however, is their embarrassing
tenacity to the _fad_ of head-hunting, and a strict adherence to the
principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This keeps the
different households, even of the same tribe, at constant war and makes
inevitable an uncomfortable yet pleasing interchange of heads during the
tedious months of the rainy season, when time hangs heavy on the
warriors' hands, and disused swords might get rusty.

So little is known of the social and anthropological position of these
people, to others than those who make Malaysia and the South Sea islands
their study, that it may not be out of place to give a short description
of the people themselves before entering on the subject of their
Folk-lore.

The remote origin of the Borneans, as well as of the greater part of all
of the inhabitants of the Polynesian islands, is an ethnological
problem; they are not Malay, neither are they Mongolian nor Negrito;
they bear resemblances here and there to all of these races, but not
marked enough to claim any one as the parent stock. Furthermore, there
is some evidence in favor of the theory that they are the result of
successive migrations of tribes from northern India and from Anam.

[Illustration: A KAYAN LONG-HOUSE.]

The inland tribes of Borneo, by which I include all the natives except
the Malays settled along the coast, are without any definite forms of
religious worship; they make idols of wood, but I have never seen any
offering made to them, nor do they regard them apparently as anything
more than as scarecrows to frighten off evil spirits. They are the
children of Dame Nature and as such have inherited their mother's
disregard for life, and this feature of their temperament has kept them
in a constant turmoil of warfare, which in turn compels them for mutual
protection to band together in communities of several families and build
for themselves a common house wherein to live, ever ready to turn out in
force and resist the attacks of hostile tribes. In not a few instances
these houses are as much as a quarter of a mile in length and shelter as
many as four hundred people. Every household is presided over by a
head-man known as the elder, or _Orang Tuah_, and he in turn is governed
in a measure by the chief of the tribe, known as the _Penghulu_. The
government of the household seems to be conducted in the quietest
manner; I have lived on several occasions in these houses for three or
four weeks at a