114 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



the shoulders of the one going before her, and all 

 keeping time to the music of the keluries as they 

 dance up and down the long gallery. All this is kept 

 up with good humour the whole day long. In the 

 evening more btirak is drunk and songs are sung, 

 the women mingling with the men, instead of re- 

 maining in their rooms as on other festive occasions. 

 Before midnight a good many of the men are more 

 or less intoxicated, some deeply so ; but most are 

 able to find their way to bed about midnight, and 

 few or none become offensive or quarrelsome, even 

 though the men indulge in wrestling and rough 

 horseplay with one another. After an exceptionally 

 good harvest the boisterous merrymaking is renewed 

 on a second or even a third day. 



The harvest festival is the time at which dancing 

 is most practised. The dances fall into two chief 

 classes, namely, solo dances and those in which 

 many persons take part. Most of the solo dances 

 take the form of comic imitations of the movements 

 of animals, especially the big macaque monkey 

 {dok), the hornbill, and big fish. These dances 

 seem to have no connection with magic or religion, 

 but to be purely aesthetic entertainments. The 

 animals that are regarded with most awe are never 

 mimicked in this way. There are at least four 

 distinct group dances popular among the Kayans. 

 Both men and women take part, the women often 

 dressing themselves as men for the occasion (PL 

 6i). The movements and evolutions are very 

 simple. The hipa resembles the dance on return 

 from war described in Chap. X. In the kayo, 

 a similar dance, the dancers are led by a woman 

 holding one of the dried heads which is taken down 

 for the purpose ; the women, dressed in warcoats, 

 pretending to take the head from an enemy. The 

 lakekut is a musical drill in which the dancers stamp 

 on the planks of the floor in time to the music. 



