In an interior house at one end were collected the relics of the
tribe. These consisted of several round-looking stones, two deer's
heads, and other inferior trumpery. The stones turn black if the
tribe is to be beaten in war, and red if to be victorious; any one
touching them would be sure to die; if lost, the tribe would be ruined.

The account of the deer's heads is still more curious: A young Dyak
having dreamed the previous night that he should become a great
warrior, observed two deer swimming across the river, and killed
them; a storm came on with thunder and lightning, and darkness
came over the face of the earth; he died immediately, but came to
life again, and became a rumah guna (literally a _useful house_)
and chief of his tribe; the two deer still live, and remain to watch
over the affairs of the tribe. These heads have descended from their
ancestors from the time when they first became a tribe and inhabited
the mountain. Food is always kept placed before them, and renewed from
time to time. While in the circular building, which our party named
"the scullery," a young chief (Meta) seemed to take great pride in
answering our interrogatories respecting different skulls which we
took down from their hooks: two belonged to chiefs of a tribe who had
made a desperate defence; and judging from the incisions on the heads,
each of which must have been mortal, it must have been a desperate
affair. Among other trophies was half a head, the skull separated
from across between the eyes, in the same manner that you would
divide that of a hare or rabbit to get at the brain--this was their
division of the head of an old woman, which was taken when another
(a friendly) tribe was present, who likewise claimed their half. I
afterward saw these tribes share a head. But the skulls, the account
of which our informant appeared to dwell on with the greatest delight,
were those which were taken while the owners were asleep--cunning with
them being the perfection of warfare. We slept in their "scullery;"
and my servant Ashford, who happened to be a sleep-walker, that
night jumped out of the window, and unluckily on the steep side;
and had not the ground been well turned up by the numerous pigs,
and softened by rain, he must have been hurt.

_May 25th._--Having returned to our boats, we moved up another branch
of the river, for the purpose of deer-shooting, and landed under some
large shady trees. The sportsmen divided into two s