The Punans, having no houses and therefore no walls on which to
draw pictures, have little opportunity to indulge any such tendency;
but we have seen rude hunting scenes depicted by them on the walls
of shallow caves; the technique consisted in scratching away the
soft rotted surface of the limestone rock to produce outlines of the
figures depicted.
The Malanaus, who live in the large limestone caves during the time
of harvesting the edible nests of the swift, sometimes make rude
drawings with charcoal on the walls of the cave.
The weaving of decorative designs on cloth is almost confined to the
Sea Dayaks. Some account of the designs will be given below.
Shell-work
Shells (chiefly nassas and the flat bases of cone-shells) are sometimes
applied by the Iban women to decorate their woven coats, by Kalabits
(in concentric circles on their sunhats), and more rarely by other
tribes in the decoration of baskets (Fig. 48). Fig. 49 represents
a garment decorated in this fashion by Iban women, and worn by them
when dancing with the heads of enemies in their hands.
The Decorative Designs
The Kayans make use in their decorative art of a large number of
conventional designs. The principal applications of these designs are
in tatu, beadwork, the production of panels of wood for the adornment
of houses, tombs, boats, and PADI barns, the decoration of bamboo
boxes, and the painting of hats, and the carving of highly ornate doors
to the rooms.
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