The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

114 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
the shoulders of the one going before her, and all
keeping time to the music of the keluries as they
dance up and down the long gallery. All this is kept
up with good humour the whole day long. In the
evening more btirak is drunk and songs are sung,
the women mingling with the men, instead of remaining
in their rooms as on other festive occasions.
Before midnight a good many of the men are more
or less intoxicated, some deeply so ; but most are
able to find their way to bed about midnight, and
few or none become offensive or quarrelsome, even
though the men indulge in wrestling and rough
horseplay with one another. After an exceptionally
good harvest the boisterous merrymaking is renewed
on a second or even a third day.
The harvest festival is the time at which dancing
is most practised. The dances fall into two chief
classes, namely, solo dances and those in which
many persons take part. Most of the solo dances
take the form of comic imitations of the movements
of animals, especially the big macaque monkey
{dok), the hornbill, and big fish. These dances
seem to have no connection with magic or religion,
but to be purely aesthetic entertainments. The
animals that are regarded with most awe are never
mimicked in this way. There are at least four
distinct group dances popular among the Kayans.
Both men and women take part, the women often
dressing themselves as men for the occasion (PL
6i). The movements and evolutions are very
simple. The hipa resembles the dance on return
from war described in Chap. X. In the kayo,
a similar dance, the dancers are led by a woman
holding one of the dried heads which is taken down
for the purpose ; the women, dressed in warcoats,
pretending to take the head from an enemy. The
lakekut is a musical drill in which the dancers stamp
on the planks of the floor in time to the music.