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Updated: June 6, 2025
Since the Mohammedan populations which now are called Malay are of mixed origin, they present no very well-defined or uniform physical type. But of all Malays those of Sumatra and of the Peninsula are generally recognised as presenting the type in its greatest purity; and it is this type which the Ibans most closely reproduce.
The Kayans, Kenyahs, and most of the Klemantans weave no cloth; but the Kayans claim, probably with truth, that they formerly wove a coarse cloth. In recent years the Ibans, Muruts, and a few of the Klemantan tribes have been the only weavers. It may be said, we think, without fear of contradiction, that this is the only craft in which the Ibans excel all the other peoples.
These are recognised by themselves and by other Ibans as belonging to the same people; but they are a little looked down upon by Ibans of the other tribes as any home-staying rural population is looked down upon by travelled cosmopolitans.
We have seen that the Kayans describe their hawk-god, Laki Neho, as dwelling in a house, which, though in the top of a tree, has a landing-stage before it on the river-bank. In the case of the Kayans, the conception is only half-way on the road to a full anthropomorph; whereas with the Ibans the change has been completed and the hawk-god is completely anthropomorphic.
In this respect the Ibans and some of the Klemantans have been the chief offenders; while the Kayans and Kenyahs have seldom given trouble, after once placing themselves under the established governments.
It is supposed to be the spirit of some ancestor renowned for bravery, or some other virtue, who at death has taken an animal form ... it is revealed in a dream what animal form the honoured dead has taken." Magic, Spells, and Charms Magic is in a comparatively neglected and backward condition among the Kayans and Kenyahs, Punans, Ibans, and the more warlike up-country Klemantans.
They make the brass corsets of the Iban women, tweezers for pulling out the hair of the face, brass ear-rings, and a variety of small articles, and they make use of the larger brass-ware of Malay and Chinese origin as the source of their material. Fire Piston This very ingenious instrument for the making of fire is cast in metal by the Ibans.
The Ibans are by nature a less serious-minded and less religious people than the Kenyahs and Kayans, and they have a greater variety of myths and extravagant superstitions; nevertheless, they use the fowl and the pig as sacrificial animals in much the same way as the other tribes.
It is covered with the smoke and soot of ages, and though it is generally claimed as the property of some one man who has inherited it from his forefathers, even he knows nothing of its history and composition, and is unwilling to examine it closely. It is regarded by the Ibans as the head of some half-human monster.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the settlements of Ibans were practically confined to the rivers of the southern part of Sarawak; and there the Malays of Bruni and of other coast settlements enlisted them as crews for their pirate ships.
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