The wood is then heated with
torches, and on cooling retains the curvature thus impressed on it.
It only remains to whittle down the rough surface to a smooth cylinder
slightly tapering towards the muzzle (Pl. 114), to polish the pipe
inside and out, to lash on the spear-blade to the muzzle end with
strips of rattan, and to attach a small wooden sight to the muzzle
end opposite the spear-blade. The polishing of the bore is effected by
working to and fro within it a long piece of closely fitting rattan;
that of the outer surface, by rubbing it first with the skin of a
stingray (which, although a marine fish, sometimes ascends to the
upper reaches of the rivers), and afterwards with the leaf (EMPLAS)
which is the local substitute for emery paper.
The shaft of the poisoned dart is made from the wood of the NIBONG and
wild sago palms. It is about nine inches in length and one-sixteenth
to one-eighth of an inch in diameter (Pl. 115). On to one end of this
is fitted a small tapering cylinder of tough pith, about one inch in
length, its greatest diameter at its butt end being exactly equal to
the bore of the pipe. The pith is shaved to the required diameter by
the aid of a small wooden cylinder of the standard size (Fig. 42);
this is prolonged in a pin of the same diameter as the shaft of the
dart.
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