All Were "In The Market," Prices Were Not At All Exorbitant, And Business Progressed Very Briskly Until Nine O'clock, When I Had Made Valuable Additions, Especially Of Masks, To My Collections.

The evening passed pleasantly and profitably to all concerned.

I acquired a shield which, besides the conventionalised representation of a dog, exhibited a wild-looking picture of an antoh, a very common feature on Dayak shields. The first idea it suggests to civilised man is that its purpose is to terrify the enemy, but my informant laughed at this suggestion. It represents a good antoh who keeps the owner of the shield in vigorous health.

The kapala's house had at once attracted attention on account of the unusually beautiful carvings that extended from each gable, and which on a later occasion I photographed. These were long boards carved in artistic semblance of the powerful antoh called nagah, a benevolent spirit, but also a vindictive one. The two carvings together portrayed the same monster, the one showing its head and body, the other its tail. Before being placed on the gables a sacrifice had been offered and the carvings had been smeared with blood - in other words, to express the thought of the Dayak, as this antoh is very fierce when aroused to ire, it had first been given blood to eat, in order that it should not be angry with the owner of the house, but disposed to protect him from his enemies. While malevolent spirits do not associate with good ones, some which usually are beneficent at times may do harm, and among these is one, the nagah, that dominates the imagination of many Dayak tribes.

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