The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

VII DAILY LIFE 125
throws an arm across his guest's shoulders or
strokes him endearingly with the palm of his hand.
In the meantime the women are busy preparing
a meal, a pig having been killed and hastily cut up.
When it is ready, the visitors, if old friends, are
invited to partake of it in the chief's room. But
if they are not familiar acquaintances, the meal is
spread for them in the gallery on platters placed
in a long row, one for each guest ; each platter
containing many cubes of hot boiled pork and two
packets of hot boiled rice wrapped in leaves. The
space is surrounded with a slight bamboo fence
to keep away the dogs. In either case the visitors
eat alone, their hosts retiring until the meal is
finished. As the chief's wife retires, she says, " Eat
slowly, my children, our food is poor stuff. There is
no pork, no fish, nothing that is good." Before
withdrawing, one of the people of the house pours
a little water from a bamboo vessel on the right
hand of the visiting chief, who then passes on the
vessel to his followers. With the hand thus cleansed
each guest conveys the food to his mouth, dipping
his pieces of pork in coarse salt placed in a leaf
beside his platter ; and when he has finished eating,
he drinks water from a bamboo vessel. The chief,
and perhaps also one or more of his upper-class
companions, leaves a little of the pork and a little
rice on the platter to show that he is not greedy
or ravenous ; and
his good breeding prompts him
to prove his satisfaction with the meal by belching
up a quantity of wind with a loud and prolonged
noise, which is echoed by his followers to the best
of their ability. After thus publicly expressing
his appreciation of his host's hospitality, he rinses
out his mouth, squirting out the water towards the
nearest gap between the fioor boards, rubs his
teeth with his forefinger, again rinses his mouth,
and washes his hand. Then relighting his cigarette,