The underside of the liver, which alone is significant, varies

considerably from one specimen to another, and this must prevent

any very definite and consistent identification of the parts with

the different districts of the country. The rule generally observed

is to identify the under surface of the right lobe (ARTI TOH) with

the territory of the party that kills the pig and makes the enquiry;

the adjacent part of the left lobe (SUNAN) with the territory of any

party involved in the question which adjoins that of the first party;

and the under surface of the caudal extremity (ARTI ARKAT) with that

of any remoter third party (see Fig. 79). If the ridge that runs up

between the right and left lobes is sharp, it indicates that there

will still be some bad feeling (or, as they say, the swords are still

sharp). A gall-bladder which is long and overlapping indicates more

trouble between the parties to the right and left; but one which

is sunk almost out of sight in the substance of the liver is a sign

that no further trouble is to be expected. The grooves on the under

surface of the right lobe stand for the waterways and, if they are

strongly marked, imply freedom of intercourse. Notches at the free

edges stand for past injuries suffered (the scars of wounds received,

as it were); and if these are equally marked in the several parts they

indicate peace, because it is implied that no balance of old scores

remains to any one of the parties concerned. A sore or abscess in any

part foretells the speedy death of one of the chiefs of the people

of that part.

FIGURE 79

It is obvious that this system of interpretation, which is common

to nearly all the peoples, gives much scope for the operation of

prejudice, suggestion, and ingenuity. But the group of interpreting

chiefs and elder men generally achieves unanimity in giving its

verdict.

The omens thus obtained are held to be the answer vouchsafed by Bali

Penyalong to the prayers which have been carried to him by the spirit

of the pig.

If the answer obtained in this way from one pig is unsatisfactory,

they will often kill a second, and on important occasions even a

third or fourth, in order to obtain a favourable answer. Unless they

can thus obtain a satisfactory forecast, they will not set out upon

any undertaking of importance.

After any ceremony of this kind the body of the pig is usually

divided among the people, and by them cooked and eaten without further

ceremony. But we have seen that, after the ceremony in preparation

for an expedition, the bodies of the young pigs whose blood was

scattered on the altarpost of Bali Penyalong were fixed upon tall

poles beside this altar-post and there left; and this seems to be the

rule in ceremonies of this sort, though it is not clear whether the

carcases are left there as offerings to the hawks or to Bali Penyalong,

or because they are in some sense too holy to be used as food after

being used in such rites.

Probably Kenyahs never give to the spirits in this way the whole body

of a large pig, but only of quite small pigs, and in this they are

probably influenced by considerations of economy.

It may be said generally that Kenyahs do not kill domestic pigs simply

and solely for the sake of food. The killing of a pig is always the

occasion for, or occasioned by, some religious rite. It is true that

on the arrival of honoured guests a pig is usually killed and given to

them for food; but its spirit is then always charged with some message

to Bali Penyalong. It is said that, when the pig's spirit comes to

Bali Penyalong, he is offended if it brings no message from those

who killed the pig, and he sends it back to carry off their souls.

On many other occasions also pigs are killed; thus, on returning

from a successful attack on enemies, a pig is usually killed for

each family of the household, and a piece of its flesh is put up on

a pole before the house; and during the severe illness of any person

of high social standing, pigs are usually killed, and friendly chiefs

may come from distant parts, bringing with them pigs and fowls that

they may sacrifice them, and so aid in restoring the sick man to

health. On the death of a chief, too, a great feast is made, and

many pigs are slaughtered, and their jaw-bones are hung up on the

tomb. A pig is sometimes used in the ceremony by which a newly-made

peace is sealed between tribes hitherto at blood-feuds, but a fowl

is more commonly used.

The wild pig which abounds in the forest is hunted by the Kenyahs,

and when brought to bay by the dogs is killed with spears, and it

is eaten without ceremony or compunction by all classes. The wild

pig is never used as messenger to the gods, and its liver is not

consulted. The lower jaws of all wild pigs that are killed are cleaned

and hung up together in the house, and it is believed that if these

should be lost or in any way destroyed the dogs would cease to hunt.

The domestic fowls are seldom killed for food, and their eggs too can

hardly be reckoned as a regular article of diet, though the people

have no prejudice against eating them. And it would seem that the

fowls are kept in the main for ceremonial Purposes, and that their

table use is of very secondary importance.

