The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

236 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
other natural forms. Probably a few who have
specially interested themselves in the designs have
traced out their connections pretty fully, but this is
certainly quite exceptional. Most of the craftsmen
simply copy the current forms, introducing perhaps
now and then an additional scroll, or some other
slight modification.
Some men are well known as experts in the
production of designs, and such a man can produce
a wonderful variety, all or most being well-known
conventions. Their mode of working frequently
implies that the artist is working to a pattern,
mentally fixed and clearly visualised, rather than
working out any new design. For he will work
first on one part of the surface, then on another,
producing disconnected fragments of the pattern,
and uniting them later. Although the women use
these patterns in beadwork and in tatuing, they
rely in the main on the men for the patterns which
they copy ; these being drawn on wood or cloth
for beadwork, or carved in low relief for tatuing.
A Kayan expert may carry in mind a great variety
of designs. One such expert produced for our
benefit, during a ten days' halt of an expedition,
forty-one patterns, drawn with pencil on paper ;
most of these
elaboration.
are of considerable complexity and
(2) The designs carved in the solid or in high
relief are for the most part conventionalised copies
of human and animal forms ;
but the conventionalis-
ing is not carried so far as in those of the first class,
so that the carving generally constitutes an unmistakable
representation of the original. The
posts set up as altars to the gods are generally
carved in the human form, and the degree of
elaboration varies widely from the rudest possible
indication of the head and limbs to a complete
representation of all the parts. But in no case