On Tally Sticks and Strings in Borneo. 



By Dr. Hose and J. Hewitt. 



Amongst the natives of Sarawak, notched sticks and 

 strings are in common use for keeping record of contracts. To 

 some of the various tribes the custom is one of antiquity whilst 

 in other cases e.g. the Sea Dayaks, it is certainly a new idea 

 borrowed from their neighbours. 



If a Malanau undertakes to meet another person in a 

 definite number of days he ties up a piece of string into as 

 many knots as there are days before the fulfilment of his 

 engagement : as each day passes by he unties a knot. The 

 same people often appear in the debt courts carrying a knotted 

 string or rotan and explaining that each knot represents a debt 

 of one pasu of lemanta (8 gallons of raw sago). On one occa- 

 sion a Malanau produced in the debt court a stick notched on 

 two sides : on the one side the notches corresponded to his 

 debt, and on the other side he had cut a notch each time he 

 had made a repayment. 



Amongst the Kenyahs, Punans and other tribes of the 

 interior this custom reaches its highest development. The 

 string is made from bark of the tree known to Kenyahs as 

 Kumut and to Sea Dayaks as Tekalong (Artocarpus sp.) As 

 before, it is knotted according to the number of days before 

 that of the engagement, and each party keeps a string. They 

 wear it on their person tied to the unus, slender leglets of 

 twisted fibre usually from the ijok palm (Arenga saccharifera). 

 As each day passes by a knot is cut clean off. To such people 

 a definite contract thus arranged is kept quite seriously and 

 the evidence of his tally string is usually deemed quite suffi- 

 cient to relieve the wearer of other conflicting duties which 

 might be imposed upon him by the head-man of the house. 



But this custom is by no means confined to men. Even 

 Bali Atap, a god of the Kenyahs, wears such knotted strings 

 around his neck to tell off the number of doors in the house 



Jour-. Straits Branch K. A, Soc, No. 49, 1907, 



