Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 31, 2025
The fees paid to the artist are more or less fixed; for the forearms a gong, worth from eight to twenty dollars, according to the workmanship required; for the thighs a large TAWAK, worth as much as sixty dollars if the very best workmanship is demanded, from six to twenty dollars if only inferior workmanship is required. For tatuing the fingers the operator receives a MALAT or short sword.
At an earlier age the children have picked up a number of songs and spontaneously sing them in groups, but now they begin to develop their powers of musical. expression by practising with the KELURI, Jew's harp, drum and TAWAK. Of these instruments the first is the most used, especially by the youths. It is a rude form of the bagpipes.
The craftsman who makes a boat for another is helped by his customer, and is paid by him a fee in brass-ware or dollars, the usual fee being a TAWAK varying in size according to the size of the boat. If Kayans find themselves for any reason in immediate need of a boat when none is at hand, they sometimes fashion one very rapidly by stripping the bark from a big tree.
The calm stillness of the tropical dawn is broken by the deep war-chorus of the attacking party, by the shouts and screams of the people of the house suddenly roused from sleep, by the cries and squeals of the frightened animals beneath the house, and the beating of the alarm signal on the TAWAK. If the house is ignited, the encircling assailants strive to intercept the fleeing inhabitants.
When a hostile war-party enters a section of a river in which there is a number of villages of one tribe or of friendly tribes, its approach may be signalled throughout the district by the beating of the TAWAK. The same peculiar rhythm is used for this purpose by all the tribes, though it probably has been copied from the Kayans by all the others.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking