220 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



in bamboos. The earthenware cooking pot is a 

 simple egg-shaped vessel, one end of which is open 

 and surrounded by a low everted lip or collar 

 (Fig. 8, p. 60). 



The clay is kneaded with water on a board until 

 it has the desired consistency. The vessel is then 

 built up on a hollowed base by squeezing the clay 

 between a smooth rounded stone held by one hand 

 within the vessel and a flat piece of wood, with 

 which the clay is beaten from without. The roughly 

 shaped vessel is allowed to dry in the sun and baked 

 in the fire. In some cases the surface is smoothed 

 and glazed by rubbing resin over its surface while hot. 



Pots of this one shape only are made, but of 

 several sizes. The commonest size holds about a 

 quart ; the largest about two gallons. A pot of this 

 sort is carried in a basket made of fine unsplit rattans 

 loosely woven in the form of interlacing rings. 



The Manufacture of Bark-Cloth 



The native cloth, which was in universal use 

 among the tribes of the interior until largely sup- 

 planted in recent years by imported cloth, is made 

 from the bark of trees of several species (principally 

 the Kttmut, the ipoh, and the wild fig). The material 

 used is the fibrous layer beneath the outer bark. 

 A large sheet of it is laid on a wooden block and 

 beaten with a heavy wooden club in order to render 

 it soft and pliable. A piece of the required size and 

 shape is cut from the sheet, and sewn across the 

 direction of the fibres with needle and thread at 

 intervals of about an inch. This prevents the 

 material splitting along the direction of the fibres. 

 Before European needles were introduced, the stitch- 

 ing was done by piercing holes with a small awl and 

 pushing the thread through the hole after withdraw- 

 ing the awl (PI. 1 17). 



