468 TWO YEAES IN THE JUNGLE. 



The married couples and tlieir small children and girls retire 

 to their rooms, and spread their mats upon the floor, being usually 

 provided with dingy cotton-cloth ciu'tains as a protection against 

 the mosquitoes. The walls are thin and slight, but I never heard 

 issuing from within them any sounds of cui'tain-lecturing, bicker- 

 ing, or worse still, wife-beating, such as came to my ears in the 

 hotels at Calcutta, Colombo, and Demerara. I have often won- 

 dered what would happen if a Dyak should go to beating his wife 

 and she to screaming. I am sure his neighbors would interfere 

 vigorously. 



It is not surprising that the Dyaks generally are fond of amuse- 

 ments, although they have no games of chance or mental skilL 

 The people of Muka have great sport sw^inging with a long rattan 

 attached to a high derrick and guyed to keep it from swaying to 

 and fro. A ladder is planted a short distance off from which to 

 start, and ten or a dozen men often swing together, the outsiders 

 chnging to the anns and legs of the others.* The children of the 

 Hill Dyaks at S'Impio play with peg-tops precisely as do those of 

 England, spinning them, and throwing one spinning top at another 

 to knock it out of place, f The Ballow Dyaks play prisoner's base 

 and international " tug-of-war " in the most approved style, and 

 the Sakarrans are much given to such athletic sports as va-estUng, 

 sham-fighting, jumping, running, and swinging.^ The Kennowits 

 are good at dancing in time to music, and entertain the visitor 

 with a " mias dance," " deer dance," regular war dance, all in cos- 

 tume, and, most interesting of all, a well-acted pantomimic repre- 

 sentation of the various events in a head-hunting expedition, the 

 start, the journey, the sui-prise, the fight, head-taking, defeat, re- 

 treat, etc. § 



Mr. A. R. Wallace describes his attempt to initiate some Dyak 

 children into the mysteries of cat's cradle, but he succeeded so 

 poorly that, out of comj)assion, the children took the stiing and 

 showed him the proper way to do it. 



The only amusements I saw among the Sibuyaus were of a 

 musical character. The people of Gumbong's \aLlage, with whom 

 I lived at the head of the Sibuyau, were decidedly musical, and 

 scarcely an evening passed without a performance of some kind. 



* Rajah Brooke, " Ten Years in Sarawak." f Hugh Low, " Sarawak." 



X Spenser St. John, " Life in the Forests of the Far East." 

 § Frederick Boyle, " Adventures Among the Dyaks." 



