AMONG THE OKANG-UTANS. 357 



point at the bottom for it to turn upon iu lieu of a hinge. On one 

 of the doors nearest us I noticed a figure of a crocodile rudely 

 carved in low rehef. The outline was very good but no time had 

 been spent in working out the details. 



The side of the house which was enclosed, and also the ends, 

 were made up of wide slabs of bark lashed to the framework. The 

 roof was of "attap," or large square sections of palm-leaves sewn 

 together and lashed to the rafters in courses, like shingles. 



Each room in a Dyak long-house represents a family, or at 

 least a married couple, and a village is taxed according to the num- 

 ber of its " doors." This, then, was "a village of sixteen doors." 

 The young unmarried men and boys slept over the hall in the loft 

 which forms a part of every such habitation, partly for storage and 

 j)artly for domicihary purposes. 



Each j^rivate room has no other door than the one opening from 

 the passage. The floor is generally covered with mats. In a cor- 

 ner of the room next the outer wall is a bed of earth on which the 

 family fire is built. At this corner the roof is so constructed that a 

 portion of it, usually two or three rafters, can be Hfted up bodily 

 for about two feet and pi'opped up to admit hght and aii-, and also 

 to allow the smoke to escape in case there should be an excess 

 of it. There are no tables or chairs — indeed no furnitm-e of any 

 kind. 



In the centre of the long hall a fire was burning on a bed of 

 earth, and above it hung a bundle of about twenty human heads, 

 or rather skulls, for not a vestige of flesh remained on any of them. 

 Each skull was bound round securely with rattan, evidently to keep 

 the lower jaw in place. All were black and grimy with smoke and 

 soot, and those at the bottom of the bundle, nearest the fire, were 

 quite charred. We were among the head-hunters, and those were 

 trophies which our money could not buy. Thanks to the govern- 

 ment of Sir James Brooke, those heads were all old trophies, no 

 doubt collected prior to 1841, by the skinny and toothless old fel- 

 lows who now totter about the village, and pound their betel in a 

 joint of bamboo because they cannot chew it. 



According to all accounts, the Dyaks of Southern Borneo are 

 tame subjects in comparison with the dashing, dare-devil tribes of 

 the north. A man may travel the whole length of the Mahakkam 

 or the Barito and visit the villages of the most warlike tribes with- 

 out being able to set eyes on more than one skull. Here in the 

 Sadong we find a scoi'e in the first village of Sea Dyaks we set foot 



