96 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



He expressed his opinion that the government would 

 find it extremely difficult to stamp out head-hunting in 

 Apo Kayan, with its 15,000 Dayaks, because the custom 

 is founded in their religious conception. ''Our ancestors 

 have always taken heads," they say; **we also do it, and 

 the spirits will then be satisfied. We have learned it from 

 our ancestors, who want us to do it." "They often ask 

 us," the lieutenant said: ''When are you going to leave 

 Long Nawang .? When you are gone then we will again 

 take up the head-hunting." These same Kenyahs are 

 entrusted to go to Long Iram to bring provisions to the 

 garrison. About eighty of them are sent, accompanied 

 by only two soldiers, and after three months' absence the 

 goods arrive safely at Long Nawang. 



On board the steamer were also two Punan head- 

 hunters from the interior who were being taken to Band- 

 jermasin under the guard of two soldiers. They had been 

 caught through the assistance of other Punans, and in 

 prison the elder one had contracted the dry form of 

 beri-beri. He was a pitiful sight, in the last stage of a 

 disease not usually found among his compatriots, no longer 

 able to walk, looking pale and emaciated and having lost 

 the sight of his right eye. They had rather wild but not 

 unpleasant faces, and were both tatued like the Ken- 

 yahs. Their hair had been cut short in the prison. I 

 later took the anthropometric measurements of the 

 young man, who was a fine specimen of the savage, with 

 a splendid figure, beautifully formed hands and feet — 

 his movements were elastic and easy. 



As it had been found impossible to secure Dayaks in 



