236 THROrCH CKNTRAL BORNEO 



hers of the procession; most of whom acted as pall-bear- 

 ers, and all were poor people. They deposited their 

 burden on the bank, kneeling around it for a few minutes 

 and crying mournfully. A hen had been killed at the 

 house, but no food was offered to antoh at the place of 

 embarkation, as had been expected by some of their 

 neighbours. 



Covered with a large white cloth, the coffin was hur- 

 riedly taken down from the embankment and placed in 

 a prahu, which they immediately proceeded to paddle 

 down-stream where the burial was to take place in the 

 utan some distance away. The reddish-brown waters of 

 the Mahakam, nearly always at flood, flowed swiftly be- 

 tween the walls of dark jungle on either side and shone 

 in the early afternoon sun, under a pale-blue sky, with 

 beautiful, small, distant white clouds. Three mourners 

 remained behind, one man standing, gazing after the 

 craft. Then, as the prahu, now very small to the eye, ap- 

 proached the distant bend of the river, in a few seconds to 

 disappear from sight, the man who had been standing in 

 deep reflection went down to the water followed by the 

 two women, each of whom slipped off her only garment 

 in their usual dexterous way, and all proceeded to bathe, 

 thus washing away all odours or other effects of contact 

 with the corpse, which might render them liable to attack 

 from the antoh that had killed the woman blian. 



In the first week of June we began our return journey 

 against the current, arriving in the afternoon at Data 

 Lingei, an Oma-Suling kampong said to be inhabited also 

 by Long-Cilats and three other tribes. We were very 



