birds searched carefully for a good material, and eventually selected the wood of a tree known as the Kumpong, which has a strong fibre and exudes a quantity of deep red sap, whenever it is cut. Out of this tree they fashioned a man and a woman, and were so well pleased with this achievement that they rested for a long while and admired their handiwork. Then they decided to continue creating more men; they returned to the Kumpong tree, but they had entirely forgotten their original pattern, and how they had executed it, and they were therefore able to make only very inferior creatures, which became the ancestors of the Maias (the Orang Utan) and monkeys.

The man and the woman were very helpless and hardly knew how to obtain the simplest necessities of life, so the Iri and the Ringgong devised the Ubi—a wild sweetpotato—the wild Tapioca, the Kaladi, or, as we know it, the Kaladium, and other edible roots, whereof the man and woman soon learned to eat; fire, however, was unknown to these first people and they had to eat all of their food raw.

Contemporaneously with the Maias and the monkeys many other animals came into being, among them the dog. For a long time all living things were friendly to one another and lived in the land of Kaburau, which lies near a branch of the great Kapuas river, and is, even to this day, considered by the Dayaks as the garden-spot of the world. The dog, however, because he cleaned himself with his tongue, soon came to be despised by all other animals, and although a bully he was yet subservient to man. Then the deer and many of the other animals taunted the dog, saying that he was so mean-spirited and servile that although man thrashed him, nevertheless he fawned upon him and followed after him; which they would never do, so they went off to the jungle to live. But the dog comforted himself by saying that "When the man is about to strike me I crouch down and sometimes this keeps his hand off; furthermore, I cannot live on the poor food that these others must eat." Hence, the dog follows and obeys man.

One day when the man and the dog were in the jungle together, and got drenched by rain, the man noticed that the dog warmed himself by rubbing against a huge creeper, called the Aka Rarah, whereupon the man took a stick and rubbed it rapidly against the Aka Rarah, and to his surprise obtained fire. This was the origin of the Sukan, or fire drill, and ever after the man had fire in his house. Not long after, in accidentally dropping an Ubi near the fire, he found that it became much more pleasant to the taste; by this accident cooking was discovered.

Making Fire with a Fire-Drill.

In the course of time, the dog and other animals began to multiply, and man imitated their example; the woman brought forth a male child, whose name was Machan Buntu. After many years, the woman gave birth to a female child who, when she was well grown, married her brother Machan Buntu and gave birth to seventy children at one time. These children left their home and scattered all over the world. Some became wood sprites and mountain gnomes, living in the trees, in the rivers, and under ground.

The tradition of the manufacture of man out of wood instead of clay is thoroughly in keeping with an origin purely Dayak. The Dayaks never have been proficient in pottery, and to this day they carve their bowls and dishes out of hard wood, otherwise it seems to me that clay would have suggested itself to them as the most suitable substance whereof to have made man. Another item looks as if part of the story were an interpolation, namely, where it is related that the two birds were so pleased with their work after making man, that they rested; this looks like a suggestion due to the first chapter of Genesis. Again, in that land of Kaburau, where all animals lived in perfect harmony, and which was the garden of the world, we may recognize the garden of Eden. Owing to the lack of writing, as I said before, it is impossible to say how old this tradition is, or to what extent it is known to Dayaks in other parts of the country; I have heard that very much the same story is told by the natives in the Rejang district several hundred miles south of the Baram; where the chiefest difference in the accounts is that earlier and higher than the birds there was a Supreme Being called Rajah Gantalla, who after creating the two birds, committed the rest of the work to them. I think in the -allah of this name (I speak under correction) we may discern a strong indication of Mohammedan influence. The first man, instead of being carved entirely of Kumpong wood, was made, in this latter account, of clay and then filled with the sap of the Kumpong tree.

A tradition (I do not say "legend," for this implies writing) which all the Kayans seem to know and to take pleasure in relating, is connected with the origin of their rite of head-hunting, for, although every possible means is employed by the European rulers of the island to stop this custom, it is still, nevertheless the one ruling passion of the people. Nay, it is part of their Religion; no house is blest which is not sanctified by a row of human skulls, and no man can hope to attain to the happy region of Apo Leggan unless he, or some near relative of his, has added a head to the household collection. Let me correct, however, with regard to head-hunting, what is probably the prevalent idea that the heads are hung up in the houses bleeding and raw, just as they are severed from the body. This is quite wrong; whether or not they would tolerate in their homes such horrid objects I cannot say, but certain it is that the heads are first subjected to fire and smoke until the flesh has dropped away, and what is then hung up is merely a skull; unpleasant enough, but not so bad as is generally supposed.

A Kayan Youth.

The tradition is that the great chief Tokong, when out on a war expedition, was told by Kop, the frog, that he should always take, instead of only the hair, the whole head of his enemies; Tokong was angry, at first, at the frog, but his followers at length persuaded him to let them try the experiment on their next attack. After taking the whole heads, the war party retreated quickly to the river down which they had come, and came to the spot where they had left their boats and were surprised to find that everything was exactly as they had left it. When they embarked, lo, and behold! the current of the stream was, for their sakes, reversed and like a flash they were carried up-stream and reached their home in a miraculously short time. During the fifteen days that they had been absent the crop of rice had not only sprouted, but had grown, had ripened, and was almost ready to be harvested; the members of their family who had been sick when they left, were now all well, the lame could walk and the blind see. The wise men waggled their heads, and one and all declared (and who can blame them?) that ever after they would stick to the custom that Kop had taught them.

It is not unfair to infer from this tradition that they have a crude, germinal sense of the barbarity of their actions, in so far as they think it necessary to invent an excuse to palliate that savage love of trophy-hunting which seems inborn in mankind. The rite of head-hunting is by no means confined to Borneo; the Formosans, and also many of our new