The Kayan are the creative force behind most traditional tattoo designs and they spread these among other tribes such as the Iban on the north coast and the inland Kenyah. The Kayan style owes in its universality in part to the use of the woodblock-stamp technique. The men of the tribe carved relief patterns into blocks of wood, which could easily be transferred onto the skin. These blocks were loaned, or taken from village to village, where local tattooists used them as templates. Moreover, the various tribes’ tattoo styles were alike because in the course of longer trips, men would collect tattoos as proof of their journeys, similar in many ways to present-day passport stamps. Only friendly tribes were visited because of the very real risk of losing one’s head when visiting unknown areas. Headhunting was indeed a common custom on the island, as the Europeans had suspected. For this reason, tattoos belonging to, and identifying, specific tribes are more readily discerned among women.

A design unique to them was the talisman (lukut) on the wrists that prevented the soul from escaping the body. The Kayan believed that if a man fell ill, it meant that his soul had escaped his body; restored health signalled that the soul had returned.