450 TWO YEAKS IN THE JUNGLE. 



aflfected the Sea Dyaks. While it is true that the customs of some 

 of the clans required that, in order to be eligible for marriage, a 

 young warrior should be the possessor of a head taken by himself, 

 in most of the clans of this tribe the taking of a head was not a 

 pi'eliminary necessary to marriage. The Hill Dyaks also claim 

 that it has always been contrary to their customs to take the heads 

 of white men or Malays unless slain in battle, or even of strangers 

 from other tribes who wei'e visiting their country. 



But notwithstanding their natural ability and present peaceful 

 habits, the Hill Dyaks have been, in their day, warriors of no 

 mean kind. In 1840 Sir James Brooke states * that the Sentah 

 clan embraced about one thousand warriors, and their head-house 

 contained about one thousand heads. In the pangah, or head-house, 

 of the village of Peninjau, on Serambo mountain, I counted forty- 

 two skulls, or very nearly one for every two fighting men in the vil- 

 lage, and Mr. O. H. St. John informed me that there were quite as 

 many in the other two villages of that mountain, Serambo and 

 Bombok. 



I did not see many Hill Dyaks, and altogether, representatives 

 of but three clans — the Serambo, Sentah, and Sow. They were so 

 similar in both physique and physiognomy as to render it quite im- 

 possible for a stranger to detect any other than purely individual 

 differences between them. They were, I should say, more strongly 

 built than the Sea Dyaks, and a little shorter in stature also, all 

 being decidedly below medium height — five feet, six inches. As a 

 rule both the men and women were well made and muscular, their 

 forms denoting activity and strength in an equal degree. All have 

 that independent and dignified bearing so characteristic of both 

 the Hill and Sea Dyaks, which, resting on a clear conscience and 

 a foundation of good principles, goes far to make the Dyak the 

 equal of the European. 



Most of the men wore cloth jackets in addition to the bark-cloth 

 chawat, and a head-dress of either one or the other of the materials 

 just mentioned. The women wore only the bedang, or half-petti- 

 coat, reaching from hip to knee, but their waists were encircled by 

 hoops of No. 6 brass wire, which lay, one upon another, from the 

 hips upward, in an unbroken coil half way up their plump breasts, 

 which were conspicuous above the upper coil. In the village of 

 Peninjau, on Serambo mountain, I saw a really good-looking gii-1, 



* Mundy's Narrative. 



