For Their Religious Feasts They Gather In The Balei, Just As The Ancient Mexicans Made Temporary Habitations In And Near Their Temples, And As The Huichols And Other Indians Of Mexico Do To-Day.

The natives of Angkipi are stocky, crude people.

Several had eyes set obliquely, a la Mongol, in a very pronounced manner, with the nose depressed at the base and the point slightly turned upward. Among the individuals measured, two young women were splendid specimens, but there were difficulties in regard to having them photographed, as they were all timid and anxious to go home to their mountains.

Next day, marching through a somewhat hilly country, we arrived at the kampong Mandin on the River Lahanin. Here was the residence of Ismail, to whose influence probably was due the recent conversion to Islam of several families. The pasang-grahan, though small, was clean and there was room for all. Thanks to the efforts of the vaccinateur, the Dayaks, who were very friendly, submitted to the novel experience of the camera and kept me busy the day that we remained there. A great number of women whom I photographed in a group, as soon as I gave the signal that it was all over, rushed with one impulse to the river to cleanse themselves from the evil effects of the operation.

As the Bukits are not very strong in carrying burdens, we needed fifty carriers, and Ismail having assisted in solving the problem, the march was continued through a country very much cut up into gulches and small hills. Time and again we crossed the Riham Kiwa, and went down and up gullies continually. At a small kampong, where I took my midday meal sitting under a banana-tree, the kapala came and in a friendly way presented me with a basket of bananas, for these Dayaks are very hospitable, offering, according to custom, rice and fruit to the stranger. He told me that nearly all the children were ill, also two adults, but nobody had died from a disease which was raging, evidently measles.

At Ado a harvest-festival was in progress in the balei, which, there, was of rectangular shape. Within I found quite elaborate preparations, among which was prominently displayed a wooden image of the great hornbill. There was also a tall, ornamental stand resembling a candelabrum, made of wood and decorated with a profusion of long, slightly twisted strips of leaves from the sugar-palm, which hung down to the floor. From here nine men returned to our last camping-place, where they had left a similar feast in order to serve me. The harvest-festival is called bluput, which means that the people fulfil their promise to antoh. It lasts from five to seven days, and consists mostly of dancing at night. Neighbouring kampongs are invited and the guests are given boiled rice, and sometimes babi, also young bamboo shoots, which are in great favour and are eaten as a sayur. When the harvest is poor, no feast is made.

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