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Updated: June 27, 2025
A ring being formed, two of the best dancers of the Kayans tribe stepped into the enclosure, each dressed in full war costume. This consists of a long jacket of leopard skin, which covers alone the back of the wearer, and comes down to his knees.
They have several dialects among them, use the sumpitan, and are not tattooed. They retain the practice of taking heads, but they seldom seek them, and have little of the ferocity of the Kayan. 6th. In the vicinity of the Kayans and Millanows are some wild tribes, called the Tatows, Balanian, Kanowit, &c.
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.
But though a Kayan village is seldom attacked, and though the Kayans do not wantonly engage in bloodshed, yet they will always stoutly assert their rights, and will not allow any injury done to any member of the tribe to go unavenged.
This hypothetical history of the immigration of the Kayans receives some support from the fact that a vague tradition of having crossed the sea still persists among them.
Towards these the attitude of the Kayans is one of supplication and awe, gratitude and hope, an attitude which is properly called reverential and is the specifically religious attitude. These spirits must be admitted to be gods in a very full sense of the word, and the practices, doctrines, and emotions centred about these spirits must be regarded as constituting a system of religion.
The Kenyahs treat these rude images with rather more care than do the Kayans; and they associate them more strictly with particular deities. The children of the house are not allowed to touch such an image, after it has been once used as an altar post; it is only when it is so used, and blood of fowls or pigs sprinkled upon it, that it seems to acquire its uncleanness."
I had found the Kayans very agreeable to deal with, and later had the same experience with many other tribes of Borneo. They ask high prices for their goods, but are not bold in manner. Though I made no special effort to ingratiate myself with them they always crowded round me, and sometimes I was compelled to deny myself to all callers regardless of their wishes.
Both the Kayans and Minkokas on the death of a relative seek for a head; and on the death of their chief many human heads must be procured: which practice is unknown to the Dyak.
Of the three principal invasions, that of the Kayans has been of most effect in spreading a higher culture among the indigenous population. The tradition of such north-westward migration is preserved among the Kayans of the Baram, who, according to their own account, crossed the watershed into the basins of the western rivers only a few generations ago.
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