328 THE WAR DRESSES 



but fits closely to the person, and is longer than the 

 cotton ones of the Hill tribes : it is also frequently made 

 of the pine- apple fibre. 



In war, the dress of the men differs much from 

 the Dyaks of other denominations. The jackets they 

 wear on these occasions are made of the skins of 

 beasts ; those of the panther and the bear are the most 

 esteemed, but those of goats and dogs are sometimes 

 substituted in a scarcity of the others. The jacket is 

 formed by a hole being cut in the skin, at about the 

 neck of the animal, through which the head of the 

 warrior is thrust, the skin of the head of the animal 

 hanging down over his breast, ornamented with little 

 shells, placed over one another, like scales, and to the 

 end of which a large mother-of-pearl shell is attached, 

 which reaches to the middle. The broad part of the 

 skin forms the back part of the jacket, the edges of which 

 are bound with wide strips of red cloth. Bunches of 

 feathers of the rhinoceros hornbill, which seems to be 

 the war-bird of all their tribes, depend from little 

 strings of beads, fastened to the skin, and dangle in 

 the breeze as they move about. Strings, fixed in the 

 inside of the skin, and long enough to tie round the 

 body, protect the dress from being inconveniently blown 

 about, as, were it loose, it would be. Their head-dresses 

 in war are also peculiar to these people, and unknown 

 to the other inhabitants of the island : they are of various 

 descriptions, but the favourite ones are caps made in 

 the fashion of a man's face caricatured, and those which 

 represent the faces of animals. 



