Page 27 - Malaysia by John Russel Denyes

themselves clearly than probably any other of the
native people of Malaysia.
But the Battaks present a strange contrast.
On the one hand they can be classified as semi-
civilized. They cultivate the soil with plows, they
breed large herds of cattle and horses, they are
skillful in metal working, and they have a written
language. On the other hand there exists debt
slavery, permissive polygamy, and cannibalism.
Their religion is animism, or spirit worship, with
traces of early influence of Hinduism.
Their type of house differs materially from that
of the Malays, though they build on piles. Many
of these people have become Christians, but where
Christianity has not yet gone their little villages
are surrounded by mud walls ten feet thick and
fifteen feet high. They build out on the open
places where they can watch for their enemies
from behind a screen of bamboo planted on the
top of the walls.
DyaJks of Dyaks is a general name given to the
Borneo original inhabitants of Borneo. They
might be further classified as Sea-
Dyaks and Land-Dyaks, the latter living well up
in the interior. "Physically and linguistically
they belong to the Malayan race, but there are
numerous variations from the characteristic
type."
*'Dyak culture runs all the way from the sav-
agery of the mountainous interior to the civiliza-
tion of the coast, where under Javanese, Bugi, and
Chinese influence, the artistic and industrial abili-
ties possessed more or less by all the tribes are
seen to better advantage, and many states and
sultanates have from time to time flourished. The
Dyaks have taken to Islam less kindly than their
kindred, the Malays proper, and some of the un-
civilized tribes of the interior probably preserve
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