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Updated: May 6, 2025
We, as usual, exchanged presents; mine consisting of some nankeen, red cloth, knife, scissors, and handkerchief; while he gave me the shield of a great Kayan warrior, a Bukar spear, a goat, fowls, and our dinner and breakfast daily.
When in the house the man commonly wears on his head a band of plaited rattan, which varies from a mere band around the brows to a completed skull-cap. Every Kayan has the shell of the ear perforated, and when fully dressed wears, thrust forward through the hole in each shell, the big upper canine tooth of the tiger-cat; but he is not entitled to wear these until he has been on the warpath.
A Kayan youth who has rendered pregnant a girl with whom he has kept company can be relied upon to acknowledge his responsibility and to marry her before her time comes.
The Kayan man never exposes his GENITALIA even when bathing in the company of his fellows, but, if necessary, uses his hands as a screen.
The Long-Glats came from Apo Kayan, and established themselves first on the River Glit, a tributary from the south to the River Ugga, which again is an affluent to the River Boh, the outlet from Apo Kayan to the Mahakam.
The Kayan and the Dyak, as general distinctions, though they differ in dialect, in dress, in weapons, and probably in religion, agree in their belief of similar omens, and, above all, in their practice of taking the heads of their enemies; but with the Kayan this practice assumes the aspect of an indiscriminate desire of slaughter, while with the Dyak it is but the trophy acquired in legitimate warfare.
The Kenyahs speak a number of dialects of the same language, and these differ so widely that Kenyahs of widely separated districts cannot converse freely with one another; but, as with all the peoples, except the Sea Dayaks, nearly every man has the command of several dialects as well as of the Kayan language. The Klemantans.
The word UMA, which appears in the names of each group, means village or settlement, and it seems probable that these fifteen sub-tribes represent fifteen original Kayan villages which at some remote period, before the tribe became so widely scattered, may have contained the whole Kayan population.
From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. Plate 140. Tatu design on the forearm of an Uma Lekan Kayan woman of high rank. From a rubbing of a carved wooden model in the Sarawak Museum. Tatu design on the thigh of an Uma Lekan Kayan woman of high rank. From a rubbing of a carved wooden model in the Sarawak Museum. Tatu design on the forearm of an Uma Phan Kayan woman of high rank.
This may well be due to the more intimate contact with the Kayans enjoyed by the Kenyahs, who, as we have seen, have assimilated the Kayan culture more completely than any other of the indigenous tribes, and who may well have taken up many Kayan words together with other culture elements.
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