"94 
ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES. 
.specially the evildoers, who become Baru’s slaves. 
They are always being trodden on ; even when being 
put into their coffins their corpses swell and have to be 
stamped on by foot to get them in. 
Men who are killed on the warpath, or women who 
■die in childbirth, are exempt from this purifying process 
of “ menulang,” and their spirits float about in the air 
and live on the proceeds of the labour of the Long Apek 
people. 
Palleh is their god of harvest, and he is represented 
by a constellation in the sky which represents a man 
striding over the Pleiades, with only one arm. Palleh 
lost this arm through an accidental cut from his mortal 
son-in-law Lurou, when clearing the jungle for farming. 
They use the Pleiades and Orion constellations to 
find out the time for farming, which commences when 
the Pleiades are visible over the tree tops at early dawn. 
The Pleiades are called by them “ Pun Bulo,” i.e., the 
bamboo clump, and Orion is the “ Pekassan,” i.e., the 
pig trap. 
As mentioned above, two divisions (the Long Patas 
and Pa Li its) of this once powerful race are now reduced 
to living in one house containing some go families. 
This is on the Tutau River, a bare two days’ journey 
above the Government station at Claudetown. The 
remaining division, the Tabuns, are confined to some 
three small houses near the mouth of the Madalam River 
which flows into the Limbang about 60 miles from the 
•coast. The chief of them is Tama Belulok, who lives 
in a small house at Kuala Damit. According to him the 
Trengs were a powerful race at one time inhabiting the 
'country between the head-waters of the Limbang, 
Madihit and Baram. Through a continuous series of 
reverses, raids by their enemies and ravages of disease 
they are now reduced to a vanishing point. In fact the 
younger generation in Tama Belulok’s house no longer 
talk Tabun, but have adopted the speech of their 
immediate neighbours the Adang Muruts, with whom 
thev are inter-marrving. In the house of Tama Seluling, 
another Tabun at Kuala Madalam, it is the same. In the 
matter of language the following notes may be of interest. 
First of all Murut, Kalabit and Tabun (Treng) seem very 
much alike and have a certain number of words in 
Limbang Tabuns can nearly all understand 
•common. 
