The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

DECORATIVE ART 265
Kayan exhibit the most primitive form of tatu known in
Borneo. It differs from every other form in that the tatued
surface of the skin is not covered uniformly with the ink,
but the design, such as it is, is merely stippled into the
skin, producing an appearance of close-set irregular dots.
Two aspects of the forearm of an Uma Long woman are
shown on PL 142, Fig. 5. No other part of the body is
tatued, and the practice is confined to the female sex.
{b) Dusun.—The men only tatu. The design is simple,
consisting of a band, two inches broad, curving from each
shoulder and meeting its fellow on the abdomen, thence
each band diverges to the hip and there ends ; from the
shoulder each band runs down the upper arm on its exterior
aspect ; the flexor surface of the forearm is decorated with
short transverse stripes, and, according to one authority,
each stripe marks an enemy slain [7, p. 90]. This form of
tatu is found chiefly amongst the Idaan group of Dusuns
according to Whitehead [ii, p. 106] the Dusuns living on
the slopes of Mount Kina Balu tatu no more than the
parallel transverse stripes on the forearm, but in this case
no reference is made to the significance of the stripes as a
head-tally. The Dusun women apparently do not tatu.
{c) Murut.— The Muruts of the Trusan river, North
Sarawak, tatu very little ; the men occasionally have a
small scroll design just above the knee-cap and a simple
circle on the breast ; the women have fine lines tatued from
the knuckles to the elbows [7, p. 93]. The Muruts of
British North Borneo appear to be more generally tatued
the men are tatued like Dusuns, though, according to
Hatton, they have three parallel stripes running from the
shoulders to the wrists and no transverse lines on the forearm.^
Whitehead [11, p. ^6^ figures a Murut woman of
the Lawas river tatued on the arms from the biceps to the
knuckles with numerous fine longitudinal lines ; a band of
zigzag design encircles the arm just above the commencement
of the longitudinal lines. The design on a man of
the same tribe is given on page 73
three-legged dog with a crocodile's
[11], it resembles "a
head, one leg being
turned over the back as if the animal was going to scratch
its ear." The part of the body on which the design was
tatued, is not specified and the sketch is rather inadequate,
^ The same author states that " a sometime headman of Senendan had two
square tattoo marks on his back. This was because he ran away in a fight,
and showed his back to the enemy." This explanation seems to us most
improbable.
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