THE NOMAD HUNTERS 191 



wood, and tongs of bamboo for eating sago/ a few 

 iron pots,^ large baskets for carrying on the back, 

 a few mats of plaited rattan, and small bamboo 

 boxes. 



These are the sum of the worldly goods of a 

 Punan family, and it would, we suppose, be difficult 

 to find another people who combine so great a 

 poverty in material possessions with so high a level 

 of contentment and decent orderly active living. 



Although his material possessions are so few, 

 the Punan is not capable of fashioning all of them 

 by his own independent efforts. All his metal tools 

 he obtains from the Kayans (or other tribes) who 

 are his patrons. But everything else he makes 

 with his own hands. The long blow-pipe of polished 

 hard-wood, which is his favourite weapon, he makes 

 by the same methods and as well as the Kayans. 

 But the iron rod which he uses in the process of 

 boring the wood he cannot make. This illustrates 

 his intimate dependence on other tribes, and seems 

 to imply that the blow-pipe, at least in the highly 

 finished form in which it is now used, cannot have 

 been an independent achievement of the Punans. 

 They are especially skilful in the plaiting of rattan 

 strips to make baskets, mats, and sieves. They do 

 little wood-carving, but carve some pretty handles 

 for knives and decorative pieces for the sword- 

 sheaths from the bones of the gibbon and deer. 

 They are expert also in making bamboo pipes 

 with which to imitate the calls of the deer and of 

 some of the birds. 



Hunting, tracking, and trapping game are the 

 principal and favourite pursuits of the men ; they 

 display much ingenuity in these pursuits and attain 



^ Perhaps the most commonly used is a double-ended spatula. With this 

 the head of the family stirs the boiled sago, and then conveys it to his own 

 mouth on one end and to his wife's mouth on the other. 



"^ Formerly, they say, they cooked in green bamboos ; and this is still done 

 occasionally. They also occasionally boil their sago in the large cups of the 

 pitcher-plant {nepenthes). 



