SARAWAK TO Mert, 188 
De C tells me that in this district sons are a curse, and 
daughters a blessing to their parents, both amongst the Malays 
and Milanos, for this curious reason. that when the sons grow up 
they look to the parents to help them with the bri-an, or wedding 
portion, and when married they leave their home to live in the 
house of their father-in-law. 
A man and woman with a family of daughterswould thus be 
gainers by a number of young men coming to live in their house 
and working for them on their sago plantations, aud would, at the 
same time, have the pleasure of seeing the gongs ranged round 
the posts and walls which the young men have brought as bri-an 
into the family. 
De C , who was amongst the Muruts shooting mas in 
the north of Borneo for some months in 1870, speaks of these 
people as thorough savages. Some of them are tattooed. They 
was up the Padas river, 
are great head-hunters, and when De C 
a sacrifice took place in the neighbourhood, and I cannot do better 
than use his own words :— 
“One of the Muruts had been murdered by a roving party of 
“ head-hunters, 7. ¢.. killed with blow-pipes. The tribe, determin- 
“ine to avenge his death, seized on an old woman belonging to 
“the hostile tribe. who had been long living in the village, and, 
binding her on a bamboo grating over the grave. proceeded to 
“despatch her with knives, spears and daggers. 
“The brother of the murdered man struck the first blow, then 
“all joined in till life was extinct ; the blood was allowed to flow 
into the grave over the corpse; the skull was cut into fragments, 
“and with the corresponding portions of the sealp, the hair 
“ attached, was divided amongst the friends and relatives ; the nails 
were also extracted. 
“The Orang Kaya then proceeded to ornament a pole in the 
native fashion, with strips of plantain bark, the summit of which 
“he surmounted with his portion of the skull: on either side of 
“the centre pole, another pole was erected, on each of which the 
“five nails of a hand were exposed. The body of the woman was 
“ buried with that of the murdered man. 
* The Muruts have a curious prejudice against pork that has not 
“been raised under their own houses; the people of one village 
“will not eat of a pig which has been reared in a neighbouring 
. 
© 
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