The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

156 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
substance, also highly valued as a medicine by the
Chinese, is sometimes found as an accretion formed
about the end of a dart which has been broken off in
the flesh of 5. Hosei and has remained there for
some long period.
The most important of the natural products
gathered by the people are the edible nests of three
species of swift : Collocalia fuciphaga^ whose nest is
white ; C. Lowii, whose nest is blackish ; and C,
Linchii, whose nest contains straw and moss as
well as gelatine. All three kinds are collected, but
those of the first kind are much more valuable than
the others. The nest, which is shaped like that of
our swallow, consists wholly of a tough, gelatinous,
translucent substance, which exudes from the bill
of the bird as it builds. We do not understand the
physiology of this process. The people generally
believe that the substance of the nest is dried seafoam
which the birds bring from the sea on returning
from their annual migration.
The nests are built always on the roofs and
walls of large caves : the white nests in low-roofed
caves, generally in sandstone rock ; the black in the
immense lofty caves formed in the limestone rocks.
The latter are reached by means of tall scaffoldings
of strong poles of bamboo, often more than a hundred
feet in height. The nests are swept from the rock
with a pole terminating in a small iron spatula, and
carrying near the extremity a wax candle ; falling
to the ground, which is floored with guano several
feet thick, they are gathered up in baskets. The
white nests are gathered three times in the year
at intervals of about a month, the black nests usually
only twice ; as many as three tons of black nests
are sometimes taken from one big cave in the course
of the annual gathering. Each cave, or, in the case
of large caves, each natural subdivision of it, is
claimed as the property of some individual, who