30 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



Mohammedan religion and civilisation, and on the 

 other hand the pagan peoples. In Bruni and in 

 all the coast regions the majority of the people are 

 Mohammedan, have no tribal organisation, and call 

 themselves Malays (Orang Malayu). This name has 

 usually been accorded them by European authors ; 

 but when so used the name denotes a social, politi- 

 cal, and religious status rather than membership 

 in an ethnic group. With the exception of these 

 partially civilised *' Malays" of the coast regions 

 and the imported elements mentioned above, all 

 the natives of Borneo live under tribal organisation, 

 their cultures ranging from the extreme simplicity 

 of the nomadic Punans to a moderately developed 

 barbarism. All these pagan tribes have often been 

 classed together indiscriminately under the name 

 Dyaks or Dayaks, though many groups may be 

 clearly distinguished from one another by differences 

 of culture, belief, and custom, and peculiarities of 

 their physical and mental constitutions. 



The Mohammedan population, being of very 

 heterogeneous ethnic composition, and having 

 adopted a culture of foreign origin, which may be 

 better studied in other regions of the earth where 

 the Malay type and culture is more truly indigenous, 

 seems to us to be of secondary interest to the 

 anthropologist as compared with the less cultured 

 pagan tribes. We shall therefore confine our atten- 

 tion to the less known pagan tribes of the interior ; 

 and when we speak of the people of Borneo in 

 general terms it is to the latter only that we refer 

 (except where the *' Malays " are specifically men- 

 tioned). Of these we distinguish six principal 

 groups: (i) Sea Dayaks or Ibans, (2) the Kayans, 

 (3) Kenyahs, (4) Klemantans, (5) Muruts, (6) Punans. 



A census of the population has been made in 

 most of the principal districts of Sarawak and of 

 Dutch Borneo ; but as no census of the whole 



