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The process of conversion of Punans into settled communities that assimilate more or less fully the Kayan culture is still going on. We are acquainted with settled communities which still admit their Punan origin; and these exhibit very various grades of assimilation of the Kayan culture.
Subsisting chiefly upon meat, their favourite food is wild pig. At the birth of a child all the men leave the premises, including the husband. The dead are buried in the ground a metre deep, head toward the rising sun. The Punans climb trees in the same manner as the Kayans and other Dayaks I have seen, i.e., by tying their feet together and moving up one side of the tree in jumps.
The Punans make use of all the omen-birds that are used by the Kenyahs, and they regard them as in some degree sacred, and not to be killed or eaten. They seem to read the omens in much the same way as the Kenyahs do; but they are not so constant in their cult of the omen-birds, and Punans of different districts differ a good deal from one another in this respect.
Without precluding the possibility, although remote, of some small, still unknown tribe, it seems safe to assume that Ulu-Ot is simply a collective name for several mountain tribes of Central Borneo with whom we already have made acquaintance the Penyahbongs, Saputans, Bukits, and Punans.
With the exception of these partially civilised "Malays" of the coast regions and the imported elements mentioned above, all the natives of Borneo live under tribal organisation, their cultures ranging from the extreme simplicity of the nomadic Punans to a moderately developed barbarism.
For the women of all the peoples, except the Punans, the husking of the PADI is a principal feature of the day's work, and is performed in much the same fashion by all. The Kenyahs alone do their work out of doors beside the PADI barns, sometimes under rude lean-to shelters.
In fact they look upon them with a certain sense of proprietorship and are jealous of their intercourse with other tribes; the nomads, in fact, rank high among the many natural products of the jungle that render any particular region attractive to the tribesmen. Of all these nomad groups the Punans are the most numerous and we have seen more of them than of any others.
Aided by the sumpitan the Dayaks and Punans are expert in bringing down the rather shy birds of the tall trees. Three hours later we had managed to carry all our goods above the kiham Duyan, which is only one hundred metres long, but with a fall of at least four metres; consequently in its lower part it rushes like a disorderly waterfall.
They soon gained confidence and took up their sleeping quarters under the raised floor of the rough hut; and, when after some weeks the time for parting came, they voluntarily took a prominent part in carrying down the collections to the boats, and went away well satisfied with the simple presents they received. Punans never build boats or travel on the water of their own initiative and agency.
These Kelamantans are supposed to be the oldest residents of Borneo, being here long before the Dayaks and Kayans, but they axe fast dying out, as are the Punans, I believe chiefly owing to the raids of the warlike Dayaks. They were once ferocious head-hunters, but now they are a very inoffensive people. About mid-day we stopped at the village of Kanawit, at the mouth of the river of that name.
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