HANDICRAFTS 197 



Other implements fashioned by the smiths are 

 the small knives, spear-heads, hoes, small adzes, rods 

 for boring the sumpitan, the anvil, and the various 

 hammers, and chisels, and rough files used by the 

 smiths. 



Brass-work 



Although brass-ware is so highly valued by all 

 the peoples of the interior, the only brazen articles 

 made by them (with one exception presently to be 

 noticed) are the heavy ear-rings of the women. The 

 common form is a simple ring of solid metal in- 

 terrupted at one point by a gap about an eighth of 

 an inch wide, through which is pulled the thin band 

 of skin formed by stretching the lobule of the ear. 

 Other rings form about one and a half turns of a 

 corkscrew spiral. These rings are cast in moulds 

 of clay, or in some cases in moulds hollowed in two 

 blocks of stone which are nicely opposed. 



The Malohs, a Klemantan sub-tribe in the upper 

 basin of the Kapuas river, are well known as brass- 

 workers ; their wares are bartered throughout the 

 country, and a few Maloh brass-workers may be 

 found temporarily settled in many of the larger 

 villages of all tribes. They make the brass corsets 

 of the Iban women, tweezers for pulling out the hair 

 of the face, brass ear-rings, and a variety of small 

 articles, and they make use of the larger brass-ware 

 of Malay and Chinese origin as the source of their 

 material. 



Fire Piston 



This very ingenious instrument for the making 

 of fire is cast in metal by the Ibans. (See Fig. 36 

 and PI. 108.) It consists of a hollow brass or leaden 

 cylinder about five inches in length and one inch in 

 diameter, the bore being about one-quarter of an 

 inch in diameter and closed at one end. A wooden 



