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The rapid growth of the practice among the Ibans was no doubt largely due to the influence of the Malays, who had been taught by Arabs and others the arts of piracy, and with whom the Ibans were associated in the piratical enterprises that gave the waters around Borneo a sinister notoriety during the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries.
House-building is thus a craft of great importance, and the Kayans are seldom content to build their houses in the comparatively flimsy style adopted by the Ibans and some of the Klemantans, and even occasionally by Kenyahs.
The greatest diversity of plan is exhibited by the houses of Ibans. An Iban community seldom remains in the same house more than three or four years; it is, no doubt, partly on this account that their houses are built in a less solid style than those of most other tribes.
But the greater variety of designs worked by the Ibans is due also to the readiness with which he copies and adopts as his own the patterns used by other tribes. The design outlined by the point of the knife is made to stand out boldly from the ground by darkening the latter.
We regard them as Proto-Malays, that is to say, as of the stock from which the true Malays of Sumatra and the Peninsula were differentiated by the influence of Arab culture. A large number of the ancestors of the present Ibans were probably brought to Borneo from Sumatra less than two hundred years ago.
But Singalong Burong is decidedly more anthropomorphic than Bali Flaki; he is probably generally conceived as a single being of human form living in a house such as the Ibans themselves inhabit; whereas Bali Flaki, even if sometimes conceived in the singular as the great Bali Flaki, is very bird-like.
A small gourd tied to the quiver carries a supply of piths all ready to be placed on the darts. Pottery The importation of earthenware and of cooking pots of brass and iron has now almost put an end to the native manufacture of pottery; but in former times simple earthenware vessels for boiling rice were made by Kayans, Kenyahs, Ibans, and some of the Klemantans.
Charms are used by Ibans to ensure success in trapping. He uses this to measure the appropriate height of the traps set for animals of different species. All the peoples observe a large number of restrictions in regard to contact with objects, especially articles of food. Some of these are mentioned in other chapters. Here we notice a few typical instances.
They claim to have been told in dreams to adopt this mode of life; they are employed for the same purpose as the more ordinary MANANGS, and they practise similar methods. Among the IBANS certain persons get a bad reputation for working harm by magic.
It may be said generally that Kayans seldom or never wage war on Kayans, and seldom attack others merely to secure heads or in sheer vainglory, as the Ibans not infrequently do. Nor do they attack others merely in order to sustain their prestige, as is sometimes done by the Kenyahs, who in this respect carry to an extreme the principle that attack is the most effective mode of defence.
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