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PALAWAN. 
The jacket is short, with very tight sleeves, and ornamented down the front with cross 
braids and buttons, which are often of gold. Their trousers are either of the loose Chinese 
pattern or of the Suln cut, which is decidedly peculiar. The seat is enormously bagged 
and contains enough material for another pair; below the knee they are as tight as they 
are loose elsewhere, buttoned halfway up the outside of the leg, and barred with black 
stitching. Round the Avaist is wound in many folds bands of gaudy-coloured cloth, the 
object of this being as a protection from each other’s “barongs,” Avhich weapon is nothing 
more or less than a butcher’s cleaver. A turban completes the dress of the Sulu, Avhich is 
often a Battak head-cloth, Avorked by the Avomen in silks. The Sulu is such a treacherous 
scoundrel himself, and has generally a vendetta hanging over him, that he imagines everyone 
he meets to be the same, and consequently is never seen Avithout his Aveapons, Avhich 
consist of an enormously long heavy spear, a barong, or kris, and often a Snider rifle or a 
revolver. In Taguso I never met a Suln unarmed, and in their own houses they either 
Avear or nurse their “ barong.” Such Avas the state of Sulu society in 1887. 
The dress of the Avomen consists of a tight-fitting short jacket and a pair of loose 
trousers; a sarong is generally Avorn over one shoulder. All these garments are made of 
the brightest of colours; and as many of the young Sulu Avomen are very pretty, Avhen 
dressed in their best they are by no means to be despised. 
The Sulus generally congregate in small villages ; these villages are compact, as the 
inhabitants live in a perpetual state of vendetta with others often living but a feAV miles 
distant. Slaves are kept by all the better class, are generally seized for debt, and are often 
Dusuns. 
The Sulu is a Mohammedan, and buries his dead in small cemeteries some distance from 
the village. The accompanying sketch is of a Sulu grave-yard in Palawan. The graves 
are raised about a foot from the ground, the sides being built up Avith rough timber. The 
curious round bottle-like head-pieces are made of Avood and are used for men only, and are 
probably a modification of the Turkish Turban Head-stakes—the head-pieces for the 
Avomen’s graves being flat. In the centre of my sketch is a rather better class of grave, 
this belongs to a Sulu noblewoman. The mosquito-net in the distance is hung over a 
fresh grave, the custom of the Sulus being to hang the departed’s “ Colombo ” over his 
last resting-place. 
The Orang Sungei, as the Kadyans called the half-cast Sulu Dusuns, are settled on 
