The Pagan Tribes of Borneo | Page 4

and manners, and by means
of innumerable conversations with men and women of many tribes.
The reader has a right to be informed as to the nature of the
opportunities we have enjoyed for collecting our material, and we
therefore make the following personal statement. One of us (C. H.) has
spent twenty-four years as a Civil Officer in the service of the Rajah of
Sarawak; and of this time twenty-one years were spent actually in
Sarawak, while periods of some months were spent from time to time
in visiting neighbouring lands -- Celebes, Sulu Islands, Ternate, Malay
Peninsula, British North Borneo, and Dutch Borneo. Of the twenty-one
years spent in Sarawak, about eighteen were passed in the Baram
district, and the remainder mostly in the Rejang district. In both these
districts, but especially in the Baram, settlements and representatives of
nearly all the principal peoples are to be found; and the nature of his
duties as Resident Magistrate necessitated a constant and intimate
intercourse with all the tribes of the districts, and many long and
leisurely journeys into the far interior, often into regions which had not
previously been explored. Such journeys, during which the tribesmen
are the magistrate's only companions for many weeks or months, and
during which his nights and many of his days are spent in the houses of
the people, afford unequalled opportunities for obtaining intimate
knowledge of them and their ways. These opportunities have not been
neglected; notes have been written, special questions followed up,
photographs taken, and sketches made, throughout all this period.
In the years 1898 -- 9 the second collaborator (W. McD.) spent the
greater part of a year in the Baram district as a member of the
Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, which, under the leadership of
Dr. A. C. Haddon, went out to the Torres Straits in the year 1897.

During this visit we co-operated in collecting material for a joint paper
on the animal cults of Sarawak;[1] and this co-operation, having proved
itself profitable, suggested to us an extension of our joint program to
the form of a book embodying all the information already to hand and
whatever additional information might be obtainable during the years
that one of us was still to spend in Borneo. The book therefore may be
said to have been begun in the year 1898 and to have been in progress
since that time; but it has been put into shape only during the last few
years, when we have been able to come together for the actual writing
of it.
During the year 1899 Dr. A. C. Haddon spent some months in the
Baram district, together with other members of the Cambridge
Expedition (Drs. C. G. Seligmann, C. S. Myers, and Mr. S. Ray); and
we wish to express our obligation to him for the friendly
encouragement in, and stimulating example of, anthropological field
work which he afforded us during that time, as well as for later
encouragement and help which he has given us, especially in reading
the proofs of the book and in making many helpful suggestions. We are
indebted to him also for the Appendix to this book, in which he has
stated and discussed the results of the extensive series of physical
measurements of the natives that he made, with our assistance, during
his visit to Sarawak.
We have pleasure in expressing here our thanks to several other
gentlemen to whom we are indebted for help of various kinds -- for
permission to reproduce several photographs, to Dr. A. W.
Nieuwenhuis, the intrepid explorer of the interior of Dutch Borneo,
who in his two fine volumes (QUER DURCH BORNEO) has
embodied the observations recorded during two long journeys in the
interior; to Mr. H. Ling Roth for the gift of the blocks used in the
preparation of his well-known work, THE NATIVES OF SARAWAK
AND BRITISH NORTH BORNEO, many of which we have made use
of; to Dr. W. H. Furness, author of THE HOME LIFE OF BORNEO
HEAD-HUNTERS (1902), for several photographic plates made by
him during his visits to the Baram in the years 1897 and 1898; to Drs.
C. G. Seligmann and C. S. Myers for permission to reproduce several
photographs; to Mr. R. Shelford, formerly Curator of the Sarawak
Museum, for his permission to incorporate a large part of a paper

published jointly with one of us (C. H.) on tatu in Borneo, and for
measurements of Land Dayaks made by him; to Mr. R. S. Douglas,
formerly Assistant Officer in the Baram district and now Resident of
the Fourth Division of Sarawak, for practical help genially afforded on
many occasions.
Finally, it is our agreeable duty to acknowledge our obligation to H.H.
the Rajah of Sarawak, who welcomed to his country the members of
the Cambridge Anthropological