248 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



stop ; that is why the coucal to this day has a black head 

 and neck with a tan-coloured body. Nieuwenhuis 

 [9, p. 456] relates substantially the same story, the crow 

 \Corone macrorhyndyus), however, being substituted for the 

 coucal and the incident of the bowl of samak tan omitted. 



Among Kayans isolated designs are found on the 

 following parts of the bodies of the men : — The outside 

 of the wrist, the flexor surface of the forearm, high up 

 on the outside of the thigh, on the breasts and on the 

 points of the shoulders, and, as already stated, in the case 

 of warriors on the backs of the hands and fingers. But 

 not all the men are tatued on all these parts of the body. 

 The design tatued on the wrist (PI. 139, Figs. 8-10) is 

 termed lukut^ the name of an antique bead much valued 

 by Kayans ; the significance of this design is of some 

 interest. When a man is ill, it is supposed that his soul 

 has escaped from his body ; and when he recovers it is 

 supposed that his soul has returned to him ; to prevent 

 its departure on some future occasion the man will '' tie it 

 in " by fastening round his wrist a piece of string on which 

 is threaded a lukut ^ or antique bead, some magic apparently 

 being considered to reside in the bead. However, the 

 string can get broken and the bead lost, wherefore it seems 

 safer to tatu a representation of the bead on the part of the 

 wrist which it would cover if actually worn. It is of 

 interest also to note that the lukut^ from having been a 

 charm to prevent the second escape of the soul, has come 

 to be regarded as a charm to ward off all disease ; and the 

 same applies to its tatued representation. 



A design just below the biceps of a Punan tatued in the 

 Kayan manner is shown on PL 142, Fig. 10, and we 

 were informed by the Punan that this also was a lukut^ an 

 excellent example of the indifference paid to the signi- 

 ficance of design by people with whom such design is not 

 indigenous. 



On the forearm and thigh the udoh asu or dog pattern 

 is tatued, and four typical examples are shown on PI. 

 136, Figs. I, 2, 5, 6. Nieuwenhuis has figured a series of 

 these designs [9, PL 82] ^ showing a transition from a 



^ The Sea Dayaks often employ for the same reason a carpal bone of the 

 mouse-deer ( Tragulus). 



^ See also Haddon (4, Fig. 2), and Nieuwenhuis (8, Pis. XXV. and 

 XXVI. ) ; the designs figured in the latter work are not very easy to 

 interpret, the lower of the two rosette figures looks as if it was derived from 

 four heads of dogs fused together. See also Ling Roth (7, p. 85). 



