EINA BALTT. 
107 
the women wear coils of thick brass wire round their wrists and ankles, one old dame 
having a pair of solid brass anklets, several pounds in weight, which she always wore. 
A cowl is worn during field-work as a protection from the sun. I purchased in Melangkap 
a suit of clothes worn on festive occasions ; they are tastefully embroidered with a pattern 
worked in red and white. Children run naked until about four vears of age. Both men and 
women are faker-skinned than the coast people; some of the youths are really handsome, 
with well-cut features, but the Mongolian type of feature predominates. Few men are as 
tall as 5 feet 10 inches, the average height being about 5 feet 4 or 6 inches ; but they are 
marvellously strong and active considering their rather frail limbs, and they can carry loads 
all day over the most mountainous country that few Europeans would care to carry for 
many hundreds of yards. 
The everyday life of a Dusun is much the same from year’s end to year’s end, varied 
only by the seasons. He plants his rice, and after that has been harvested “ kaladi ” 
(Caladium esculentum) is put in on the same ground. During the season that the crops 
are ripe most of the Dusuns spend their time in the fields, a small bamboo house being 
built for the family, whose work is to scare away the flocks of rice-eating finches, the 
chief offender being a small brightly coloured finch (Erythrura prasina). This bird is 
called “ Tuhan ” by the Dusuns ; it is very brightly coloured, red, blue, green, and buff 
being amongst the colours of its plumage. The principal fruits are jack-fruit, tarripe, and 
pisangs ; of vegetables, cucumbers, gourds, sweet-potatoes, and kaladi. Of palms, the 
coconut supplies a strong-smelling intoxicating drink, which is obtained by tapping the 
fruit-stem and suspending a bamboo-joint to catch the sap; the nuts consequently are not 
of much account, and are seldom eaten by the Dusuns. Areca palms supply the usual 
chewing-nuts; and I also noticed several clumps of sago-palms in some swampy land near 
the village, the leaves of which were used for attaps. After the harvest the men are busy 
felling the growth which has sprung up during some seven years since the last crop was 
planted; after the trees are dry enough they are burnt and the new crop is planted. Many 
Dusuns go three or four times a month to the tamels, which are generally held in dried-up 
river-beds. To the tamel they will often make a two days’ journey, with a few articles of 
their own manufacture—such as bamboo baskets and hats, bark ropes, and, where they 
grow it, tobacco—over a country which is in itself a pilgrimage to traverse, a good many 
of the heaviest loads on these occasions being carried by the women. The tamel is the 
Dusun’s market-day, and, like the European, he often gets drunk and does a deal of gossip 
on these occasions. Now and then enemies meet, and there is a free fight, especially 
if the men are liquor-brave. During the slack season, after the rice is planted or again 
after the harvest, the men do a little hunting or fishing, 
The Melangkaps, however, are not such great trappers as the Kiaus. They set 
numerous pig-traps in the vicinity of the village. The trap is made by fixing a long sharp 
bamboo spear to a tough sapling, which is bent back and fixed, so that by touching a fine 
string the unwary porker lets loose the sapling, the force of which is sufficient to drive the 
spear clear through a pig, or occasionally through a Dusun’s leg. One of the Kadyans 
narrowly escaped an accident with one of these traps, the spear going through his trousers 
and grazing his leg. The forests they search for rattan canes and damar: with the first 
