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The Kayans avoid the skin of the tiger even more strictly than the Kenyahs or any other tribe; even a great chief will not touch a tiger-skin, and we have known one refuse to enter a house because he knew that it contained a tiger-skin war-coat. It is very common in their district, but they will kill it only when it is stealing their rice-crop; and they will never eat it as other peoples do.
And, until recently, travellers were shown the Reisen-haus, a stronghold, which, men say, Siegfried built; and in it were many strange and mighty weapons, which, they claim, were wielded by the hero. The lance which was shown there was a great beam nearly eighty feet in length; and the war-coat, wrought with steel and gold, and bespangled with gem-stones, was a wonder to behold.
But ere he had taken three steps down the hall, Face-of-god prevented him and said: 'Kinsman, if thou hast anywhere a hauberk somewhat better than folk are wont to bear, such as thine own hand fashioneth, and a sword of the like stuff, I would have thee give them, the sword to my brother- in-arms Wood-wise here, and the war-coat to my sister Bow-may, who shooteth so well in the bow that none may shoot closer, and very few as close; and her shaft it was that delivered me when my skull was amongst the axes of the Dusky Men: else had I not been here.
Each abuses the other's parents, and threatens to use his opponent's skin as a war-coat, or his scrotum as a tobacco-pouch, to take his head and to use his hair as an ornament for a PARANG-handle; or doubt as to the opponent's sex may be insinuated.
KULEH, the name of this beast, is sometimes given to a boy. The true tiger does not now occur in Borneo, and it is doubtful whether it ever was a native of the island. No ordinary man, but only a distinguished and elderly chief, will venture to wear such a skin as a war-coat, or even to touch it.
"Since it is your last day with us," said Gunther, grown cunning through Hagen's teaching, "what say you, dear Siegfried, to a hunt in Odin's Wood?" "Right glad will I be to join you in such sport," answered Siegfried. "I will change my war-coat for a hunting-suit, and be ready within an hour."
He looked at her wondering, not at her words, but at the voice wherewith she spake them; but he arose from the stone nevertheless, and stood stark in the moonlight; he set his hand to the collar of the war-coat, and undid its clasps, which were of gold and blue stones, and presently he did the coat from off him and let it slide to the ground where it lay in a little grey heap that looked but a handful.
And Veliant, the foreman of the apprentices, said, "I have heard much about that wonderful armor, and its extreme hardness, and I doubt if any skill can make a sword with edge so sharp and true as to cut into it. The best that can be done is to try to make another war-coat whose temper shall equal that of Amilias's armor."
Thirdly, of the features of Iban culture which are common to them and to the other tribes of Borneo, many seem to have been borrowed by them from their neighbours, and often in an incomplete or imperfect manner; such are the system of omenreading, the ritual slaughter of fowls and pigs, much of their dancing and tatuing, the PARANG ILANG and wooden shield, the feathered war-coat of skin, the KELURI or small bag-pipe, and the fashion of wearing their hair, all these seem to have been borrowed from the Kayans; the woman's corset of brassbound hoops, from the Malohs; the mat worn posteriorly for sitting upon, from the Kenyahs.
"Nay," she whispered, "take thy sword and war-gear lest ill befall: do on thine hauberk; I will be thy squire." And she held his war-coat out for him to do on. "Now," she said, still softly, "hide thy curly hair with the helm, gird thy sword to thee, and come without a word."
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