With the borrowing of exogenous designs arises such
an alteration in their forms that the original names and significance
are lost. But when the very practice of tatu has no special meaning,
when the tatu-artist may be any member of the tribe, and where no
original tatu design is to be found in the tribe, then the borrowed
practice and the borrowed designs, unbound by any sort of tradition,
run complete riot, and any sort of fanciful name is applied to the
degraded designs. Amongst the Kenyah tribes the modification and
degradation of the dog design has not proceeded so far as amongst
the Sea Dayaks, and this may be explained by their more restrained
practice of tatu and by the constant intercourse between them and
the Kayans, for they always have good models before them. Pl. 137,
Fig. 3, illustrates the extreme limit of degradation of the dog design
amongst Sea Dayaks; it is sometimes termed KALA, scorpion,[87] and
it is noteworthy that the representation of the chelae and anterior
end of the scorpion (A) was originally the posterior end of the dog,
and the hooked ends of the posterior processes of this scorpion design
(B), instead of facing one another as they did when they represented
the open jaws of the dog, now look the same way; the rosette-like eye
of the dog still persists, but of course it has no significance in the
scorpion.
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