i68 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



A more violent display of warlike feeling is given 

 in the war-dance which is executed by one or two 

 warriors only. The youth, in full panoply of war, 

 and brandishing a parang and shield, goes through 

 the movements of a single combat with some fanciful 

 exaggeration (PL 171). He crouches beneath his 

 shield, and springs violently hither and thither, emit- 

 ting piercing yells of defiance and rage, cutting and 

 striking at his imaginary foe or his partner in the 

 dance. But it is characteristic of the Kayans that 

 neither in this dance nor in actual practice in fencing 

 do they attempt to strike one another. The boy, 

 besides watching these martial displays, is instructed 

 in the arts of striking, parrying, and shielding by the 

 older men, who strike at him with a stick but arrest 

 the blow before it goes home. And we have found it 

 impossible to introduce among them a more realistic 

 mode of playful fencing. The ground of this 

 reluctance actually to strike one another in fencing 

 is probably their strong feeling for symbolism and 

 the prevailing tendency to believe that the sym- 

 bolical art brings about that which it symbolises. 

 In part also it is due to the fact that to draw the 

 blood of any member of the household is lali and 

 involves the penalty of a fine.^ 



The youth goes through no elaborate rite of 

 initiation to manhood ; and, to the best of our 

 knowledge, there exists no body of secret knowledge 

 or of tradition or rites shared in only by the adult 

 men, to participation in which he might be admitted 

 in the course of such a rite. The only rite that is 

 required to qualify him for taking his place as a full- 

 fledged member of the community is the second 

 occasion on which he strikes at the heads taken 

 in battle. We have seen that he performs this 

 ceremonial act for the first time when still of tender 



1 Even when in tatuing blood is drawn, as almost inevitably occurs, beads 

 are given the tatuer to indemnify her and make it clear that the deed was not 

 intended. 



