340 THE EA.YANS OF THE NORTH-WEST OF BORNEO. 
considered to be so by them the following might tend to 
show. During my stay in the house of the chief Knipa Ba¬ 
ta, one of his children, a little boy, was at the point of death 
from fever. After exhausting all their skill in applying 
remedies, as a last resource the chief took a young chicken 
and passed it a number of times over the face of the child, 
then with his most valued war sword killed it at the window, 
and threw it upwards from him in the direction of the setting 
sun. The sword with the blood on it he then held over the 
face of the child as before, with fervent invocation, desiring 
that his beloved child might not die, and laying himself 
down beside the unconscious little sufferer, indulged in the 
wildest paroxysm of grief. None of the other tribes of the 
Island seem to practise the strange but not singular custom, 
of one person becoming the friend or brother of another, by 
the blood of each being mingled and partaken of mutually, 
either by drinking, or smoking. By the former mode, Mr 
Dalton describes his having become the friend of a Kaykn 
chief of the Coti river. Amongst the Kayans of the north¬ 
west the ceremony is somewhat different. The following 
was observed on my initiation into the brotherhood with 
Lasa Kulan, the chief of Balaga on the Rajang, and of Tubow 
on the Bintulu river. Two days previous to that on which 
the bloody affair came off, the great hall of the chief was 
garnished with the weapons and gaudy skin war dresses of 
the men, and dashed with a fair sprinkling of the finery of 
the women kept more for show than use. On the day ap¬ 
pointed, a number of the neighbouring chiefs having arrived, 
several of them commenced proceedings by haranguing on 
the greatness and power of their ownselves, and of all the 
wonders they had heard of the white people, and of their satis¬ 
faction in being visited by one of them, of whom their fathers 
had heard so much but had never seen. Next a large pig pro¬ 
vided for the occasion was killed, the throat-cutting part 
of the business being performed by one of the fair sex, seem¬ 
ingly with great satisfaction to the attendant crowd of men. 
Next were brought three jars full of arrack of three sorts, 
severally made from rice, sugar-cane, and the fruit tampui. 
In pieces of bambu it was dealt out in profusion to all pre¬ 
sent, the ladies excepted. On the chief taking a bambu 
filled with arrack, we repaired to the balcony in front of the 
house, and stood side by side with our faces towards the 
river. The chief then announced his intention of becoming 
the friend or brother of a son of the white man, on which 
