They display little affection for their dogs,
and they do not like children to touch or play with the dogs, but of
course cannot altogether prevent them.
One young Kenyah chief, on being questioned, said that the reason
they will not kill dogs is that they are like children, and eat and
sleep together with men in the same house; and he added that, if a
man should kill a dog, he would go mad.
If a dog dies in the house, the men push the carcase out of the
house and into the river with long poles, and will on no account
touch it with their hands. The spot on the floor on which the dog
died is fenced round with mats for some few days in order to prevent
the children walking over it.
It is usual for the Kenyah men to have one or more designs tatued on
their forearms and shoulders. Among the commonest of these designs
are those known as the prawn and the dog (see Chap. XII). They seem
to be conventionalised derivatives from these animal forms. It is
said that the dog's head design was formerly much more in fashion
than it is at the present time.
Deer and Cattle
Very few Kenyahs of the upper class will kill or eat deer and wild
cattle. They believe that if they should eat their flesh they would
vomit violently and spit out blood.
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