Fowls are killed on many of the occasions on which pigs are sacrificed,

and, as we have seen in the description of the ceremony at Tama

Bulan's house, their blood may be poured upon the altarposts of

Bali Penyalong. It would seem that fowls and pigs are to some extent

interchangeable equivalents for sacrificial purposes. Perhaps the most

important occasion on which the fowl plays a part is the performance

of the rite by which a blood-feud is finally wiped away. The following

extract from the journal previously quoted describes an incident of

this kind: --

In the evening there was serious business on hand. Two chiefs, who

some years ago were burned out of their homes in the Rejang district

by the government, have settled themselves with their people in the

Baram district. They had made a provisional peace with the Kayans

some years ago, but the final ceremony was to be performed this

evening. The two chiefs of the immigrants, who had remained hitherto

in a remote part of the house, seated themselves at one side, and

the Kayan chiefs at the other, and Tama Bulan and ourselves between

the two parties. First, presents of iron were exchanged. In the old

days costly presents of metal-work used to be given; but, as this led

sometimes to renewed disputes, the government has forbidden the giving,

in such ceremony, of presents of a greater value than two dollars. So

now old sword-blades are given, and the other essential part of the

present has been proportionately reduced from a full-grown fowl to a

tiny chick. After much preliminary talking, two chicks were brought

and a bundle of old sword-blades, which Tama Bulan, in his character

of peace-maker, carries with him whenever he travels abroad. A chief

of either party took a chick and a sword and presented them to the

other. Then one led his men a little apart and began to rattle off

an invocation beginning, "O sacred (Bali) chick," snipped off its

head with the sword, and with the bloody blade smeared the right

arm of his followers as they crowded round him. The old fellow kept

up the stream of words until every man was smeared; and then they

all stamped together on the floor raising a great shout. Then the

other party went through a similar performance; and the peace being

thus formally ratified, we sat down to cement it still further by a

friendly drinking bout.

Another ceremony in which the fowl plays a prominent part is that by

which the wandering soul of a sick person is found and led back to

his body by the medicine-man. This is described in Chapter XIV.

It seems clear that the fowl, like the pig, is used on these occasions

as a messenger sent by man to the Supreme Spirit. In most cases when

a fowl is slaughtered in the course of a ceremony, it is first waved

over the heads of the people taking part in it, and its blood is

afterwards sprinkled upon them.

In the blood-brotherhood ceremony, when each of the two men drinks

or smokes in a cigarette a drop of the other's blood drawn with a

bambooknife, a fowl is in many cases waved over them and then killed,

and occasionally a pig also is killed. In such a case the man who

has killed the fowl will carry its carcase to the door of the house,

and there he will wave towards the heavens a frayed stick moistened

with its blood, while he announces the facts of the ceremony to Bali

Penyalong. So that here again the fowl seems to play the part of a

messenger. The carcase and the bloody stick are afterwards put up

together on a tall pole before the house. After going through this

ceremony a man is safe from all the members of the household to

which his blood-brother belongs; and in the case of two chiefs all

the members of either household are bound to those of the other by

a sacred tie.

Fowls' eggs are sometimes put on the cleft poles as sacrifices. In

one instance, when we were engaged in fishing a lake with a large

party in boats, we came upon a row of eight poles stuck upright at

the edge of the lake, each holding a fowl's egg in its cleft upper

end. These had just been put there by the crew of one of the canoes

as an offering to the crocodiles, which were regarded as the most

influential of the powers of the lake and able to ensure us good sport.

In such cases the eggs are probably economical substitutes for fowls,

as seems to be indicated by the following facts: When Kenyah boys enter

a strange branch of the river for the first time, they go, each one

taking a fowl's egg in his hand, into the jungle with some old man, who

takes the eggs, puts them into the cleft ends of poles fixed upright

in the earth, and thus addresses all the omen-birds collectively,

"Don't let any harm happen to these children who are coming for

the first time to this river; they give you these eggs." Sometimes

instead of eggs the feathers of a fowl are used; and both the eggs

and feathers would seem to be substituted for fowls, as being good

enough in the case of mere children performing a minor rite.

When the belly of a fowl is opened there are prominent two curved

portions of the gut. The state of these is examined in some cases

before the planting of PADI, and sometimes before attempting to catch

the soul of a sick man. If the parts are much curved, it is a good

omen; if straight or but slightly curved, it is a bad omen.

