ful. They are
generally very fond of their parents, and when they grow older, do as
they are told from a desire to please them.

Dyak children have very soon to make themselves useful. A little boy of
ten or eleven accompanies his father to his work and helps him as best
he can. A boy is very proud when he has succeeded in making his first
dug-out canoe, which he sometimes does at fifteen. I have often, when on
a visit to a Dyak village, been asked by some boy to see the first boat
he has made, and I have been shown, not a toy boat, but a canoe in which
three men could sit comfortably.

The girls like to help their mothers and learn to become useful at an
early age, and to do the different kinds of work a woman is expected to
do. When a woman is plaiting a mat of split cane, or of reeds, she often
gives the short ends, which she has cut off, to her little girl, who
sits by her and tries to make a little mat with them. I have often seen
little girls of ten and eleven being taught by their mothers how to
weave cloth.

It is sad to think of these Dyak children in Borneo living in constant
fear of evil spirits, and not knowing anything about God. The
missionaries try to teach the little ones, and at each up-country
Mission Station there is a small school for Dyak boys. Here they are
taught about God, and are cut away from all the superstitious customs
which they would constantly see in their Dyak homes. Many of these boys,
after being at school for a few years, return to their own people,
taking back with them the good lessons they have learnt, and in many
cases influencing their friends and relatives for good, and leading some
of them to become Christians. A few of these schoolboys are sent on to
the larger school at the capital to be taught English. These are the
boys who, one hopes, will in after years become teachers and catechists
among their own people. There are so few Dyak books that it is
necessary that a Dyak teacher should learn English in order to be able
to educate himself by reading English books.

CHAPTER V

MANNER OF LIFE--OCCUPATION

The Dyaks are industrious and hard-working, and in the busy times of
paddy[2] planting they work from early in the morning till dusk, only
stopping for a meal at midday. The division of labour between the men
and the women is a very reasonable one, and the women do their fair
share of work. The men do the timber-felling, wood-cutting, clearing the
land, house an