Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/296

 2 74 Reviews.

Flandok (the mouse-deer), Kelap (the water-tortoise), and Kra (the monkey). 2

The most noteworthy feature, however, of the work is the attempt, and a very able attempt, of the authors to dissect out, as it were, the various layers of culture which exist in Borneo, and to establish the relationships of these layers to the cultures of the surrounding regions. They have not attempted more than a sketch, but as far as they have carried the analysis they have thrown a great deal of light upon the subject. Chapters iii. and xxi. are occupied with the discussion, the results of which may be summarised briefly as follows : — Before Borneo was separated from the mainland, it, and much of the whole surrounding region, were peopled by tribes of which the Klemantan, Kenyah, and Punan are the descendants. " Their cultural status was probably very similar to that of the existing Punan" (p. 225). The stock is a mixture of Caucaso-Mongoloid elements (p. 226), and the members of it are called Indonesian. The immigration of the Mongoloid stock into the region steadily continued, so that, when Borneo be- came separated from the mainland, the Indonesian stocks which were left behind gradually received more infusions of Mongoloid blood and culture, so that in the course of time the Indonesians left in Burma and elsewhere became possessed of a culture con- sisting of an Indonesian layer and a Mongoloid layer.- Pressure from the North was continuous, and finally those tribes which were in the southern portion of the area emigrated southwards.

" We believe that the Kayan emigrated to Borneo from the basin of the Irrawaddi by way of Tenasserim, the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, and that they represent a part of the. Indonesian stock which had remained in the basin of the Irrawaddi and adjacent rivers from the time of the separation of Borneo, there, through contact with the Southward drift of people, receiving fresh infusions of Mongol blood ; a part, therefore, of the Indonesians which is more Mongoloid in character than the part which at a remote period was shut up in Borneo by its separation from the mainland" (p. 233).

The authors would especially associate the Kayan with the

^Cf. Ling Rolh, The Natives of Saraiuak and British North Borneo, vol. i., p. 342 et seq.