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DECORATIVE ART 263 



later on in life the back of the thigh ; unlike the Kayans 

 it is not necessary that the tatu of the thighs should be 

 finished before child-bearing. A Long Glat woman on 

 each day that she is tatued must kill a black fowl as food 

 for the artist. They believe that after death the completely 

 tatued women will be allowed to bathe in the mythical 

 river Telang Julan, and that consequently they will be able 

 to pick up the pearls that are found in its bed ; incompletely 

 tatued women can only stand on the river bank, whilst the 

 untatued will not be allowed to approach its shores at all. 

 This belief appears to be universal amongst the Kenyah- 

 Klemantan of the Upper Mahakam and Batang Kayan. 

 On PL 86 of Nieuwenhuis' book [9] is figured the thigh 

 tatu of a Long Glat woman ; the front of the thigh is 

 occupied with two rows of the hornbill motif to which 

 reference has already been made. The sides of the thigh 

 are tatued with a beautiful design of circles and scrolls 

 termed kerip kwe, flight feathers of the Argus pheasant, 

 and on the back of the thigh is a scroll design borrowed 

 from the decoration of a grave and known as kalang song 

 sepit} The knee is left untatued. Some other examples 

 of the kerip kwe design are given on PI. 90, and of the 

 song sepit on PL 91 ; some of the song sepit designs recall 

 the kalang kowit designs of the Baloi Kayans. Instead of 

 a hornbill motif y a dog's head motif is sometimes tatued 

 on the thigh, an example of which is figured on PL 87, 

 Fig. a ; it appears to be a composition of four heads, and 

 in appearance is not unlike silong lejau of the Uma Lekan, 

 figured by us. In the Long Glat thigh-tatu the bands of 

 pattern are not separated by lines of ikor^ as with the 

 Kayans. Round the ankles the Long Glat tatu sixteen 

 lines, 3 mm. broad, known as tedak aking ; the foot is tatued 

 much after the manner shown in our Fig. 6, PL 143. The 

 supinator surface of the forearm and the backs of the hands 

 are also tatued, but the design does not extend so far up 

 the arm as with the Kayans [9, PL 92] ; the forearm design 

 is made up of a hornbill motif but that shown in Fig. a 

 of the plate is termed betik kule^ leopard pattern, and is 

 supposed to be a representation of the spots on the leopard's 

 skin ; it is stated to be taken from a Long Tepai tatu-block ; 

 the knuckles are tatued with a double row of wedges, the 

 finger joints with quadrangles. 



The Uma Luhat seem to have borrowed their tatu and 



^ The names of the designs are given in Kayan. 



