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Cholera and smallpox are the great epidemic diseases which have ravaged large areas of Borneo from time to time. The Kayans recognise that both these diseases spread up river from village to village, and that to abstain from intercourse with all villages lower down river and to prevent any one coming up river contributes to their immunity.
It is true that Kayans have been guilty of leaving a slave or captive bound upon a tomb until he has died from exposure to the sun.
I asked him whether the Kayans used the sumpitan? he answered, 'Yes. 'Did many of your men die from the wounds? 'No; we can cure them. This is one more proof in favor of Mr. "26th. He likewise stated, that false rumors spread by the Malays agitated the Dyaks; and the principal rumor was, that they would be shortly attacked again by the white men.
"Among the Kayans of Borneo, for example, it is the custom for an elderly person learned in such matters to sit beside the corpse, where the soul is supposed to hover for some days after death, and to impart to the latter minute directions for its journey to the land of the dead." We are in the presence, here, of natural illusions, of hypotheses which inevitably arose.
Among both Kayans and Kenyahs three social strata are clearly distinguishable and are recognised by the people themselves in each village. The upper class is constituted by the family of the chief and his near relatives, his aunts and uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins, and their children.
Few or no Kayans can state their age without going through some preliminary calculations, and even then their statements are apt to be vague and uncertain. A Kayan mother can generally work out the age of each of her children on request.
Some of the Klemantans also build houses little if at all inferior to those of the Kayans, and very similar to them in general plan. But in this as in all other respects the Klemantans exhibit great diversities, some of their houses being built in a comparatively flimsy manner, light timber and even bamboos being used, and the roof being made of leaves.
In all these fowls or pigs are now substituted as a rule, but we know of instances in which in recent years human beings were the victims. This was said to be the revival of an old and almost obsolete custom. In another recent case, when a mixed party of Kayans and Kenyahs returned from a successful war expedition, only the Kenyahs had secured heads.
There can, we think, be little doubt that the Kayans are the descendants of emigrants from the mainland, and that they brought with them thence all or most of the characteristic culture that we have described.
This belief seems to have arisen in every case from the person having lain in a trance for some days, during which he was regarded as dead. The Kayans accept the cessation of respiration as evidence of death, and they assert that these persons cease to breathe. It seems that such persons usually give some account of their experiences during the period in which they have deserted their bodies.
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