The Crocodile

Like all other races of Sarawak, the Kenyahs regard the crocodiles

that infest their rivers as more or less friendly creatures. They fear

the crocodile and do not like to mention it by name, especially if

one be in sight, and refer to it as "old grandfather." But the fear

is rather a superstitious fear than the fear of being seized by the

beast. They regard those of their own neighbourhood as more especially

friendly, in spite of the fact that members of their households are

occasionally taken by crocodiles, either while standing incautiously

on the bank of the river or while floating quietly at evening time

in a small canoe. When this happens, it is believed either that the

person taken has in some way offended or injured one or all of the

crocodiles, or that he has been taken by a stranger crocodile that has

come from a distant part of the river, and therefore did not share

in the friendly understanding usually subsisting between the people

and the local crocodiles. But in any case it is considered that the

crocodiles have committed an unjustifiable aggression and have set

up a blood-feud which can only be abolished by the slaying of one

or more of the aggressors. Now it is the habit of the crocodile to

hold the body of his victim for several days before devouring it,

and to drag it for this purpose into some muddy creek opening into

the main river. A party is therefore organised to search all the

neighbouring creeks, and the first measure taken is to prevent the

guilty crocodile escaping to some other part of the river. To achieve

this they take long poles, frayed with many cuts, and set them up on

the river-bank at some distance above and below the scene of the crime

and at the mouths of all the neighbouring creeks and streamlets; and

they kill fowls and pray that the guilty crocodile may be prevented

from passing the spots thus marked. They then search the creeks,

and if they find the criminal with the body of his victim they kill

him, and the feud is at an end. But, if they fail to find him thus,

they go out on the part of the river included between their charmed

poles, and, with their spears tied to long poles, prod all the bed of

this part of the river, and thus generally succeed in killing one or

more crocodiles. They then usually search its entrails for the bones

and hair of the victim so as to make sure that they have caught the

offending beast. But, even if they do not obtain conclusive evidence

of this kind, they seem to feel that justice is satisfied, and that

the beast killed is probably the guilty one.

Except in the meting out of a just vengeance in this way, no Kenyah

will kill a crocodile, and they will not eat its flesh under any

circumstances. But there is no evidence to show that they regard

themselves as related by blood or descent to the crocodiles or that

their ancestors ever did so.

When Kenyahs go on a journey into strange rivers or to the lower part

of the main river, they fear the crocodiles of these strange waters,

because they are unknown to them, and any one of them might easily

be mistaken by the crocodiles for some one who has done them an

injury. Some Kenyahs tie the red leaves of the DRACAENA below the

prow of their boat whenever they go far from home, believing that

this protects them from all danger of attack by crocodiles.

The Dog

In all Kenyah houses are large numbers of dogs, which vary a good

deal in size and colour, but roughly resemble large, mongrel-bred,

smooth-haired terriers. Each family owns several, and they are fed with

rice usually in the evening; but they seem to be always hungry. The

best of them are used for hunting; but besides these there is always

a number of quite useless, ill-fed, ill-tempered curs; for no Kenyah

dare kill a dog, however much he may wish to be rid of it. Still less,

of course, will he eat the flesh of a dog. The dogs prowl about, in

and around the house, much as they please, but are not treated with

any particular respect. When a dog intrudes where he is not wanted it

is usual to click with the tongue at him, and this is usually enough

to make him pass on; but blows with a stick follow quickly if the

animal does not obey. They display little affection for their dogs,

and they do not like children to touch or play with the dogs, but of

course cannot altogether prevent them.

One young Kenyah chief, on being questioned, said that the reason

they will not kill dogs is that they are like children, and eat and

sleep together with men in the same house; and he added that, if a

man should kill a dog, he would go mad.

If a dog dies in the house, the men push the carcase out of the

house and into the river with long poles, and will on no account

touch it with their hands. The spot on the floor on which the dog

died is fenced round with mats for some few days in order to prevent

the children walking over it.

It is usual for the Kenyah men to have one or more designs tatued on

their forearms and shoulders. Among the commonest of these designs

are those known as the prawn and the dog (see Chap. XII). They seem

to be conventionalised derivatives from these animal forms. It is

said that the dog's head design was formerly much more in fashion

than it is at the present time.

Deer and Cattle

Very few Kenyahs of the upper class will kill or eat deer and wild

cattle. They believe that if they should eat their flesh they would

vomit violently and spit out blood. They have no domestic cattle, and

the buffalo does not occur in their districts. Lower-class Kenyahs

and slaves, taken as war-captives from other tribes, may eat deer

and horned cattle, but they must take the flesh some little distance

from the house when they cook it. A woman who is pregnant, or for

any other reason is in the hands of a physician, has to observe the

restrictions with regard to deer and cattle more strictly than other

people, and she will not touch or allow to be brought near her any

article of leather or horn.

The war-coats of the men are often made of the skin of goats or deer,

and any man may wear such a war-coat. But when a man has a young son,

he is particularly careful to avoid contact with any part of a deer,

lest through such contact he should transmit to his son in any degree

the timidity of the deer. On one occasion when we had killed a deer,

a Kenyah chief resolutely refused to allow its skin to be carried in

his boat, alleging the above reason.

The cry or bark of the deer (CERVULUS MUNTJAC) is a warning of danger,

and the seeing or hearing of the mouse-deer or PLANDOK (TRAGULAS NAPU)

has a like significance.

