THE ABORIGINES OF BORNEO. 457 



take their heavy goods to market. The gardens on the Tarawan 

 are well kept and neatly fenced in." 



"None of the Idaans pay any tribute to any one, and no one 

 dares to oppress them. Each village is a separate government, and 

 almost each house independent. They have no estabhshed chiefs, 

 but follow the counsels of the old men to whom they are related. 

 They have no regular wars . . . and theii- feuds are but petty 

 quarrels. Although every man goes armed, perfect security exists, 

 as was proven by the troops of girls working in the fields without 

 protection." 



The only case of pilfering from a white man by a Dyak oc- 

 curred to Mr. St. John, when among the Ida'ans, which may also 

 be set down as due to the results of Chinese influence and example 

 in former times. 



The Muruts and Bisayas are numerically weakened and gi'eatly 

 impoverished by reason of the oft-repeated and usually successful 

 attacks made upon them by the Kyans of Baram. They are 

 steadily driven from one locahty to another, and live in constant 

 feai' of further raids, for, be it remembered, they are far beyond 

 the beneficent influence of Rajah Brooke's government. 



" Orang Murut" means literally "mountain man," and those 

 visited by St. John, who live in the mountain above the soui'ce of 

 the Limbang River, he thus describes : 



The men wear bear-skin jackets, and head-dresses of bai'k or- 

 namented vdth cowries. Heavy necklaces of beads are worn by 

 the men as well as the women, with many rings of lead worn in the 

 rim of the ear. Some j^oung girls have petticoats composed en- 

 tirely of beads on a ground work of cloth or bark. The girls of 

 this tribe also twist a couple of fathoms of brass wire in cu'cles 

 around their necks, which rise from the shoulders to the chin hke 

 a small hoop-skirt. 



The Limbang Muruts Hve in long houses, one of wliich con- 

 tained fifty doors, and the long hall was closed in and filled with 

 fireplaces. 



The Kadyans, who are few in number and live only about 

 Brunei, are the only clan of the aborigines who have taken kindly 

 to the haunts of civilization and choose to dwell near the city, and 

 many even within it. Although like the Ida'ans, they learned their 

 agriculture from the Chinese during the present centur\-, the influ- 

 ence of the Malays has been sufficient to convert them nearly all to 

 Mohammedanism. 



