12 SARAWAK ETHNOGRAPHICAL COLLECTION. 



A somewhat similar specimen is figured by Whitehead 

 in " Exploration of Mount Kina Balu." (1893) p. 108. 



3. Maloh and Sea-Dyak — Blikan. 



a. Maloh — Blikan (Plate II, fig. 3). Two-stringed guitar 

 cut from a block of soft white wood. The resonator is hollow- 

 ed out from the front and the cavity is closed by a tightly-fit- 

 ting wooden lid, securely pegged on ; this lid is decorated with a 

 geometrical design painted in indigo. The end of the resonator 

 is produced and solid, it has been whittled and fretted to form 

 a scroll. Four triangular holes, their apices conjoined are cut 

 in the lid of the resonator and a block of wood is left attached 

 to the lid just distad of the four holes. The stem is quite straight, 

 somewhat triangular in section, it is very deep from front to 

 back in its lower (distal) portion where it joins the resonator 

 and the back of it here is scrolled and decorated with lines of 

 black dammar ; three chevrons of dammar are painted across 

 the back of the stem higher up. The proximal end is expanded 

 into a head carved to represent the head of a hornbill (Buceros 

 rhinoceros) with a seed in its mouth, the neck is stained 

 black. Two tuning pegs transfix the stem below the head. 

 The two rattan strings distally are fastened to two little wood- 

 en spikes stuck into the wooden block on the lid of the resonator : 

 proximally they pass through holes in the stem just over the tun- 

 ing pegs, out through the tuning-peg-holes and are gripped in the 

 split-ends of these pegs (Plate VII, fig. 5). Total length 89.8 

 cm.; length of stem 52 cm.; breadth of resonator 15.5 cm. 



Catalogue No. 54. Brooke Low collection. Brooke Low 

 (quoted by Ling Roth 1. c. Vol. II, p. 262), describes a blikan in 

 use amongst Saribas and Kalaka Sea-Dyaks ; in this, the head 



* The Malohs whose headquarters appear to be theKapuas river, 

 Dutch Borneo, are an unsettled wandering people who frequently 

 come over into Sarawak for trading purposes. Dr. A. C. Haddon, F. R. S. , 

 who measured 7 individuals finds that these had an average cephalic 

 index of 76-2 ; he does not group them in any of the five classes into 

 which he divides the natives of Sarawak, but it is likely that they 

 <*1 !)}[ 7 // (c"Ut * a ^ * nto ^ ie K c nyah-K ayaa division (cf. A sketch of the Ethnography 

 of Sarawak, Haddon, Archivio per l'Antropologia et FEtnologia, Vol. 

 XXXI, 1901). 



Jour. Straits Branch 