The Tiger-cat

The only large species of the FELIDAAE that occurs in Borneo is the

tiger-cat (FELIS NEBULOSA). Kenyahs will not eat it, as men of some

tribes do, but will kill it; and they fashion its handsome spotted

skin into war-coats. Such coats are worn only by men who have been

on the war-path. The canine teeth of the tiger-cat are much prized

as ornaments; they are worn thrust through holes in the upper part

of the shell of the ear, but only by full-grown men. KULEH, the name

of this beast, is sometimes given to a boy.

The true tiger does not now occur in Borneo, and it is doubtful

whether it ever was a native of the island. Nevertheless the Kenyahs

know it by name (LINJAU) and by reputation, and a few skins are in

the possession of chiefs. No ordinary man, but only a distinguished

and elderly chief, will venture to wear such a skin as a war-coat,

or even to touch it. These skins have been brought from other lands

by Malay traders, and it is probable that whatever knowledge of the

tiger the Kenyahs possess has come from the same source.

A chief will sometimes name his son LINJAU, that is, the Tiger.

Other Animals

A carnivore (ARCTOGALE LEUCOTIS) allied to the civet-cat warns of

danger when seen or heard.

There is a certain large lizard (VARANUS) that is eaten freely by

other tribes, but Kenyahs may not eat it, though they will kill it.

They regard the seeing of any snake as an unfavourable omen, and will

not kill any snake gratuitously.

Kenyahs, like all, or almost all the other natives of Borneo, are more

or less afraid of the Maias (the orang-utan) and of the long-nosed

monkey, and they will not look one in the face or laugh at one.

In one Kenyah house a fantastic figure of the gibbon is carved on

the ends of all the main crossbeams of the house, and the chief said

that this has been their custom for many generations. He told us

that it is the custom, when these beams are being put up, to kill a

pig and divide its flesh among the men who are working, and no woman

is allowed to come into the house until this has been done. None of

his people will kill a gibbon, though other Kenyahs will kill and

probably eat it. They claim that he helps them as a friend, and the

carvings on the beams seem to symbolize his supporting of the house.

In other parts of the same house are carvings of the bangat,

SEMNOPITHECUS HOSEI, but the old chief regards these as much less

important and as recent innovations.

We do not know of any other animals to which especial respect or

attention is paid by the Kenyahs.

Animal Cults of the Kayans

The white-headed hawk (Bali Flaki) of the Kenyahs has its equivalent

among the Kayans in the large dark-brown hawk, which they call Laki

Neho. But as it is not possible to distinguish these two kinds of

hawks when seen flying at some distance, they address and accept all

large hawks seen in the distance as Laki Neho.

The function and powers of Laki Neho seem to be almost identical

with those of Bali Flaki. He is a giver of omens and a bringer of

messages from Laki Tenangan. The following notes of a conversation

with an intelligent Kayan chief will give some idea of his attitude

towards Laki Neho. It must be remembered that these people have no

priesthood and no dogmatic theologians to define and formulate beliefs,

so that their ideas as to the nature of their gods and their abodes and

powers are, though perhaps more concrete, at least as various in the

minds of different individuals as are the corresponding ideas among

the average adherents of more highly developed forms of religion;

and perhaps no two men will agree exactly on these matters, and any

one man will freely contradict his own statements.

Laki Tenangan is an old man with long white hair who speaks Kayan

and has a wife, Doh Tenangan. They sometimes see him in dreams, and

if fortunate they may then see his face,[137] but if unlucky they see

his back only. In olden times powerful men sometimes spoke with him,

but now this never occurs. He dwells in a house far away. Laki Neho

also has a house that is covered with palm leaves and frayed sticks. It

is in a tree-top, yet it is beside a river, and has a landing-place

before it like every Kayan house. This house is sometimes seen in

dreams. It is not so far away as the house of Laki Tenangan. At first

our informant said that help is asked directly of Laki Neho; but,

when pressed, he said that Laki Neho may carry the message to Laki

Tenangan. Some things Laki Neho does of his own will and power; for

example, if a branch were likely to fall on a Kayan boat he would

prevent it, for Laki Tenangan long ago taught him how to do such

things. When a man is sick, Kayans appeal to Laki Neho; but if he does

not make the patient well they then appeal to Laki Tenangan directly,

killing a pig, whose spirit goes first to the house of Laki Neho,

and then on to the more distant house of Laki Tenangan. For they

believe that in such a case the patient has somehow offended Laki

Neho by disregarding or misreading his omens. A man suffering from

chronic disease may himself pray to Laki Tenangan. He lights a fire

and kills a fowl, and perhaps a pig also, and calls upon Laki Neho to

be his witness and messenger. He holds an egg in one hand and says,

"This is for you to eat, carry my message direct to Laki Tenangan

that I may get well and live and bring up my children, who shall be

taught my occupations and the true customs." The fire is lighted to

make Laki Neho warm and energetic.

