902 REPORT- -1900. 



The natives have a high regard for these stone implements, which have in their 

 eyes a pacred character, and it is Tery difficult to persuade their owners to part 

 with them. In all cases fowls had to be sacrificed to appease the spirits. The 

 implements are stored with other sacred objects, and most of them are believed to 

 be teeth, or toe-nails, of Baling Go, the Thunder God. 



5. Houses and Family Life in Saraivah. 

 By A. C. Haddon, Sc.D., F.R.S. 



The author exhibited a series of nearly fifty lantern slides taken during his 

 recent expedition to Sarawak, which were selected to illustrate the type of house 

 that is common among the settled inland tribes of Borneo and the every-day life 

 of the people. No attempt was made to distinguish between the various tribes, as 

 their mode of life is very similar in its main features. The villages are all situated 

 on or close by the banks of rivers ; most of the houses are of large size, and may con- 

 tain from half-a-dozen to sixty families. Sometimes a village consists of a single 

 house or of a string of houses placed endwise to each other. 



A house is built on piles some ten to twenty feet from the ground. Along the 

 side facing the river is a wide verandah, which stretches down the whole length 

 of the house. Here many of the domestic industries are carried on, and all social 

 and public busine-s is transacted. The dwelling-rooms of each family open by a 

 single door on to the verandah. While the common verandah affords every facility 

 for social intercourse the privacy of the home is thoroughly respected. 



In the verandah of nearly every house is at least one trophy of the skulls of 

 enemies, which are supposed to bring good luck and plenteous harvests. Food is 

 occasionally ofi'ered to them, and a fire has to be kept burning beneath them, other- 

 wise the skulls would he uncomfortable and bring misfortunes to the house. 

 Various industries were illustrated by slides, such as the husking and winnowing 

 of rice by the women. The houses are often ornamented with carvings or 

 paintings of a conventional character, the style of decoration varying according 

 to the tribe. 



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. 

 Tho following Papers were read : — 



1. On the Antliroxiology of West Yorkshire. 

 By John Beddoe, M.D., LL.D., F.E.S. 



The author discussed the question whether any considerable British or pre- 

 Anglian element remained in the country around Bradford. Without coming to 

 any positive conclusion, he was disposed to consider the inhabitants of these parts 

 as mainly Anglian in type. More British blood remained further north, in Craven. 

 A prevalent type about Leeds seemed to him to resemble the Burgundian Belair 

 type of His and Riitimeyer. 



2. On the Vagaries of the KephaUc Index, ^y John Beddoe, 

 M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 



The commiimcation isi based on a description of two heads, both dolichoid in 

 pattern, but of which the one, which was most distinctly so, gave a latitudinal 

 index (living) of 82-3, owing to retarded ossification of the posterior part of the 

 temporo-parietal suture. But for this the author thought the iijdes would w\ 

 have exceeded 77 



