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Thus qeften, monkey, is spelled out in full, but the picture of a monkey is added as a determinative; second, qenu, cavalry, after being spelled, is made unequivocal by the introduction of a picture of a horse; third, temati, wings, though spelled elaborately, has pictures of wings added; and fourth, tatu, quadrupeds, after being spelled, has a picture of a quadruped, and then the picture of a hide, which is the usual determinative of a quadruped, followed by three dashes to indicate the plural number.
Roughly speaking, it is of the size of a cocoanut; a large one might kill a man and has been known to cause serious injury. It is most dangerous for children to walk under the trees in the fruit season. The durian is intensely appreciated by the natives, and tatu marks representing the fruit are strikingly prominent in Central Borneo.
He made out first the crude picture of a shark with huge gaping jaws struggling under the weight of a ship's anchor, and then, directly under this pigment colored tatu, the almost invisible letters of a name. He made them out one by one B-l-a-k-e. Before the surname was the letter G. "Blake," he repeated, rising to his feet. "GEORGE Blake a sailor and a white man!"
Between us we have covered a considerable area in Borneo and have closely crossquestioned members of nearly every tribe inhabiting Sarawak on their tatu, but we cannot claim to have exhausted the subject by any means; there are tribes in the interior of Dutch Borneo and in British North Borneo whom we have not visited, and concerning whom our knowledge is of the scantiest.
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.
The practice of tatu is so widely spread throughout Borneo that it seems simpler to give a list of the tribes that do not tatu, than of those who do. Punan. 2. Maloh. 3. Land Dyak. Malanau. 5. Miri. 6. Dali. 7. Narom. 8. Siduan 10. Tutong. 11. Balait. 12. Bisaya. 14. Kadayans.
A Maloh who had lived for many years amongst these people gave us the following information about their tatu: There is with these people a great difference between the tatu of the high-class and that of the low-class individuals: amongst the former the designs are both extensive and complicated, too complicated for our informant to describe with any degree of accuracy, but they seem to be much the same as those described by Hamer.
These Dayaks, who are shy but very friendly, are said to have immigrated here over thirty years ago. They are mostly of medium size, the women stocky, with thick ankles, though otherwise their figures are quite good. The Ot-Danum men, like the Murungs, Siangs, and Katingans, place conspicuously on the calf of the leg a large tatu mark representing the full moon.
According to this authority, girls when only eight years old have the backs of the fingers tatued, at the commencement of menstruation the tatu of the fingers is completed, and in the course of the following year the tatu is carried over the backs of the hand to the wrist; the feet are tatued synchronously with the hands.
The tatu of the legs and feet is the last to be completed, and the lines round the ankles are denied to all but the bravest veterans. All that has been written above applies equally well to the Ukits, or at least once did apply, for now the Ukits have to a great extent adopted the tatu of the Kayan, and it is only occasionally that an old man tatued in the original, Ukit manner is met.
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