DECORATIVE ART 275 



embellishment of definite parts of the body for definite 

 reasons, we naturally find a constancy of design ; or, 

 if there are varieties, there is a purpose in them, in the 

 sense that the variations can be traced to pre-existing 

 forms, and do not depart from the original so widely that 

 their significance is altogether lost. With the borrowing 

 of exogenous designs arises such an alteration in their 

 forms that the original names and significance are lost. 

 But when the very practice of tatu has no special meaning, 

 when the tatu-artist may be any member of the tribe, and 

 where no original tatu design is to be found in the tribe, 

 then the borrowed practice and the borrowed designs, 

 unbound by any sort of tradition, run complete riot, and 

 any sort of fanciful name is applied to the degraded designs. 

 Amongst the Kenyah tribes the modification and degrada- 

 tion of the dog design has not proceeded so far as amongst 

 the Sea Dayaks, and this may be explained by their 

 more restrained practice of tatu and by the constant 

 intercourse between them and the Kayans, for they 

 always have good models before them. PI. 137, Fig. 3, 

 illustrates the extreme limit of degradation of the dog 

 design amongst Sea Dayaks ; it is sometimes termed kala^ 

 scorpion,^ and it is noteworthy that the representation of the 

 chelae and anterior end of the scorpion (A) was originally 

 the posterior end of the dog, and the hooked ends of the 

 posterior processes of this scorpion design (B), instead of 

 facing one another as they did when they represented the 

 open jaws of the dog, now look the same way ; the rosette- 

 like eye of the dog still persists, but of course it has no 

 significance in the scorpion. A curious modification of 

 this eye is seen in another Sea Dayak scorpion design 

 figured by E. B. Haddon [4, Fig. 19]. Furness [3, p. 142] 

 figures a couple of scorpion designs, but neither are quite 

 as debased as that which we figure here. Furness also 

 figures a scroll design, not unlike a Bakatan design, tatued 

 on the forearm, and termed taia gasieng^ the thread of the 

 spinning wheel ; a similar one figured by Ling Roth [7, 



1 Mr. E. B. Haddon (4, p. 124) writes : *' The tattoo design used by the 

 Kayans and Kenyahs . . . has been copied and adopted by the Ibans in the 

 same way as the Kalamantans have done, the main difference being, that 

 the Ibans call the design a scorpion. For this reason the pattern tends to 

 become more and more like the scorpion. ..." The italics are ours. Is 

 not this "putting the cart before the horse"? It is only when the design 

 resembles a scorpion that the term scorpion is applied to it ; all other modifi- 

 cations, even though tending towards the scorpion, are called dog, prawn, or 

 crab. 



