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Updated: June 21, 2025
According to reliable reports this custom extends over a wide area of the inland, from the upper regions of the Kapuas, Kahayan, and Barito Rivers in the east, stretching westward as far as and including the tribes of the Kotawaringin. Also, in the Western Division on the Upper Kapuas and Melawi Rivers, the same usage obtains.
But I doubt if any people on the face of the globe have so weird a custom of disposing of their dead as the Kapuas of Central Borneo, who hollow out the trunk of a growing tree and in the space thus prepared insert the corpse of the departed. The bark is carefully replaced over the opening and the tree continues to grow and flourish literally a living tomb.
The second trip to Sembulo had to be postponed until the return of the controleur of Sampit from an extended tour, when the steam-launch Selatan would again be placed at my service. During the weeks of waiting I made a trip to Kuala Kapuas, northwest of Bandjermasin.
Of the other three, which constitute Dutch Borneo, the north-eastern is drained by the Batang Kayan or Balungan river; the south-eastern by the Kotei and Banjermasin rivers; and the south-western by the Kapuas, the largest of all the rivers, whose course from the centre of the island to its south-west corner is estimated at 700 miles.
The Malohs, a Klemantan sub-tribe in the upper basin of the Kapuas river, are well known as brass-workers; their wares are bartered throughout the country, and a few Maloh brass-workers may be found temporarily settled in many of the larger villages of all tribes.
The Kapuas River, for example, is estimated to be nearly 700 miles in length; and the necessity of ascending these hundreds of miles of river-way, much of it difficult and dangerous, has rendered the process of establishing control over the tribes of the interior slow and laborious.
The principal rivers thus radiate from a common centre, the Batang Kayan flowing east-north-east, the Kotei south-east by east, the Banjermasin south, the Kapuas a little south of west, the Rejang west, and the Baram north-west.
Tribes calling themselves Bahau now live along the Mahakam above Mujub and include one Kayan group; on the upper Rejang are Bahau tribes under the name of Kayan, and a small section has advanced into the Kapuas area and settled on the Mendalam which again includes Kayans and kindred tribes.
Their sacred number is seven, as is that of the Ot-Danum, Kapuas, and Kahayan. As usual with Dayaks, all members of the family eat at the same time as the men. Sons and daughters inherit equally, while brothers and sisters receive nothing unless the deceased was childless.
There was no news of our steamer, the Selatan, and I remained about a week. The "onder," a Kahayan who had been here twenty-five years, had the intelligence and reliability that seems characteristic of the Dayaks of the Kahayan and Kapuas Rivers, and, as a matter of course, possessed extensive knowledge of the Katingan. He had lately been converted to Christianity.
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