The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

X WAR 177
family kills a pig and roasts its flesh, ^ brings out
stores of rice-spirit, and prepares cakes of rice-flour.
The pigs' livers are examined, and their blood is
smeared upon the altar-post of the war-god with a
sort of brush {pla) made by fraying the end of a
stick in a more than usually elaborate manner.
Each head, adorned with a large bunch of daun
isang, is carried by an elderly man or woman into
the house, followed by all the people of the house
men, women, and children—in long procession. The
procession marches up and down the whole length
of the gallery many times, the people shouting, singing,
stamping, and pounding on the floor with padi
pestles, or playing the keluri. This is followed by
a general feast and drinking bout, each family preparing
its feast in its own chamber, and entertaining
friends and neighbours who come to take part in
the general rejoicing. In the course of the feasting
the women usually take temporary possession of
the heads, and perform with them a wild, uncouth
dance, waving the heads to and fro, and chanting
in imitation of the men's war-song (PI. 102). The
procession may be resumed at intervals until the
heads are finally suspended beside the old ones over
the principal hearth of the gallery. The heads
have usually been prepared by removal of the brain
through the great foramen, by drying over a fire,
and by lashing on the lower jaw with strips of
rattan. The suspension of the head is effected by
piercing a round hole in the crown, and passing
through it from below, by way of the great foramen,
a rattan knotted at the end. The free end of the
rattan is passed through and tied in a hole in the
lower edge of a long beam suspended parallel to
the length of the gallery from the beams of the
roof (PI. 68). The Kenyahs suspend the heads
in the same way as the Kayans, but most of the
* At one such feast eighty- five pigs and fifty-six fowls were slaughtered.
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