Disappointment in marriage and unkindness or harshness on the part of relatives are common causes of suicide by man or woman, but the most common motive is shame, particularly in cases of an unmarried woman, when _enceinte_, being unable to prove to the tribe who the father of her child is. A whole family has been known to poison themselves to escape the consequences and disgrace which would have befallen them owing to one of them having been the accidental cause of a long communal house being destroyed by fire. Suicide is invariably committed by eating the poisonous root of the tuba plant, _derris elliptica_. Footnote 31: The worst on record in Sarawak was committed in 1894 by a half-bred Chinaman (his mother was a Segalang, and he was brought up as one) at Seduan village, three miles from Sibu, in the Rejang. This man, who had just been discharged from jail, arose in the middle of the night, and speared or cut down all the inmates of the house—thirteen women and children, of whom only two or three survived. He was shot by Mr. Q. A. Buck, then the Resident at Sibu (joined 1874, retired 1899), who was quickly on the spot, and was the means of preventing a further loss of life. Footnote 32: The Sea-Dayaks say that they were constructed by the gods when they made the sky, out of a small surplus of the blue. Footnote 33: St. John, _op. cit._, mentions that the late Sultan Mumin of Bruni had an ancient jar which was reputed to be able to speak, and that it moaned sorrowfully the night before his first wife died. He refused £2000 for it. Footnote 34: _Naga_, a dragon; _benaga_, having a dragon. Footnote 35: Meaning a deer in Malay and Sea-Dayak. Footnote 36: A misprint for "Tunggang." Footnote 37: Late Resident-General of the Federated Malay States. Footnote 38: This was written in 1866. Footnote 39: Amongst Eastern people any attempt to make a systematic census is liable to be misapprehended, and to give rise to a bad feeling, and even to dangerous scares, and for that reason no census has been made by the Government. This census was an approximation based upon the amount paid in direct taxation, such as head and door taxes, allowing an average of so many people to a family. Footnote 40: And so _Orang-Murut_ means a hill-man, _murut_, or more correctly _murud_, meaning a hill—_bulud_ in _Sulu_. Footnote 41: Mr. J. Hewitt, B.A., Curator of the Sarawak Museum in the _Sarawak Gazette_, February 2, 1906. Footnote 42: Kuching Observatory. Footnote 43: The _Sarawak Gazette_. [Illustration: FROM MERCATOR'S MAP.] CHAPTER II EARLY HISTORY [Illustration: OLD JAR, "BENAGA."]