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Updated: May 21, 2025
A = BELILING BULAN, full moons; B = DULANG HAROK, bows of a boat; C = KAWIT, hooks; D = DAUN WI, leaves of rattan; E = TUSHUN TUVA, bundles of tuba root. From a carved wooden model in the Sarawak Museum. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. Plate 141. Design on the hand of a Skapan chief tatued in the Kayan manner. From a drawing.
There were three women in the party. One of the men was dressed as a woman and his hands were tatued. Though his voice was quite manly, there was something feminine about him and in appearance he was less robust than the others. According to my Chinese interpreter, who has travelled much, there are many such men in Apo Kayan.
At the age of eighteen to twenty the front of the thigh is tatued, and later on in life the back of the thigh; unlike the Kayans it is not necessary that the tatu of the thighs should be finished before child-bearing. A Long Glat woman on each day that she is tatued must kill a black fowl as food for the artist.
The triangles on the carpal knuckles are termed SONG IRANG, shoots of bamboo, and the zigzag lines are IKOR, lines. Kayan women are tatued in complicated serial designs over the whole forearm, the backs of the hands, over the whole of the thighs and to below the knees, and on the metatarsal surfaces of the feet.
A woman endeavours to have her tatu finished before she becomes pregnant, as it is considered immodest to be tatued after she has become a mother. If they have a daughter only they may not eat the flesh of the monitor until their child has been tatued; if they have a son only they cannot eat the monitor until they become grandparents.
In the Long Glat thigh-tatu the bands of pattern are not separated by lines of IKOR, as with the Kayans. A of the plate is termed BETIK KULE, leopard pattern, and is supposed to be a representation of the spots on the leopard's skin; it is stated to be taken from a Long Tepai tatu-block; the knuckles are tatued with a double row of wedges, the finger joints with quadrangles.
The backs of the hands are tatued, quite irrespective of bravery or experience in warfare; in fact we have frequently had occasion to note that a man with tatued hands is a wastrel or a conceited braggart, of no account with Europeans or with his own people. This wild and irresponsible system of tatu has been accompanied by an inevitable degradation of the designs.
From a drawing by a Maloh. From a tatu-block in the Sarawak Museum. From a drawing. Plate 143. From a tatu-block in the collection of H.H. the Rajah of Sarawak. From a drawing. Design tatued on the calf of the leg of an Ukit. From a photograph. Tatu design on the foot of a Kayan woman of low class. From a drawing. From a drawing. From a drawing. From a tatu-block. From a photograph.
Kalabit women are tatued when they are sixteen years old, whether they are married or unmarried, and the operation does not extend over a number of years as with the Long Glat and Kayans, nor is any elaborate ceremonial connected with the process.
The men are seldom tatued, but when they are it is in the Kayan manner. The Peng or Pnihing of the Koti basin have an elaborate system of male tatu, but it seems to be dying out; the only examples that we have met are shown on Pl. 141, Figs. 2 and 3. These represent the arms of Peng men; unfortunately we have no information as to the significance of the designs.
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