It will be seen from the above account that the Kayans have formed

a concept of the power of the hawks in general, and have given it a

semi-anthropomorphic character, and we shall see below that the Sea

Dayaks have carried this process still further.

Crocodiles

The Kayan's attitude towards the crocodile is practically the same as

the Kenyah's. We append the following notes of a conversation with a

young Kayan chief, Usong, and his cousin Wan:There are but very few

Kayans who will kill a crocodile except in revenge. But if one of their

people has been taken by a crocodile they go out together to kill the

criminal, and they begin by saying, "Don't run away, you've got to

be killed, why don't you come to the surface? You won't come out on

the land because you have done wrong and are afraid." After this he

will perhaps come on land; and if he does not, he will at least float

to the surface of the water, and is then killed with spears. In olden

days Kayans used to make a crocodile of clay and ask it to drive away

evil spirits; but now this is not done. A crocodile may become a man

just like themselves. Sometimes a man dreams that a crocodile calls

him to become his blood-brother, and after they have gone through

the regular ceremony and exchanged names (in the dream), the man

is quite safe from crocodiles. Usong's uncle has in this way become

blood-brother to a crocodile, and is now called "Baya" (the generic

name for the crocodile), while some crocodile unknown is called Jok,

and Usong considers himself the nephew of the crocodile Jok. Usong's

father has also become blood-brother to a crocodile, and Usong calls

himself a son of this particular unknown crocodile. Sometimes he

asks these two, his uncle- and his father-crocodiles, to give him

a pig when he is out hunting, and once they did give him one. After

relating this, Usong added, "But who knows if this be true?"

Wan's great-great-grandfather became blood-brother to a crocodile,

and was called "Klieng Baya." Wan has several times met this crocodile

in dreams. In one dream he fell into the river when there were many

crocodiles about. He climbed on to the head of one, which said to him,

"Don't be afraid," and carried him to the bank. Wan's father had

charms given him by a crocodile and would not on any account kill

one, and Wan clearly regards himself as being intimately related to

crocodiles in general.

The Kayans regard the pig and the fowl in much the same way as the

Kenyahs do, and put them to the same uses. The beliefs and customs

with regard to deer, horned cattle, dogs, and the tiger-cat, are

similar to those of the Kenyahs save that they will not kill the

last of these. They are perhaps more strict in the avoidance of

deer and cattle. One old chief, who had been ailing for a long time,

hesitated to enter the Resident's house because he saw a pair of horns

hanging up there. When he entered he asked for a piece of iron, and

on returning home he killed a fowl and a pig, and submitted to the

process of having his soul caught by a DAYONG, lest it should have

incurred some undefined injury in the neighbourhood of the horns.

The Kayans avoid the skin of the tiger even more strictly than the

Kenyahs or any other tribe; even a great chief will not touch a

tiger-skin, and we have known one refuse to enter a house because he

knew that it contained a tiger-skin war-coat.

Like the Kenyahs, the Kayans entertain a superstitious dread of the

Maias and the long-nosed monkey, but the DOK (MACACUS NEMESTRINUS),

the coco-nut monkey of the Malay States, has special relations to

them. It is very common in their district, but they will kill it only

when it is stealing their rice-crop; and they will never eat it as

other peoples do. There is a somewhat uncertain belief that it is a

blood-relative, and the following myth is told to account for this. A

Kayan woman of high class was reaping PADI with her daughter. Now it

is against custom to eat any of the rice during reaping; and when the

mother went away for a short time leaving the girl at work, she told

her on no account to eat any of the rice. But no sooner was the mother

gone than the girl began to husk some PADI and nibble at it. Then

at once her body began to itch, and hair began to grow on her arms

like the hair of a DOK. Soon the mother returned and the girl said,

"Why am I itching so?" The mother answered, "You have done some wicked

thing, you have eaten some rice." Then hair grew all over the girl's

body except her head and face, and the mother said, "Ah, this is what

I feared, now you must go into the jungle and eat only what has been

planted by human hands." So the girl went into the jungle and her

head became like a DOK'S, and she ceased to be able to speak.

The DOK does not help them in any way, but only spoils their crops. A

very popular dance is the DOK dance, in which a man imitates very

cleverly the behaviour of the DOK. It is a very ludicrous performance,

and excites boisterous mirth. They say it is done merely in fun.

