Folk-lore in Borneo : a sketch

In this compact study the author opens a window onto the myriad tribes that populate Borneo’s dense interior. He notes that the island’s peoples differ as sharply from one another as Europeans differ among themselves, and that their myths survive only in spoken form, unrecorded on stone or paper. By blending personal observation with brief historical notes, the work sketches the cultural tapestry without claiming exhaustive authority.

The narrative moves from the towering longhouses, home to hundreds of families, to the disciplined hierarchy of elders, headmen and chiefs who command in peace and war. It highlights everyday crafts—loom weaving, iron forging, boat building—where utility and ornamentation walk hand in hand, and it does not shy away from the grim reality of head‑hunting and a strict code of revenge that shaped tribal relations. Readers gain a vivid sense of a society that balances artistic pride with a fierce, survival‑driven spirit.