The Pagan Tribes of Borneo / A Description of Their Physical Moral and Intellectual Condition, with Some Discussion of Their Ethnic Relations

by Charles Hose; William McDougall

(B) DUSUN. — The men only tatu. The design is simple, consisting of a band, two inches broad, curving from each shoulder and meeting its fellow on the abdomen, thence each band diverges to the hip and there ends; from the shoulder each band runs down the upper arm on its exterior aspect; the flexor surface of the forearm is decorated with short transverse stripes, and, according to one authority, each stripe marks an enemy slain [7, p. 90]. This form of tatu is found chiefly amongst the Idaan group of Dusuns; according to Whitehead [11, p. 106] the Dusuns living on the slopes of Mount Kina Balu tatu no more than the parallel transverse stripes on the forearm, but in this case no reference is made to the significance of the stripes as a head-tally. The Dusun women apparently do not tatu.

(C) MURUT. — The Muruts of the Trusan river, North Sarawak, tatu very little; the men occasionally have a small scroll design just above the knee-cap and a simple circle on the breast; the women have fine lines tatued from the knuckles to the elbows [7, p. 93]. The Muruts of British North Borneo appear to be more generally tatued; the men are tatued like Dusuns, though, according to Hatton, they have three parallel stripes running from the shoulders to the wrists and no transverse lines on the forearm.[84] Whitehead [11, p. 76] figures a Murut woman of the Lawas river tatued on the arms from the biceps to the knuckles with numerous fine longitudinal lines; a band of zigzag design encircles the arm just above the commencement of the longitudinal lines. The design on a man of the same tribe is given on page 73 [11], it resembles "a three-legged dog with a crocodile's head, one leg being turned over the back as if the animal was going to scratch its ear." The part of the body on which the design was tatued, is not specified and the sketch is rather inadequate, so that it is impossible to tell for certain whether the design was tatued in outline only or whether the outline was filled in uniformly; our impression is that the outline only was tatued on this individual, and that it was employed either as an experiment or from idle amusement. Zoomorphs are conspicuous by their absence from all forms of decorative art amongst the Lawas Muruts, and the particular zoomorph noted here gives every evidence of an unpractised hand.

St. John states [7, p. 92] that the Muruts of the Adang river, a tributary of the Limbang, are tatued about the arms and legs, but he gives no details.

(D) KALABIT. — This tribe, dwelling in the watershed of the Limbang and Baram rivers, is closely akin to Muruts, but its tatu is very different. The men tatu but rarely, and then with stripes down the arms. The women, however, are decorated with most striking geometrical designs, shown on Pl. 142, Figs. 1 — 4. On the forearm are tatued eight bold zigzag bands, one-eighth of an inch broad, which do not completely encircle the arm, but stop short of joining at points on the ulnar side of the middle line on the flexor surface. The series of lines is known as BETIK TISU, the hand pattern. In some cases two short transverse lines, called TIPALANG, cross-lines, spring from the most distal zigzag at the point where it touches the back of the wrist on the radial side; in other cases these lines are tatued across the middle of the back of the wrist and two lozenges are tatued on the metacarpals; these are known as TEPARAT (Pl. 142, Fig. 1). The legs are tatued on the back of the thigh, on the shin, and sometimes on the knee-cap. The designs can best be explained by a reference to Pl. 142, Figs. 2 — 4; the part of the design marked A is termed BETIK BUAH, fruit pattern; B, betik lawa, trunk pattern; and C, BETIK LULUD, shin pattern. In Fig. 4, A and C are as before; D is BETIK KARAWIN; E, UJAT BATU, hill-tops; F, BETIK KALANG (Fig. 3).

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.

(E) LONG UTAN. — An extinct Klemantan tribe, once dwelling on the Tinjar river, an affluent of the Baram. We owe our knowledge of their tatu to an aged Klemantan, who was well acquainted with the tribe before their disappearance; at our behest he carved on some wooden models of arms and legs the tatu designs of these people, but he was unable to supply any information of the names or significance of the designs. The men of the tribe apparently were not tatued, and the designs reproduced on Pl. 141, Figs. 5, 6, are those of the women. The essential features of the designs are spirals and portions of intersecting circles; the intersecting circles are frequently to be met with in the decorative art of Kenyahs, E.G. on the back of sword-handles, round the top of posts, on carved bamboos, etc., and in these cases the design is supposed to be a representation of the open fruit of a species of mango, MANGIFERA SP. It is not improbable that the design had the same significance amongst the Long Utan, for we have met with one or two representations of the same fruit amongst other Klemantan tribes.

