Many sword-blades are elaborately decorated with scroll designs along the posterior border and inlaid with brass. The inlaid brass commonly takes the form of a number of small discs let into the metal near the thick edge; small holes are punched through the hot metal, and brass wire is passed through each hole, cut off flush with the surface and hammered flat. The designs are chased on the cold metal with a chisel and hammer supplemented by a file. The polishing and sharpening are done in several stages: the first stage usually by rubbing the blade upon a block of sandstone; the second stage by the use of a hone of finer grain; and the highest polish is attained by rubbing with a leaf whose surface is hard and probably contains silicious particles. At the present time imported files are much used.
Other implements fashioned by the smiths are the small knives, spear-heads, hoes, small adzes, rods for boring the sumpitan, the anvil, and the various hammers, and chisels, and rough files used by the smiths.
Brass-work
Although brass-ware is so highly valued by all the peoples of the interior, the only brazen articles made by them (with one exception presently to be noticed) are the heavy ear-rings of the women. The common form is a simple ring of solid metal interrupted at one point by a gap about an eighth of an inch wide, through which is pulled the thin band of skin formed by stretching the lobule of the ear. Other rings form about one and a half turns of a corkscrew spiral. These rings are cast in moulds of clay, or in some cases in moulds hollowed in two blocks of stone which are nicely opposed.
The Malohs, a Klemantan sub-tribe in the upper basin of the Kapuas river, are well known as brass-workers; their wares are bartered throughout the country, and a few Maloh brass-workers may be found temporarily settled in many of the larger villages of all tribes. They make the brass corsets of the Iban women, tweezers for pulling out the hair of the face, brass ear-rings, and a variety of small articles, and they make use of the larger brass-ware of Malay and Chinese origin as the source of their material.
Fire Piston
This very ingenious instrument for the making of fire is cast in metal by the Ibans. (See Fig. 36 and Pl. 108.) It consists of a hollow brass or leaden cylinder about five inches in length and one inch in diameter, the bore being about one-quarter of an inch in diameter and closed at one end. A wooden piston, which closely fits the bore, bears a rounded knob; it is driven down the cylinder by a sharp blow of the palm upon the knob and is quickly withdrawn. The heat generated by the compression of the air ignites a bit of tinder (made by scraping the fibrous surface of the leaf stem of the Arenga palm) at the bottom of the cylinder. The cylinder is cast by pouring the molten metal into a section of bamboo, while a polished iron rod is held vertically in the centre to form the bore. When the cylinder is cold the iron rod is extracted, and the outer surface is trimmed and shaped with knife or file.
Boat-building
The Kayans make much use of boats, as described in Chapter VIII., and are skilful boat-makers. The forest offers them an abundant variety of timbers suitable for the different types of boat used by them.
The most ambitious efforts of this kind are devoted to the construction of the great war-boats, fine specimens of which are as much as 100 feet in length, or even, in exceptional instances, nearly 150 feet. The foundation of every boat is a single piece of timber shaped and hollowed by fire and adze. Several kinds of timber are used, the best being the kinds known as AROH (SHOREA) and NGELAI (AFZELIA PALAMBANICA). Sometimes a suitable stem is found floating down river and brought to the bank before the house. But such good fortune is exceptional, and commonly a tree is selected in the forest as near as possible to the river bank. The tree is felled in the way described in Chapter VI. (Pl. 55), its branches are hewed away, and the stem is cut to the required length and roughly hewn into shape. About one-fourth of the circumference of the stem is cut away along the whole length, and from this side the stem is hollowed. When, by chopping out the centre, the thickness of this shell has been reduced to a thickness of some five inches, it is brought down to the river. This is effected by laying through the jungle a track consisting of smooth poles laid across the direction of progress; the hollowed stem is pulled endwise over this track with the aid of rattans, perhaps a hundred or more men combining their strength. If the stem proves too heavy to be moved at any part of the journey by their direct pull and push, a rough windlass is constructed by fixing the stem of a small tree across two standing trees and winding the rattans upon this, the trimmed branches of the tree serving as the arms of the windlass. The Kayans are skilled in this kind of transport of heavy timber; for the building of their houses and of the larger tombs involves similar difficulties, though the timbers required for these purposes are not so huge as those used for the war-boats. Arrived at the river bank, the hollowed stem is launched upon the water and towed down stream to the village at a time when the water is high. It is made fast to the bank before the village at as high a point as the water will allow, so that when the river subsides it is left high and dry. A leaf shelter is then built over it to protect it and the workers from the sun. The shell is then further hollowed, partly by firing it with shavings inside and out, and by scraping away the charred surfaces. The inside is fired first; then the hollow is filled with water, and the outside is fired.