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I)yaks of Borneo. They are, some of them, head-hunters, 
and even cannibals. Human skulls ornament the chiefs 
houses, and, when he dies, it is necessary to obtain two 
fresh human skulls with which to adorn his grave. 
Some curious burying - places exist in the northern 
peninsula, near the village of Sawangan, which have been 
described by the American traveller Bickmore. These 
are what may be termed vertical coffins, consisting of 
solid rectangular upright stones, deeply hollowed out at 
the top, so as to receive the body, and covered with a 
roof-shaped capstone, adorned with rude carvings of 
human figures in a sitting attitude, the knees clasped by 
the hands. This elaborate mode of burial, if correctly 
described, is, it is believed, unique among savage tribes. 
These northern people, however, are different from the 
Dyak-like tribes farther south, and may have affinities 
with some of the indigenes of the Philippines, or of the 
islands of Northern Polynesia. In this peninsula the 
number of different languages is extraordinary. At its 
extremity, a small tract of country some 60 miles by 
20, more than a dozen are spoken. Some of these may 
perhaps be more or less dialectic, but the majority are 
said to be quite distinct, and the people of the different 
tribes cannot make themselves understood except through 
the medium of Malay, although, perhaps, their villages 
may be within three miles of one another. The Mina- 
hasans have been almost all converted to Christianity, 
and have become an orderly, industrious, and intelligent 
people. At Tomore, on the eastern side of the central 
portion of the island (and probably elsewhere), the 
natives make bark cloth, closely resembling the “ tapa ” 
of the Polynesians. It is beaten out by wooden mallets 
till it becomes as thin and tough as parchment; it is 
then washed with an extract from some bark, which 
