This Meeting Was Followed By Friendly Dealings With The Dayaks Of The Kampongs Above, Who Began To Visit Me.

Silent and unobtrusive, they often seated themselves before my tent, closely observing my movements, especially at meal time, eager to get the tin that soon would be empty.

A disagreeable feature, however, was that the natives often brought mosquitoes with them, and when they began to slap themselves on arms and legs their absence would have been more acceptable than their company. But each day they offered for sale objects of great interest and variety. Several beautifully engraved wah-wah (long armed monkey) bones, serving as handles for women's knives, are worthy of mention, one of which might be termed exquisite in delicate execution of design. Admirable mats were made by the tribe, but the designs proved perplexing to interpret, as knowledge on the subject seems to be lost. The difficulty about an interpreter was solved when the "onder's" clerk returned from a brief absence; he was an intelligent and trustworthy Kayan who spoke Malay well, had been a Christian for six years, but adopted Islam when he married a Bakompai wife. Compared with the retiring "onder," who, though a very good man, seemed to feel the limitations of his position, this Kahayan appeared more like a man of the world.

I made a large collection of kapatongs (in Kahayan, hapatong), which here, and in less degree on the Katingan, I found more abundant than in any region of Borneo visited. These interesting objects are carved representations of a good antoh, or of man, bird, or animal which good antohs have entered, and which, therefore, are believed to protect their owners. When the carving has been finished the blian invokes a beneficent antoh to take it in possession, by dancing and singing one or two nights and by smearing blood on it from the sacrifice of a fowl, pig, or a water-buffalo - formerly often taken from a slave. As with a person, so with a kapatong; nobody is permitted to step over it lest the good antoh which resides in it should become frightened and flee.

Kapatongs are made from ironwood; they are of various kinds and serve many purposes. The larger ones, which appear as crude statues in many kampongs of Southern Borneo, more rarely on the Mahakam, are supposed to be attendants on the souls of the dead and were briefly described in Chapter XII.

The smaller kapatongs are used for the protection of the living and all their earthly belongings or pursuits. These images and their pedestals are usually carved from one block, though the very small ones may be made to stand inside of an upright piece of bamboo. Some kapatongs are placed in the ladang to protect the crops, others in the storehouse or inside the baskets where rice or food is kept. The monkey, itself very predatory on the rice fields, is converted into an efficient watchman in the form of its image, which is considered an excellent guardian of boiled rice that may be kept over from one meal to the next.

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