iQO PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



any one of their omen-beasts. They are very shy 

 of whatever is unfamiliar. Many of them will not 

 eat salt or rice when opportunity offers. 



The medicine men or Dayongs of the Punans 

 are distinguished for their knowledge and skill, and 

 are in much request among the other tribes for 

 the catching of souls and the extraction of pains and 

 disease. They are therefore fairly numerous ; but, 

 as among the other peoples, the calling is a highly 

 specialised one, though not one which occupies a 

 man's whole time or excuses him from the usual 

 labours of his community. Their methods do not 

 differ widely from those of the Kayan and Kenyah 

 Dayongs, 



The Punan has great faith in charms, especially 

 for bringing good luck in hunting. He usually 

 carries, tied to his quiver, a bundle of small objects 

 which have forcibly attracted his attention for any 

 reason, e.g. a large quartz crystal, a strangely 

 shaped tusk or tooth or pebble, etc., and this 

 bundle of charms is dipped in the blood of the 

 animals that fall to his blow-pipe. 



As regards dress and weapons the Punan differs 

 little from his neighbours. A scanty waist-cloth 

 of home-made bark-cloth, or equally scanty skirt 

 for the woman, strings of small beads round wrists 

 or ankles or both, numbers of slender bands of 

 plaited palm-fibre below the knees and about the 

 wrists, and sometimes a strip of cloth round the 

 head, make up his costume for all occasions. 



All his belongings are such as can easily be 

 transported. He carries a sword, a small knife, a 

 blow-pipe with spear-blade attached, and a small 

 axe with long narrow blade for working camphor 

 out of the heart of the camphor-tree. Besides 

 these essential tools and weapons, which he con- 

 stantly carries, the family possesses sago-mallets 

 and sieves, dishes and spoons or spatulas of hard- 



