United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Hassim remarked dispassionately that there was one white man with whom it would be wise to remain friendly; and besides, was not Daman his friend already? Daman smiled with half-closed eyes. He was that white man's friend, not his slave. The Illanuns playing with their sword-handles grunted assent. Why, asked Daman, did these strange whites travel so far from their country?
From his feet and garment there fell a sprinkling of sand as he moved, and blood dropped to the floor from many an unhealed wound, but his eyes were very bright, and though sword-handles were grasped on all sides at the sight of so presumptuous an intrusion, yet none opposed him.
This decoration was not confined to small articles of jewellery, but was used for belts and sword-handles. An admirable example of a small bronze vase, thus beautifully enriched, was found in excavating the triple tumuli popularly known as the Bartlow Hills, in Cambridgeshire. Horse-trappings were highly enriched in the same manner.
Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of solid gold ornaments; nearly two hundred massive finger and earrings; rich chains thirty of these, if I remember; eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes; five gold censers of great value; a prodigious golden punch bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian figures; with two sword-handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect.
The essential features of the designs are spirals and portions of intersecting circles; the intersecting circles are frequently to be met with in the decorative art of Kenyahs, E.G. on the back of sword-handles, round the top of posts, on carved bamboos, etc., and in these cases the design is supposed to be a representation of the open fruit of a species of mango, MANGIFERA SP. It is not improbable that the design had the same significance amongst the Long Utan, for we have met with one or two representations of the same fruit amongst other Klemantan tribes.
When iron, or rather steel, came into use, its superiority in affording a cutting edge was so decisive that it seems to have supplanted bronze almost at once; the latter metal continuing to be employed only for the purpose of making scabbards or sword-handles.
Sword-handles, shears, surgical instruments, and hundreds of other things have to be made right-handed, while palettes and a few like subsidiary objects are adapted to the left; in each case for a perfectly sufficient reason. You can't upset all this without causing confusion.
Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of solid gold ornaments: nearly two hundred massive finger and ear-rings; rich chains thirty of these, if I remember; eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes; five gold censers of great value; a prodigious golden punch-bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian figures; with two sword-handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect.
Word Of The Day