KLEMANTANS. The word Klemantan is the name by which no tribe or set of tribes is called, but is a convenient generic term devised, at the suggestion of the writer, by the Cambridge university expedition of 1898 to comprise a large group possessing certain common characteristics. It is derived from the term Pulo Klemantan (Mango island) the name given to Borneo by the Malays. Klemantans number, perhaps, as many as 1,500,000, or more than a third of the pagan population of the island, most of them being found in Dutch Borneo, but both there and elsewhere chiefly on the lower reaches of the rivers. Their numbers and variations have made anything more than a general classification impossible, their chief characteristic being (as might be expected in so large a group), mediocrity, or an absence of any specially typical features.
Generally speaking, the Klemantan gives the impression of belonging to a highly civilized community; he is, usually, of medium stature, well proportioned, and graceful, with well-shaped and well-balanced features, a good mouth, eyes, and skin, and a pleasing expression. In manner he is somewhat gentle and quiet, seldom boisterous or pushing, and rarely emphatic in speech, for he commonly thinks before he speaks or acts. He is careful, intelligent, and sociable, and the keynote of his character is imitativeness and receptiveness. For this reason any culture that he has, has been acquired. He very often becomes. by conversion to Islam, a Malay, and in some cases adopts the customs of Mohammedans before actually becoming one; having embraced Islam, he easily settles down as a respectable citizen. His affinities lie most with the Kenyahs, a Kenyah-Klemantan mixture being common in the northern part of the island.
The Klemantan is usually a poor farmer, not depending al together upon his own crops for his needs. In the minor arts, such as carving, bead-work, and the plaiting and lashing of rattans for various purposes, he excels. As a maker of swords, spears, and boats he is inferior to both the Kayan and the Kenyah. He may be said to have adopted, with modifications, a number of the arts, crafts, and various activities of the other tribes, with out improving upon them ; being indolent by nature, he looks for labour-saving devices rather than efficiency or excellence; and what he lacks in energy and thoroughness, he makes up for in versatility. See BORNEO; also C. Hose and W. McDougall, The
Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912). (C. H.) KLERK, M. DE AR ( ,14-1923), Dutch artist, born Nov. 24, 1884, leader of a group of architects in Amsterdam, interested mainly in apartment houses. Disregarding Cuipers's watchword— rational building—he desired only to give form to his poetic vision. His work is the expression of feeling, intuitively controlled, and imitation of it, always tempting, has been the more dangerous for this absence of intellectualism. He collaborated with Kramer and van der Mey in the Shipping house in Amsterdam in 1913; since then his greatest works have been numerous housing-blocks in that city, completed respectively in 1913, 1914, 1917, 192o and 1922, of which that of 1917 is perhaps the most individual and that of 1920 the most acceptable. De Klerk went very far in construction, and it is important to consider the swing and rhythm of his build ings as a whole without allowing the sometimes excrescent detail to become a distraction. It has been said by Mieras that de Klerk • and W. M. Dudok, municipal architect of Hilversum, where he has erected some notable public buildings, represent the two extremes of the contemporary Dutch movement. But Dudok, who works in unbroken masses of concrete with a masterly use of variation in the height of the grouped masses, however different his means of expression, undoubtedly resembles de Klerk in working from poetic inspiration. The colder and more intellectual work of the Rotter dam architects is in greater essential contrast. Among the Amster dam group somewhat influenced by de Klerk's manner are P. L. Kramer (q.v.) ; C. J. Rutgers (housing-block 1921) ; J. F. Staal (housing-block 1922) and H. Th. Wydeveld (housing-block 1924).
See J. P. Mieras and F. R. Yerbury, ed. Dutch Architecture of the loth Century (1926) J. G. Wattjes, Modern Dutch Architecture (1928.).