CHAPTER XII 

 NATIVES OF BORNEO 



BEFORE the ethnography of Borneo had been studied 

 the inhabitants of that great island were termed 

 collectively Dayaks, and the term is still applied by many 

 continental ethnologists to tribes that have few affinities 

 with Dayaks in the strictest sense of the word. This 

 loose application of the term Dayak leads to immense 

 confusion, for to say that the Dayaks are the inhabitants 

 of Borneo is as far from a complete statement of fact as 

 it would be to say that Yorkshiremen or Welshmen are 

 the inhabitants of the British Isles. Sir James Brooke, 

 first Rajah of Sarawak, was one of the earliest to attempt 

 a classification of the Sarawak tribes. In his day the 

 people inhabiting the upper waters of the Sarawak and 

 Sadong Rivers were continually subjected to raids by 

 Malays and their mercenaries, the men of the Saribas 

 and Batang Lupar Rivers. Sir James Brooke recognized 

 that the raided and the raiders belonged to two distinct 

 stocks ; to the first, inasmuch as they lived inland in 

 hilly country, he applied the name Land- or Hill- Dayaks ; 

 to the second, since they came across the sea from their 

 own headquarters to those of their victims, he applied 

 the name Sea-Dayaks. The names have stuck in spite 



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