In one Kayan house the ends of all the main crossbeams that support the

roof are ornamented with fretwork designs, which are clearly animal

derivatives and apparently all of the same animal. The form suggests

a crocodile, and some of the men agreed that that was its meaning,

while others asserted that it was a dog. No doubt it was originally

one or other of these, but has now become a conventional design merely,

and its true origin has been forgotten.

A pattern which seems to be derived from the outline of a dog,

and which goes by the name KALANG ASU ( = dog-pattern), occurs in a

great variety of forms in the decorative art of the Kayans, and also,

though to a less extent, in that of the Kenyahs. It is tatued on arm

and thigh, is reproduced in beadwork, and carved in low relief on

decorative panels.[138]

Neither Kayans nor Kenyahs make much use of snakes of any kind,

but there is one snake with red head and tail (BATANG LIMA) which,

when they see it in the course of a journey, they must kill, else

harm will befall them. Again, if they see a certain snake just as

they are about to enter a strange river or a strange village, they

will stop and light a fire on the bank in order to communicate with

Laki Neho. Kayans will not eat any species of turtle or tortoise.

Klemantans

The following notes of a conversation with the Orang Kaya Tumonggong,

the influential chief of the Long Pata people (one of the many groups

of Klemantans), show that these people regard the hawk in much the

same way as the Kenyahs do: The hawk, BALI FLAKI, is the messenger

of "Bali Utong," the Supreme Being. When a party is about to set

out on any expedition they explain their intentions to BALI FLAKI,

and then observe the movements of the hawks. If a hawk circles round

over their heads, some of the party will fall sick on the journey and

probably will die. If the hawk flies to the right when near at hand,

it is a good omen; but if it flies to the right when at a distance, or

to the left, whether near or far, that is a bad omen. The people then

light a fire and entreat the hawk to give a more favourable sign, and

if it persists in going to the left they give up the expedition. If,

while the omens are being read, the hawk flaps his wings, or screams,

or swoops down and settles on a tree, the omen is bad. But if it

swoops down and up again, that is good. If two or three hawks are

visible at the same time, and especially if they all fly to the right,

that is very good; but if many are visible, and especially if they fly

off in different directions, that is very bad, for it means that the

enemy will scatter the attacking force. If the hawk should capture a

small bird while it is under observation, that means that they will

be made captives if they persist in their undertaking. The hawk is

not claimed as a relative by Klemantans. They take omens from various

other birds in matters of minor importance.

Klemantans use the domestic pig and fowl as sacrificial animals just

as the Kenyahs and Kayans do, and they have the same superstitious

dread of killing a dog. One group of them, Malanaus, use a dog in

taking a very solemn oath, and sometimes the dog is killed in the

course of this ceremony. Or instead of the dog being killed, its tail

may be cut off, and the man taking the oath licks the blood from the

stump; this is considered a most binding and solemn form of oath. The

ceremony is spoken of as KOMAN ASU, I.E. "the eating of the dog."

Most Klemantans will kill and eat both deer and cattle freely. But

there are exceptions to this rule. Thus Damong, the chief of a

Malanau household, together with all his people, will not kill or

eat the deer CERVULUS MUNTJAC, alleging that an ancestor had become

a deer of this kind, and that, since they cannot distinguish this

incarnation of his ancestor from other deer, they must abstain from

killing all deer of this species. We know of one instance in which

one of these people refused to use again his cooking-pot, because

a Malay who had borrowed it had used it for cooking the flesh of

deer of this species. This superstition is still rigidly adhered to,

although these people have been converted to Islam of recent years.

On one occasion another chief resolutely refused to proceed on a

journey through the jungle when a mouse-deer, PLANDOK, crossed his

path; he will not eat this deer at any time.[139]

The people of Miri, who also are Mohammedan Malanaus, claim to be

related to the large deer, CERVUS EQUINUS, and some of them to the

muntjac deer also. Now, these people live in a country in which deer

of all kinds abound, and they always make a clearing in the jungle

around a tomb. On such a clearing grass grows up rapidly, and so the

spot becomes attractive to deer as a grazing ground; and it seems not

improbable that it is through frequently seeing deer about the tombs

that the people have come to entertain the belief that their dead

relatives become deer, or that they are in some other way closely

related to the deer.

The Bakongs, another group of Malanaus, hold a similar belief

with regard to the bear-cat (ARTICTIS) and the various species of

PARADOXURUS; in this case the origin of the belief is admitted by

them to be the fact that, on going to their graveyards, they often

see one of these beasts coming out of a tomb. These tombs are roughly

constructed wooden coffins raised a few feet only from the ground,

and it is probable that these carnivores make their way into them,

in the first place, to devour the corpse, and that they make use of

them as lairs.