(F) BIAJAU. — The Dutch author C. den Hamer [5, p. 451] includes under this heading the tribes living in the districts watered by the rivers Murung, Kahayan, Katingan, and Mentaja of South-west Borneo. Under this very elastic heading he would include the Ot-Danum, Siang, and Ulu Ajar of Nieuwenhuis, but we treat of these in the next section. The ethnology of the Barito, Kahayan, and Katingan river-basins sadly needs further investigation; nothing of importance has been published on this region since the appearance of Schwaner's book on Borneo more than fifty years ago. We know really very little of the distribution or constitution of the tribes dwelling in these districts, and Schwaner's account of their tatu is very meagre. Such as it is, it is given here, extracted from Ling Roth's TRANSLATION OF SCHWANER'S ETHNOGRAPHICAL NOTES [7, pp. cxci. cxciv.]: The men of Pulu Petak, the right-hand lower branch of the Barito or Banjermasin river, tatu the upper part of the body, the arms and calves of legs, with elegant interlacing designs and scrolls. The people of the Murung river are said to be most beautifully tatued, both men and women; this river is really the upper part of the Barito, and according to Hamer is inhabited by the Biajau (VIDE POSTEA), who appear to be distinct from the Ngaju of Schwaner, inhabiting the lower courses of the Barito and Kapuas rivers. The men of the lower left-hand branch of the Barito and of the midcourse of that river are often not tatued at all, but such tatu as was extant in 1850 was highly significant according to Schwaner's account; thus, a figure composed of two spiral lines interlacing each other and with stars at the extremities tatued on the shoulder signified that the man had taken several heads; two lines meeting each other at an acute angle behind the finger nails signified dexterity in wood-carving; a star on the temple was a sign of happiness in love. We have no reason to consider this information inaccurate, but we do consider it lamentable that more details concerning the most interesting forms of tatu in Borneo were not obtained, for it is only too probable that such information cannot be acquired now. The women of this tribe do not tatu. In the upper Teweh river, an upper tributary of the Barito the men are tatued a good deal, especially on parts of the face, such as the forehead, the cheeks, the upper lip. The only figures that Schwaner gives are reproduced by Ling Roth [7, p. 931, they represent two Ngajus; the tatu designs are drawn on too small a scale to be of much interest, and in any case we have no information concerning them. The two figures of 'Tatued Dyaks' (? Kayans) (after Professor Veth), on p. 95 of the above-cited work cannot be referred to any tribe known to us.

Hamer in his paper [5] gives a detailed account of Biajau tatu, but, unfortunately, without any illustrations; as abstracts of the paper have already been given by Ling Roth [7, pp. 93, 94] and by Hein [6, pp. 143 — 147], we will pass on to the next section.

(G) OT-DANUM, ULU AJAR, AND SIANG (Kapuas river, tributaries). — Concerning these tribes Nieuwenhuis says but little [9, p. 452], merely noting that the men are first tatued with discs on the calf and in the hollow of the knee and later over the arms, torso, and throat, whilst the women tatu the hands, knees, and shins. Two colours, red and blue, are used, and the designs are tatued free-hand, the instrument employed being a piece of copper or brass about four inches long and half an inch broad, with one end bent down at a right angle and sharpened to a point. Sometimes thread is wound round the end of the instrument just above the point, to regulate the depth of its penetration. Two specimens in the Leyden Museum are figured by Ling Roth [7, p. 85]. Hamer [5] says that the Ot-Danum women are tatued down the shin to the tarsus with two parallel lines, joined by numerous cross-lines, a modification of the Uma Tow design for the same part of the limb. On the thigh is tatued a design termed SOEWROE, said to resemble a neck ornament. A disc tatued on the calf of the leg is termed BOENTOER, and from it to the heel runs a barbed line called IKOEH BAJAN, tail of the monitor lizard; curiously enough, though this is the general name of the design, it is on the right leg also termed BARAREK, on the left DANDOE TJATJAH. Warriors are tatued on the elbowjoint with a DANDOE TJATJAH and a cross called SARAPANG MATA ANDAU.

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. The low-class people have to be content with simpler designs; the men are tatued on the breast and stomach with two curved lines ending in curls, and on the outside of each arm with two lines also ending in curls (Pl. 142, Fig. 6); on the outside of the thigh a rather remarkable design, shown on Pl. 142, Fig. 7, is tatued; it is termed LINSAT, the flying squirrel, PTEROMYS NITIDUS, and on the back of the calf is tatued a disc termed KALANG BABOI, the wild pig pattern. The women are tatued as described by Hamer down the front of the shin with two parallel lines connected by transverse cross-bars; according to our informant the design was supposed to represent a flat fish, such as a sole. (Pl. 142, Fig. 8.)