xvm] FUNERAL CEREMONIES 



fourteen or fifteen pounds of the drug may be found ; but this is a 

 rare and fortunate occurrence, for Borneo camphor has a value 

 about twenty times greater than that of the Chinese drug. At 

 Bintulu the price of a katty (i^ lb.) then varied from nine to ten 

 pieces of blaju (common white unbleached calico). The pieces of 

 red cotton cloth (sumba mera) have a higher price, whilst yellow 

 cotton cloth [sumba kuning) is less valuable than the red, but more 

 so than the white. 



We slept in the forest, and early next morning began to climb 

 the hill, which is far less formidable than it had been described 

 to me. Camphor trees abounded all the way up. We reached the 

 summit in a couple of hours, and found its elevation to be about 

 I >574 feet. The thermometer stood at JJ° Fahr., and the aneroid 

 marked 721 "3 millim. In a streamlet which flows down the side of 

 the hill I collected three species of Gasteropod molluscs. The hill 

 is of argillaceous sandstone, very friable and easily decomposed, 

 and in consequence the waters of the brook were turbid, an unusual 

 thing in Borneo. Finding nothing of much interest, we soon 

 descended to the plain, following the way we had taken on our 

 climb up, and returned by the river to Tubao village. That evening 

 I gave my guides the compensation I had promised them, and dis- 

 tributed glass beads, or manet, to the women and children, which 

 made them very friendly towards me, indeed, rather too much so. 



As I was talking with the Kayans around me I heard weeping and 

 loud lamentations issuing from a house next to the one I occupied, 

 and on inquiry I learnt that an old man who had been long ill was 

 then dying. The corpse was left lying on the mat that night ; but 

 the next morning it was dressed up in the deceased's best clothes, 

 and placed in a sitting posture, with siri and a cigar in the mouth. 

 The body was to be buried three days later, and in the interval the 

 wooden coffin was made. I was told that the bodies of chiefs are 

 kept exposed thus in their houses eight days before they are buried. 

 After some time, as far as I could make out, the body is exhumed ; 

 the bones are collected and enclosed in a new coffin, together with 

 a part of the belongings of the deceased. There is also the singular 

 custom that, if on returning from a burial the women meet men, 

 they bespatter them with mud, or any kind of filth that they can 

 lay hands on. Another strange custom is called " Bolen," and 

 consists in a fine in merchandise, varying in value from ten to 

 twenty dollars, which the first traveller or trader who arrives in 

 the village after a death is obliged to pay. 



The Tubao Kayans appeared to me a finer and more vigorous 

 race than the Dyaks. Not a few were tall and as well-proportioned 

 as any Greek statue. Their usual dress consists merely of the 

 jaw at of cotton cloth, and this is the only garment they wear when 

 engaged in rice cultivation or hunting in the forest. When on a war 



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