The relations of the Klemantans to the crocodiles seem to be more

intimate than those of other tribes. One group, the Long Patas, claim

the crocodile as a relative. The story goes that a certain man named

Silau became a crocodile. First he became covered with itch, and he

scratched himself till he bled and became rough all over. Then his

feet began to look like a crocodile's tail; as the change crept up

from his feet to his body, he called out to his relatives that he was

becoming a crocodile, and made them swear that they would never kill

any crocodile. Many of the people in olden days knew that Silau became

a crocodile; they saw him at times and spoke to him, and his teeth

and tongue were always like those of a man. Many stories are told of

his meeting with people by the river-side. On one occasion a man sat

roasting a pig on the river-bank, and, when he left it for a moment,

Silau took it and divided it among the other crocodiles, who greatly

enjoyed it. Silau then arranged with them that he would give a sign

to his human relatives by which the crocodiles might always be able

to recognise them when travelling on the river. He told his human

friends that they must tie leaves of the DRACAENA below the bows of

their boats; this they always do when they go far from home, so that

the crocodiles may recognise them and so abstain from attacking them.

If a man of the Long Patas is taken by a crocodile, they attribute

this to the fact that they have intermarried to some extent with

Kayans. When they come upon a crocodile lying on the river-bank, they

say, "Be easy, grandfather, don't mind us, your are one of us." Some

of the Klemantans will not even eat anything that has been cooked in a

vessel previously used for cooking crocodile's flesh, and it is said

that if a man should do so unwittingly his body would become covered

with sores.

If a crocodile is seen on their left hand by Long Patas on a war

expedition, that is a bad omen; but if on their right hand, that is

the best possible omen.

The Orang Kaya Tumonggong tells us that in the olden times the

crocodiles used to speak to his people, warning them of danger, but

that now they never speak, and he supposes that their silence is due

to the fact that his people have intermarried with other tribes. The

Long Patas frequently carve a crocodile's head as the figurehead for

a war-canoe.

The Batu Blah people (Klemantans) on returning from the war-path make

a huge effigy of a crocodile with cooked rice, and they put fowl's

eggs in its head for eyes and bananas for teeth, and cover it with

scales made from the stem of the banana plant. When all is ready it

is transfixed with a wooden spear, and the chief cuts off its head

with a wooden sword. Then pigs and fowls are slaughtered and cooked,

and eaten with the rice from the rice-crocodile, the chiefs eating

the head and the common people the body. The chief of these people

could give us no explanation of the meaning of this ceremony; he

merely says they do it because it is custom.

One community of Klemantans, the Lelak people, lived recently on the

banks of a lake much infested with crocodiles. Their chief had the

reputation of being able to induce them to leave the lake. To achieve

this he would stand in his boat waving a bundle of charms, which

included among other things teeth of the real tiger and boars' tusks,

and then address the crocodiles politely in their own language. He

would then allow his boat to float out of the lake into the river,

and the crocodiles would follow him and pass on down the river.

Many, probably all, Klemantans put up wooden images of the crocodile

before their houses, and many of them carve the prow of their

war-canoes into the form of a crocodile's head with gaping jaw.

Some of the Muruts make an effigy of the crocodile from clay for use

on the celebration of a successful expedition.

The Punans

The Punans make use of all the omen-birds that are used by the Kenyahs,

and they regard them as in some degree sacred, and not to be killed or

eaten. They seem to read the omens in much the same way as the Kenyahs

do; but they are not so constant in their cult of the omen-birds, and

Punans of different districts differ a good deal from one another in

this respect. In fact, it is doubtful whether those that have mixed

least with the other peoples pay any attention to the omen-birds;

and it seems not unlikely that the cult of the omen-birds is in

process of being adopted by them.

With the exception of these birds there is probably no wild animal of

the jungle that the Punans do not kill and eat. They refuse to eat

the domestic pig, but this, they say, is because they know nothing

of it, it is strange to them. Having no domestic pigs and fowls,

they of course do not sacrifice them to their gods, nor do they seem

to practise the rite of sacrifice in any form.

They give the names of various animals to their children, and they

use these names in the ordinary way.

The crocodile seems to be regarded as a god by the Punans -- they speak

of it as Bali Penyalong. (This, as we have already said, is the name

of the Supreme Spirit of the Kenyahs.) They sometimes make a wooden

image of it, and hang it before the leaf shelter or hut in which they

may be living at any time; and if one of their party should fall ill,

they hang the blossom of the betel-nut tree on the figure, and the

medicine-man addresses it when he seeks to call back the wandering

soul of his patient.

Punans certainly ascribe significance to the behaviour of a few animals

other than those observed by the other peoples. Thus, if they see

a lizard of any kind upon a branch before the shelter in which they

are encamped, and especially if it utters its note, they regard this

as a sign that enemies are near.

