze 

 too closely upon the child ; and when it is put down 

 to sleep in the parents' room, the mat or rude wooden 

 cradle on which it lies is generally surrounded by a 

 rough screen. The more influential the stranger, the 

 more is his contact to be feared ; for any such con- 

 tact or notice may attract to the infant the unwelcome 

 and probably injurious attentions of the toh. For the 

 same reason it is forbidden, ox par it, to a child to lie 

 down on the spot where a chief has been sitting or 

 where he usually reposes. And it is a grave offence 

 for a child to jump over the legs of a reclining chief; 

 but in this case the disrespect shown is probably 

 the more important ground of the disapprobation 

 incurred. 



If any such contact has unwittingly occurred, or 

 if, for example, a Kayan mother has consented to 

 submit an ailing child to inspection by a European 

 medical man, the danger incurred may be warded 

 off by the gift from the stranger to the child of 

 some small article of value. In a similar way the 

 breach of other tabus, such as the entering of a 

 room which is lali, may be rendered innocuous. 



The infant is carried by the mother almost con- 

 tinuously during the waking hours of its first year 

 of life ; it is generally suspended in a sling made of 

 wood or of basket-work, resembling in shape the 

 baby's swing familiar in our nurseries ; the child 

 sits on a semicircular piece of board, its legs de- 

 pendent, its knees and belly against the mother's 

 back, and its own back supported by the two 



