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

The Authors' Position and Method

Hose spent twenty-four years as a civil officer in Sarawak, eighteen of them in the Baram district, where his duties as Resident Magistrate required constant travel and intimate contact with many tribes. McDougall joined him for a year as part of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition. The preface stresses that they relied on 'direct observation' and 'innumerable conversations' rather than on other writers' records. This personal engagement shapes the text: descriptions of customs are often accompanied by the circumstances under which the information was obtained, and the authors note when a belief is reported by a single informant, as when a young Kenyah chief gave the reason for not killing dogs.

Crocodile Vengeance and Ritual

The Kenyah treatment of crocodiles is detailed with a focus on procedure and belief. When a man is taken by a crocodile, the villagers 'prod all the bed of this part of the river' with spears tied to long poles, hoping to kill the offender. They then search its entrails for the victim's bones or hair; if none are found, they still feel 'that justice is satisfied.' The authors note that Kenyahs fear crocodiles in unfamiliar waters because the beasts might mistake them for an enemy. Some tie red leaves of the Dracaena below the prow of their boat for protection. The account is careful to state that there is no evidence of a belief in descent from crocodiles, only a sense of personal accountability between man and animal.

The Dog: Useless but Untouchable

Dogs in Kenyah houses are described as 'large, mongrel-bred, smooth-haired terriers,' fed rice in the evening but 'always hungry.' Despite their numbers, no Kenyah will kill a dog, and the carcase of one that dies naturally must be pushed out of the house with long poles; the spot where it died is fenced with mats for several days. The authors record that men have dog designs tatued on their forearms and shoulders, though the design is now less fashionable. The dog's status is paradoxical: it is not treated with respect, yet it cannot be harmed. The young chief's explanation—that dogs are 'like children' and share the house—is given without comment, leaving the reader to weigh the logic of the taboo.

Class and Gender in Food Taboos

Restrictions on eating deer and wild cattle vary by social rank and condition. Upper-class Kenyahs will not kill or eat these animals, believing that doing so would cause violent vomiting and spitting of blood. Lower-class Kenyahs and slaves may eat them, but must cook the flesh away from the house. Pregnant women or those under a physician's care observe stricter rules, avoiding even leather or horn. The authors note that war-coats are often made of goat or deer skin, and any man may wear one, but a man with a young son is 'particularly careful' to avoid such contact. These gradations show how taboo is not uniform but modulated by status, gender, and life stage—a nuance the authors capture without theorizing.

Readers should approach this work as a record of what two trained observers saw and heard in specific districts at a specific time. The authors do not claim completeness; they present their material as 'first hand' information, often letting the tribesmen's own words stand. The value lies in the density of concrete detail—what people wore, how they cooked, what they said about dogs and crocodiles—rather than in any overarching argument. For those interested in the texture of daily life and belief in early twentieth-century Borneo, this is a rich but partial document.

Reading the Kenyah’s careful notes on animal taboos, I kept thinking about how trust is built from small, witnessed details. There’s a quiet patience in their observations, a willingness to let customs speak for themselves. It reminded me of the gentle, firsthand portraits in Working Women of Japan — Edition Insights, where daily life, too, unfolds with its own quiet authority.