v] NOTES ON THE LAND-DYAKS 



The honesty, and I may add the genuine goodness, of the Land- 

 Dyaks is remarkable, and they are at the same time noted for their 

 ingenuousness and simplicity. The Malays often take advantage 

 of this to impose on them. They nickname them " Bodo," i.e., 

 " Stupids," and make fun of their spirits and religious ceremonies. 

 In past years the Land-Dyaks suffered greatly from the head- 

 hunting expeditions of the Sakarrang and Seribas Dyaks, by whom 

 they were often decimated. The Malays, too, used to victimise 

 them, and before the advent of Sir James Brooke forced them to 

 work in the antimony mines at a ridiculous rate of pay, such as a 

 few beads or rings of brass wire. They are now fairly prosperous. 

 The Rajah's government does not require of them, nor of any of its 

 other native subjects, any kind of obligatory labour ; and each head 

 of a family merely has to pay a small tax. 



They grow a sufficiency of rice for their own use, with a surplus 

 to sell ; they possess an abundance of fruit both cultivated and 

 wild, while the forest gives them in addition a variety of products 

 for their own use and for trade. They do not, like the Sea-Dyaks, 

 eat all kinds of food. Thus the ox — which, however, they rarely 

 see — is regarded as sacred, and they would not dream of eating 

 beef. Nor do they eat the buffalo or the goat ; and some tribes, 

 e.g., the Singhi, will not eat the flesh of the deer. In some cases 

 they even refrain from poultry. Pork, however, is regarded as a 

 great luxury, and wild pigs are hunted with dogs, but oftener taken 

 in traps called " petti," which consist of a horizontal bamboo stake 

 (jerunkan), driven by a strong spring, which is released on the 

 animals touching a string which is placed across the path. These 

 traps are very dangerous for human beings who wander in- 

 cautiously where they are set, generally producing a frightful wound 

 in the knee, that being the height at which the bamboo stake or 

 arrow is placed to transfix the pig. 



The Land-Dyaks usually cremate their dead, an unusual thing 

 amongst primitive peoples. They make no idols or images repre- 

 senting the souls of the departed. It is said, however, that on 

 certain occasions some tribes pay a sort of worship to wooden 

 figures representing birds. They have plants which they consider 

 sacred, such as the " bulu gading," or ivory bamboo; the " bunga 

 si kudip " (Eurycles ambonensis), mentioned by Low, which, 

 however, I have not myself met with in Borneo ; and Draccena 

 terminalis, which latter appears to have followed human migration 

 from Southern India as far as New Guinea. 



were accidental merely, for the disease known as " cascado," so prevalent 

 in Malaysia and the Pacific Islands, is due to a vegetable parasite 

 {Trichophyton), and has gained its scientific name, Tinea circinata or 

 imbricata, from the circular and overlapping patterns it produces on the 

 body. — -Ed. 



6i 



