268 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



Homo, I enjoyed my meal very much, but I could 

 not induce Cox to join me. After the meal our Sea- 

 Dayak hunters and our Land-Dayak guides engaged 

 in a long discussion on what animals were good to 

 eat and what were not ; the former were nearly sick 

 when they heard that our guides ate bear when they 

 could get it, and did not believe us when we told them 

 that in Canada bear's feet were considered a delicacy. 

 Land-Dayaks will not eat deer, because they fancy 

 that in doing so they acquire the timorousness of that 

 animal ; but also it is amongst these people tabu to eat 

 beef or butter or to drink milk, and as their name of 

 the Supreme Being is Tupa [Note 21, p. 318] some 

 authorities have sought to trace a connection between 

 these Borneans and the beef-eschewing, cow-worship- 

 ping Brahmins of India. Ethnological speculations 

 are almost proverbially wild, but wilder shots have 

 been made than this, for it is certain that the Land- 

 Dayaks are amongst the more primitive people of 

 Borneo, and are of the same stock as certain tribes of 

 Java, where Hinduism was once the national religion. 

 The Land-Dayaks have a tradition that they came 

 from Java, and it may well be that they migrated 

 from that island before its Hindu conquerors were 

 driven out by the Mohammedan invaders. 



Both Sea-Dayaks and Land-Dayaks found common 

 ground in descanting on the merits of pickled pork. 

 Whenever these people prepare for a future feast, they 

 fill great jars with lumps of pork to which is added a 

 modicum of salt ; the jars are sealed up and are not 

 opened till the feast days arrive, and then the putrid, 

 stinking masses of greenish-coloured meat are devoured 

 with gusto by young and old. That wholesale death 



