448 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



ited the Trings at home stated to Mr. Bock that they live " in large 

 houses several hundred feet long, but extremely dirty inside, of a 

 wretched appearance outside," and literally full of skuUs taken in 

 head-hunting expeditions. 



The Kyans proper have on two occasions been publicly accused 

 of cannibalism, once by some Sibaru Dyaks, of the Kapooas, who 

 declared that the Kyans (their allies) on one occasion ate a Malay 

 who was slain in battle ; and once by a Malay noble, named Usup, 

 who declared that in 1855 a few Kyan warriors took portions of 

 the bodies of some executed criminals, which they had helped to 

 capture when alive, roasted, and ate them. Both these instances 

 are given by Mr. St. John.* One or two other tribes in the Dutch 

 Territory have also been accused of exhibiting the same bad taste. 



The people of the Kyan tribe are the only ones in Borneo with 

 whom the practice of tattooing seems to be universal. Of those 

 who live in the north, the Kyans proper, the Kenowits and Paka- 

 tans are known to practise this custom ; while of those in the 

 south, Mr. Bock states that all the Dyak sub-tribes in Kotei tattoo, 

 except those in the Long Bleh district. The Tring women and 

 those of the Baram Kyans tattoo their thighs very elaborately, and 

 the women of Long Wai do the same with their feet and hands. 



The Kyans come the nearest to having a religious belief, or, 

 rather, system of formulated superstitions, of all the Dyaks. The 

 Baram Kyans believe in a future existence, and their heaven and 

 heU are divided into various compartments for the proper accom- 

 modation of all according to the circumstances under which they 

 die. They pay much attention to the carving of wooden images and 

 charms, to aU of which more or less meaning is attached ; still their 

 ideas of a Supreme Being and a future state are very vague, and 

 they have no reHgious rites or outward observances.! 



The Trings have a well-defined belief in a tribal heaven, and a 

 purgatory of toiling and enduring which must be passed through 

 before the heaven can be reached. Yet the Trings practise canni- 

 balism in war, and ofifer human sacrifices at the tiwahs (death feasts) 

 which are made upon the return of an expedition. IVIi-. Perelaer 

 describes such an event, held on the Upper Kahajan River by a 

 Kyan clan (of which the Trings are a branch), at which forty 

 slave debtors were put to death by torture, or by flesh wounds in- 

 flicted by the men and boys of the tribe. 



* Life in the Forests of the Far East. 

 t St. John, vol. i., p. 110. 



