136 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



cents if the hair was not long. At other times nothing 

 would induce tlicm to submit to the camera. A young 

 woman recently married had a rinv w ith her husband one 

 night, and the affair became very boisterous, when sud- 

 denly they came to terms. The trouble arose through 

 her desire to earn some pin-money by being photographed 

 in the act of climbing an areca palm, a proceeding which 

 did not meet with his approval. 



There were three female blians in the kampong 

 whom I desired to photograph as they performed the 

 dances connected with their office, but the compensation 

 they demanded was so exorbitant (two hundred florins in 

 cash and nine tins of rice) that we did not reach an 

 agreement. Later in the day they reduced their demand 

 to thirty florins for a pig to be used at the dancing, 

 which proposition I also declined, the amount named 

 being at least six times the value of the animal, but I 

 was more fortunate in my dealings with the two male 

 blians of the place, one of them a Dusun, and succeeded 

 in inducing them to dance for me one forenoon. 



The two men wore short sarongs around their loins, 

 the women's dress, though somewhat shorter; otherwise 

 they were nude except for bands, to which numerous 

 small metal rattles were attached, running over either 

 shoulder and diagonally across chest and back. After a 

 preliminary trial, during which one of them danced with 

 much elan, he said: "I felt a spirit come down in my 

 body. This will go well." The music was provided by 

 two men who sat upon long drums and beat them with 

 fervour and abandon. The dance was a spirited move- 



