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Abo = BALU VANG. Oyu Biti. Padan. Tama Bulan's Door. LEVAN. Linjau. Agriculture For all the peoples of the interior of Borneo, the Punans and Malanaus excepted, the rice grown by themselves is the principal food-stuff. Throughout the year, except during the few weeks when the jungle fruit is most abundant, rice forms the bulk of every meal.
The rite is known as BAYOH, and bears a general resemblance to the corresponding Malay rite known as BERHANTU. The Malanaus are Klemantans of the coast regions of Sarawak, most of whom have recently become converted to Islam, while all of them have been much influenced by contact with Malays.
Why do you question me, why do you stare at me? Your limbs are shapely, smooth is your skin and slender your body. My eyes are dazzled by your bodily perfections. Some of the Malanaus, one of the many branches of the Klemantan people, hold peculiar views about the soul. Each man is credited with two souls.
Although the Kayans regard a madman as possessed by an evil spirit, they seem to have no traditional methods of casting out the spirit; but some of the Klemantans practise a rite of exorcism; this varies in detail from tribe to tribe, and attains the greatest elaboration among the Malanaus.
It is said of the Malanaus that they were formerly in the habit of killing several slaves at the tomb of a chief; and, since it was believed that, if the victims died a violent death, their souls would not go to the same place as the dead chief, and would thus be of no service, they were allowed to die from exposure to the sun while bound to the tomb.
Most of the other tribes make similar hats, and the Malanaus and Land Dayaks are especially skilled in this craft. The former make very large hats of similar shape, the upper surface being of strips of rattan dyed red and black, and woven to form elaborate patterns.
The ceremony of casting out evil spirits is of frequent occurrence among Malanaus, and the noise of gongs and drums throughout the night, lasting every night for sometimes a whole week, cannot fail to impress even a casual observer. The natives of Niah, who are Malanaus, believe in a multitude of spirits, good and bad, great and small, important and of little account.
Some of the Malanaus, a partially Mohammedan tribe of Klemantans, seated about the mouths of the Muka, Oya, and Bintulu rivers of Sarawak, have the curious custom of flattening the heads of the infants, chiefly the females. The flattening is effected at an early age, the process beginning generally within the first month after birth.
Each of the Malay Kampongs and other similar villages of the Malanaus and other coastwise peoples is under the immediate charge of one of its more influential elders, who bears the title of TUAH KAMPONG. He is appointed by the Rajah on the recommendation of the Resident and receives a small salary.
It is customary with the Malanaus of Niah to kill buffalo, and also to kill fowls, and put them together with eggs on poles in the caves in which the swifts build the edible nests, in order to secure a good crop of nests. One year, when the nests were scanty they bought a slave in Brunei, and killed him in the cave, in the hope of increasing the number of nests.
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