244 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



Klemantans and Kenyahs everywhere shade off 

 into one another and into Punans. 



The process of conversion of Punans into settled 

 communities that assimilate more or less fully the 

 Kayan culture is still going on. We are acquainted 

 with settled communities which still admit their 

 Punan origin ; and these exhibit very various grades 

 of assimilation of the Kayan culture. Some, which 

 in the lives of the older men were still nomadic, 

 still build very poor houses and boats, cultivate padi 

 very imperfectly, and generally exhibit the Kayan 

 culture in a very imperfect state. 



On the other hand, the Kenyahs have assimilated 

 the Kayan culture more perfectly than any other of 

 the aborigines, and in some respects, such as the 

 building of houses, they perhaps equal the Kayans ; 

 but even they have not learnt to cultivate padi in 

 so thorough a manner as to keep themselves supplied 

 with rice all through the year, as the Kayans do ; 

 and, like the various Klemantan tribes,^ they suffer 

 almost every year periods of scarcity during which 

 they rely chiefly on cultivated and wild sago and on 

 tapioca. The Kayans, on the other hand, grow 

 sufficient padi to last through the year, except in 

 very bad seasons, and they never collect or cultivate 

 sago. The view that this relative imperfection of 

 the agriculture of the Kenyahs and Klemantans is 

 due to the recency of their adoption of the practice, 

 is confirmed by the fact that many of them still 

 preserve the tradition of the time when they 

 cultivated no padL It seems that most of the 

 present Kenyahs first began to plant padi not more 

 than two, or at most three, centuries ago. Some of 

 the Kenyahs also preserve the tradition of a time 

 when they constructed their houses mainly of 



^ Some communities of Malanaus never plant rice, but rely for their 

 principal food supply upon the numerous sago-palms which they have planted 

 round about their villages. It is doubtful whether these have ever cultivated 

 padi on any considerable scale. 



