The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

204 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
houses in the comparatively flimsy style adopted by
the Ibans and some of the Klemantans, and even
occasionally by Kenyahs. The main features of the
structure of a Kayan long -house have been described
in Chapter IV. Here it remains only to
describe some of the more peculiar and important
processes of construction.
The great piles that support the house may be
floated down river from the old house to be used in
the construction of the ^ new ; they are not dug
from the ground, but are felled by cutting close to
the surface of the ground. The great planks of the
floor, the main cross-beams, and the wooden shingles
of the roof, are also commonly carried from the old
house to the new. If a house has been partially
destroyed by fire, no part of the materials of the old
house is used in the construction of the new ; for it
is felt that in some indefinable way the use of the
old material would render the new house very liable
to the same fate, as though the new house would be
infected by the materials with the ill-luck attaching
'^ to the old house. In such cases, or upon migration
to a different river, the whole of the timbers for the
house have to be procured from the jungle, and
shaped, and erected ; and the process of construction
is extremely laborious. But once the timber has
been brought together upon the chosen site, the
building goes on rapidly, and the whole of a house
some hundreds of yards in length may be substantially
completed within a fortnight. The main
supports of the structure are four rows of massive
^ The convenience of thus floating the timber is one reason for the general
tendency shown by Kayans to migrate gradually down river,
^ This is an example of a very common type of practice which implies the
belief that the attributes of any object will attach themselves to any whole into
which the object may be incorporated as a part ; thus a hunter who has shot
dead a pig or deer with a single bullet will cut out the bullet to melt it down
with other lead, and will make a fresh batch of bullets or slugs from the
mixture, believing that the lucky bullet will leaven the whole lump, or impart
to all of it something of that to which its success was due. Compare also the
similar practice in regard to the seed grain (vol. i., p. 112).