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Updated: June 16, 2025
YESSE, who concluded the pepper monopoly agreement with the Brunai Government, referring to the Murut predilection for head-hunting says: "With respect to the Idaan, or Muruts, as they are called here, I cannot give any account of their disposition; but from what I have heard from the Borneyans, they are a set of abandoned idolaters; one of their tenets, so strangely inhuman, I cannot pass unnoticed, which is, that their future interest depends upon the number of their fellow creatures they have killed in any engagement, or common disputes, and count their degrees of happiness to depend on the number of human skulls in their possession; from which, and the wild, disorderly life they lead, unrestrained by any bond of civil society, we ought not to be surprised if they are of a cruel and vindictive disposition."
They are most abundant in the south, constituting the greater part of the population of Dutch Borneo; in the north they are few, their place being filled by their near relatives, the Muruts.
The Dayaks and Muruts alone thus sink in the matter of drink to the level of those highly cultured Europeans among whom a similar habit obtains: while among all the other tribes strong drink is seldom or never abused, but rather is put only to its proper use, the promotion of good fellowship and social gaiety. Life on the Rivers
Three such invasions may be distinguished as of principal importance: that of the Kayans in the south and perhaps in the south-east, of the Muruts in the north, and of the Ibans in the south-west.
With reference to the heads taken on the occasion mentioned above, I may add that the Muruts were allowed to retain them, and the disgusting sight was to be seen, at one of the watering places in the town, of these savages "cooking" and preparing the heads for keeping in their houses.
Many, probably all, Klemantans put up wooden images of the crocodile before their houses, and many of them carve the prow of their war-canoes into the form of a crocodile's head with gaping jaw. Some of the Muruts make an effigy of the crocodile from clay for use on the celebration of a successful expedition. The Punans
The houses of the Muruts are small and low, and of poor construction. The Sea Dayak's house differs from that of the Kayan more than any of the others. The general plan is the same; but the place of the few massive piles is taken by a much larger number of slender piles, which pass up to the roof through the gallery and chambers.
The Muruts in the north, who use irrigation in their rice culture and show physical differences from the others, are still little known. Many tribes in Dutch Borneo have never been studied. So recently as 1913 Mr.
Under this name we group together a number of tribes which, though in our opinion closely allied, are widely scattered in all parts of Borneo, and present considerable diversities of language and custom. In physical and mental characters they show affinities to the Kenyahs on the one hand and to the Muruts on the other.
In spite of his homeless nomadic life he generally appears well nourished and clean, and he seems less subject to sores and to the skin diseases which so often disfigure the other peoples, especially the Muruts, Kayans, and Sea Dayaks. All these peoples, with the exception of the Punans and similar nomads, live in village communities situated with few exceptions on the banks of the rivers.
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