88 
ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES. 
A Note on the Origin of the Land-Dayak Villages of 
Sentah and Quop. 
Sentah. 
Sentah is a name applied by Malays to a village 
of Land-Dayaks living on S'buran hill not far from 
Kuching. The Dayaks of that village cail themselves 
S'buran in consequence. They settled there over seventy 
years ago (possibly a hundred), having come from Segun, 
up the left-hand branch of the Sarawak River. The 
Segun settlement was formed by a removal from Tanjong 
Mekabuh (or l'anjong Bunoir) and that settlement was 
formed by an excursion of Davaks from Sekung, on the 
borders of Dutch territory not far from Mt. Penrissen 
at the head-waters of the Sarawak River. The story 
goes that two brothers were in charge of Sekung , but 
owing to a serious quarrel the tribe divided and followed 
one brother up the Sadong River. 
It seems impossible to fix any dates to these 
removals, but if we give each settlement the same length 
of life as the present one at Sentah, we get the excursion 
from Sekung taking place about 200 years ago or more. 
A suggested derivation of the word “ Sentah " is 
the Malay word “ ’ntah ” meaning “don't know” or 
don’t understand.” Thus Malays visiting these people 
at S'buran and probably being quite unable to under¬ 
stand a single word of their language, kept repeating the 
words “I don't understand”; and probably this was 
the first and only Malay word the S'buran people learnt, 
so that when other Malays came, this was their reply 
“ 'ntah'' hence the nickname “ Sentah." 
The Sentah people relate that the foot of S'buran 
hill (at a spot called I ring) was occupied by the B'Lundu 
people before they themselves arrived ; and remains of 
their house are still to be seen on this place. The 
B'Lundu were so-called by the Sentah people because they 
went from Sentah to settle at Lundu, not because they 
came from Lundu, as one would guess. Where they 
came from before Sentah is not known apparently, nor 
is it known under what name they lived at Sentah 
before their migration to Lundu. These B'Lundu are 
true Land-Dayaks and not the Sibuyaus of Sea-Dayak 
stock who form the larger part of the inhabitants of 
Lundu nowadays. The prefix B’ means “ People of”; 
