The Dog
In all Kenyah houses are large numbers of dogs, which vary a good deal in size and colour, but roughly resemble large, mongrel-bred, smooth-haired terriers. Each family owns several, and they are fed with rice usually in the evening; but they seem to be always hungry. The best of them are used for hunting; but besides these there is always a number of quite useless, ill-fed, ill-tempered curs; for no Kenyah dare kill a dog, however much he may wish to be rid of it. Still less, of course, will he eat the flesh of a dog. The dogs prowl about, in and around the house, much as they please, but are not treated with any particular respect. When a dog intrudes where he is not wanted it is usual to click with the tongue at him, and this is usually enough to make him pass on; but blows with a stick follow quickly if the animal does not obey. They display little affection for their dogs, and they do not like children to touch or play with the dogs, but of course cannot altogether prevent them.
One young Kenyah chief, on being questioned, said that the reason they will not kill dogs is that they are like children, and eat and sleep together with men in the same house; and he added that, if a man should kill a dog, he would go mad.
If a dog dies in the house, the men push the carcase out of the house and into the river with long poles, and will on no account touch it with their hands. The spot on the floor on which the dog died is fenced round with mats for some few days in order to prevent the children walking over it.
It is usual for the Kenyah men to have one or more designs tatued on their forearms and shoulders. Among the commonest of these designs are those known as the prawn and the dog (see Chap. XII). They seem to be conventionalised derivatives from these animal forms. It is said that the dog's head design was formerly much more in fashion than it is at the present time.
Deer and Cattle
Very few Kenyahs of the upper class will kill or eat deer and wild cattle. They believe that if they should eat their flesh they would vomit violently and spit out blood. They have no domestic cattle, and the buffalo does not occur in their districts. Lower-class Kenyahs and slaves, taken as war-captives from other tribes, may eat deer and horned cattle, but they must take the flesh some little distance from the house when they cook it. A woman who is pregnant, or for any other reason is in the hands of a physician, has to observe the restrictions with regard to deer and cattle more strictly than other people, and she will not touch or allow to be brought near her any article of leather or horn.
The war-coats of the men are often made of the skin of goats or deer, and any man may wear such a war-coat. But when a man has a young son, he is particularly careful to avoid contact with any part of a deer, lest through such contact he should transmit to his son in any degree the timidity of the deer. On one occasion when we had killed a deer, a Kenyah chief resolutely refused to allow its skin to be carried in his boat, alleging the above reason.
The cry or bark of the deer (CERVULUS MUNTJAC) is a warning of danger, and the seeing or hearing of the mouse-deer or PLANDOK (TRAGULAS NAPU) has a like significance.
The Tiger-cat