PECULIARITIES 201 



is regarded as a mitigating circumstance, and the 

 fines and compensation imposed would be of smaller 

 amount than in a case of similar crime deliberately- 

 committed. 



Suicide is strongly reprobated, and, as we have 

 seen, the shades of those who die by their own 

 hands are believed to lead a miserable and lonely 

 existence in a distressful country. Tan Tekkan, 

 in which they wander picking up mere scraps 

 of food in the jungle. Nevertheless, suicides occur 

 among Kayans of both sexes. The commonest 

 occasion is the enforced separation of lovers, 

 rather than the despair of rejected lovers. We 

 have known of two instances of Kayan youths who, 

 having formed attachments during a long stay in a 

 distant house and who then, finding themselves 

 under the necessity of returning home with their 

 chief and unable to arrange marriage with their 

 fair ones, have committed suicide. The method 

 most commonly adopted is to go off alone into the 

 jungle and there to stab a knife into the carotid 

 artery. The body of a suicide is generally buried 

 without ceremony on the spot where it is found. 

 Suicides of women are rarer than those of men ; 

 desertion by a lover is the commonest cause. 



Dishonesty in the form of pilfering or open 

 robbery by violence are of very rare occurrence. 

 Yet temptations to both are not lacking. Fruit- 

 trees on the river-bank, even at some distance from 

 any village, are generally private property, and 

 though they offer a great temptation to passing 

 crews when their fruit is ripe, the rights of the 

 proprietor are usually respected or compensation 

 voluntarily paid. Theft within the house or village 

 is practically unknown. Even before the European 

 governments were established, Malay and Chinese 

 traders occasionally penetrated with boat-loads of 

 goods far into the interior ; and now such enter- 



