OTHER EXPEDITIONS 287 



demands for tobacco, but otherwise were not conver- 

 sational. I observed in the rafters a number of drums, 

 and one of huge size known as a sabang, about 4^ feet 

 high and i J in diameter ; I tried to buy it for the Museum, 

 but was told that it was " pemali," or tabu, being used 

 only at head-feasts. The Penglima told me that at 

 head-feasts the heads were brought down from the 

 rafters and put into baskets with little bamboo-tubes 

 filled with arrack attached to them ; the celebrants 

 wear fantastic costumes, with head-dresses of grass, and 

 after offering rice and fowls to the heads, beseech 

 them to send good luck in harvesting and sowing 

 and in former days in war ; a great deal of food and 

 drink is consumed, and a dance round the heads is 

 performed. The Penglima's heads he declared were 

 very antique, and in his opinion had lost their virtue, 

 so he had given them to his brother, who was very 

 attentive to them and frequently gave them a fowl 

 and put rice into their mouths whenever he held a 

 feast. He (the Penglima), however, wanted some new 

 heads with skin and hair still adhering to the skulls, 

 and as the fighting days of the Land-Dayaks have 

 gone for ever, he proposed to visit the Sea-Dayaks in 

 the Kalaka and persuade them to give him some ; he 

 was careful to point out that bought heads would 

 have no virtue. The installing of new heads in the 

 Head-House is a great ceremony ; they are first slung 

 up on a large bamboo erection outside the Head-House 

 by which is erected a tall and thick bamboo, one 

 length of which is filled with arrack ; four old men 

 dance round this for a while, then one of them bores 

 a hole in the arrack-filled joint, and as they dance they 

 stop every minute or so to suck the liquor from the 



