The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

40 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
1500 or even more in a few of the largest; while
the average village comprises about 30 families
which, with a few slaves and dependants, make a
community of some 200 to
such community is presided
300 persons. Each
over by a chief A
number of villages of one people are commonly
grouped within easy reach of one another on the
banks of a river. But no people exclusively occupies
or claims exclusive possession of any one territory or
waterway. With the exception of the Sea Dayaks,
all these different peoples may here and there be
found in closely adjoining villages ; and in some
rivers the villages of the different peoples are freely
intermingled over considerable areas. The segrega-
tion of the Sea Dayak villages seems to be due to
the truculent treacherous nature of the Sea Dayak,
which renders him obnoxious as a neighbour to
the other peoples, and leads him to feel the need
of the support of his own people in large numbers.
All find their principal support and occupation
in the cultivation of padi (rice), and all supplement
this with the breeding of a few pigs and fowls and,
in the north of the island, buffalo, with hunting and
fishing, and with the collection of jungle produce
gutta-percha, rubber, rattan canes, camphor, sago.
These jungle products they barter or sell for cash
to the Malay and Chinese traders.
They have no written records, and but vague
traditions of their past history and migrations.
There is no political organisation beyond a loose
coherence and alliance for defence and offence of the
village communities of any one people in neighbouring
parts of the country—a coherence which at
times is greatly strengthened by the personal
ascendency of the chief of some one village over
neighbouring chiefs. One of the most notable
examples of such personal ascendency exercised in
recent times was that of Tama Bulan (PL 27), a
—