The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

52 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
generally merely a slab of clay in a wooden framework
placed near the centre. The outside wall of
this side of the house is carried up to meet the
roof The entrance of light and air and the egress
of smoke are provided for by the elevation on a
prop of one corner of a square section of the roof,
marked out by a right-angled cut, of which one limb
runs parallel to the outer wall, the other upwards
from one extremity of the former. This aperture
can be easily closed, e.g, during heavy rain, by removing
the prop and allowing the flap to fall into
its original position.
The front part of the house, which remains
undivided, forms a single long gallery serving as a
common antechamber to all the private rooms, each
of which opens to it by a wooden door (Pis. 36, 38).
It is in a sense, though roofed and raised some 20
feet above the ground, the village street, as well as a
common living and reception room. Along the outer
border of the floor runs a low platform on which the
inmates sit on mats. One part of this, usually that
opposite the chiefs apartment in the middle of the
house, is formed of several large slabs of hardwood
{Tapang or Koompassia), and is specially reserved
for the reception of guests and for formal meetings.
The platform is interrupted here and there by
smaller platforms raised some 3 or 4 feet from the
floor, which are the sleeping quarters assigned to
the bachelors and male visitors. At intervals of
some 30 or 40 feet throughout the gallery are fireplaces
similar to those in the private chambers ;
on
some of these fire constantly smoulders.
Over one of these fireplaces, generally one near
the middle of the great gallery, is hung a row of
human heads (PI. 38), trophies obtained in war,
together with a number of charms and objects used
in various rites.^
^ By the Kayans the heads are suspended in a single long row from the