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Updated: June 8, 2025
Of the four examples given in Pl. 136 and it may be noted that these met with the high approval of expert tatu artists Figs. 1, 2, and 5 may be considered as intermediate between Nieuwenhuis' very elongate example F and the truncated form E which is supposed to represent the head only of a dog. E, as it evidently represents little more than the head of a dog.
The Kayans make use in their decorative art of a large number of conventional designs. The principal applications of these designs are in tatu, beadwork, the production of panels of wood for the adornment of houses, tombs, boats, and PADI barns, the decoration of bamboo boxes, and the painting of hats, and the carving of highly ornate doors to the rooms.
We may note here that the designs figured on page 89 of Ling Roth's book as tatu designs are in our opinion very probably not tatu designs. They were collected by Dr. Wienecke in Dutch Borneo, and appear to be nothing but drawings by a native artist of such objects in daily use as hats, seat-mats, baby-slings, and so on. We communicated with Dr.
As far as my observations go, the Mongolian fold is very slight with the natives of Borneo, or not present at all, and the obliquity of the eyes is seldom striking. The Long-Glats do not tatu much, many not at all, but generally they have on the left upper arm a picture of the nagah in its usual representation with the disproportionately large dog's mouth. Wild cattle are not eaten here.
We shall now treat of those tribes that have a distinctive and original tatu, but it is well to bear in mind, that amongst many of these people also the Kayan designs are coming into vogue more and more, ousting the old designs. No tatu-blocks are employed for the indigenous patterns, all the work being done free-hand.
Brooke Low, amongst the Kayans of the Upper Rejang; it also appears to be a doc, derivative, and no doubt was used for the tatu of the front of a woman's thigh, being serially repeated in three or four rows as with the Long Glat.
Yet it was unknown as a tatu design to some Kayans of the Baram river to whom it was shown recently; they informed us that the name of the design was TUANG BUVONG ASU, pattern of dog without tail, and they stated that a somewhat similar design was engraved by them on sword blades.
Maloh and Punan men ornamented with Kayan tatu designs we have often encountered; but they have no designs of their own, and attach no special significance to their borrowed designs. We may note here that the ornamentation of the body by means of raised scars and keloids is not known in Borneo.
Generally speaking, the true Klemantan designs are quite simple, and it is noteworthy that although the Kenyah tribes most nearly akin to Kayans have borrowed the Kayan tatu patterns, the majority of Kenyah and Klemantan tribes employ quite simple designs, whilst the primitive Kenyahs of the Batang Kayan river hardly tatu at all.
Nieuwenhuis was fortunate in finding one very old woman so tatued. Nowadays the class restrictions as regards tatu are not so closely observed, but it is always possible to distinguish between the designs of a chiefs daughter, an ordinary free-woman, and a slave, by the number of lines composing the figures of the designs, the fewer these lines, the lower being the rank of the woman.
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