The Sea Dayaks or Ibans

The Ibans do not seem to have any conception that corresponds closely

to the Supreme Spirit of the races with which we have already

dealt. Archdeacon Perham[140] has given an account of the Petara

of these people, showing how it is a conception of one god having

very many manifestations and functions, each special function being

conceived vaguely as an anthropomorphic deity. He has described also

the mythical warrior-hero and demi-god Klieng, and the god of war,

Singalang Burong. As Archdeacon Perham has said, this last deity has

a material animal form, namely, the white-headed hawk, which is the

Bali Flaki of the Kenyahs, and plays a somewhat similar part in their

lives. But Singalong Burong is decidedly more anthropomorphic than Bali

Flaki; he is probably generally conceived as a single being of human

form living in a house such as the Ibans themselves inhabit; whereas

Bali Flaki, even if sometimes conceived in the singular as the great

Bali Flaki, is very bird-like. We have seen that the Kayans describe

their hawk-god, Laki Neho, as dwelling in a house, which, though in

the top of a tree, has a landing-stage before it on the river-bank.

In the case of the Kayans, the conception is only half-way on the road

to a full anthropomorph; whereas with the Ibans the change has been

completed and the hawk-god is completely anthropomorphic. Corresponding

with this increased importance and definition of the anthropomorphic

hawk-god, we find that for the Mans the virtue has departed out of the

individual hawks, and that they are no longer consulted for omens;

for the Ibans say that Singalang Burong never leaves his house,

and that for this reason they do not take omens from the hawks when

going on the war-path. Nevertheless, he is the chief or ruler over all

the other omen birds, who are merely his messengers. He thus seems

to have come to occupy almost the supreme position accorded to Bali

Penyalong by the Kenyahs. The following notes are the statements made

upon this subject by a very intelligent Iban of the Undup district:

Once a year they make a big feast for Singalang Burong and sing for

about twelve hours, calling him and Klieng and all the Petara to the

feast. (This is the ceremony known as BURONG GAWAI. It is a most

tedious and monotonous performance after the first few hours.) In

olden days Singalang Burong used to come to these feasts in person

as a man just like an Iban in appearance and behaviour. At the end of

the feast he would go out, take off his coat, and fly away in the form

of a white-headed hawk. Now they are not sure that he comes to their

feast, because they never see him, Singalang Burong is greater than

Klieng, although, it is Klieng that gives them heads in war. Singalang

Burong married an Iban woman, Kachindai Lanai Pantak Girak, and he

gave all his daughters in marriage to the omen-birds. Dara Inchin

Tembaga Monghok Chelabok married Katupong (SASIA ABNORMIS); Dara

Selaka Utih Nujut married Mambuas (CARCURENTIS); Pingai Tuai Nadai

Mertas Indu Moa Puchang Penabas married Bragai (HARPACTES); Indu

Langgu Katungsong Ngumbai Dayang Katupang Bunga Nketai married Papau

(HARPACTES DIARDI); and, lastly, Indu Bantok Tinchin Mas Ndu Pungai

Lelatan Pulas married Kotok (LEPOCESTES). He had also one son, Agi

Melieng etc., who married the daughter of Pulang Gana, the god of

agriculture, her name being Indu Kachanggut Rumput Melieng Kapian.

It was amusing and instructive to hear this Iban rattle off these

enormous names without any hesitation, while another Iban sitting

beside him guaranteed their accuracy.

In the olden days, it is said, there were only thirty-three individuals

of each kind of omen-bird (including Singalang Burong). But although

these thirty-three of each kind still exist, there are many others

which cannot be certainly distinguished from them, and these do not

give true omens. It would be quite impossible to kill any one of

these thirty-three true representatives of each kind, however much

a man might try.

Nevertheless, if an Iban kills an omen-bird by mistake, he wraps it

in a piece of cloth and buries it carefully in the earth, and with

it he buries rice and flesh and money, entreating it not to be vexed

and to forgive him, because it was all an accident. He then goes home

and will speak to no one on the way, and stays in the house for the

rest of that day at least.

The Ibans read omens not only from the birds mentioned above as the

son-in-law of Singalang Burong, but also from some other animals. And

it is interesting to note that they have made a verb from the

substantive BURONG (a bird), namely, BEBURONG (to bird), I.E. to take

omens of any kind, whether from bird or beast. An excellent account

of the part played by omens in the life of the Ibans has been given

by Archdeacon Perham in the paper referred to above, and we have

nothing further to add to that account.

The hornbill must be included among the sacred birds of the Iban,

although it does not give omens. On the occasion of making peace

between hostile tribes, the Ibans sometimes make a large wooden

image of the hornbill and hang great numbers of cigarettes upon it;

and these are taken from it during the ceremony and smoked by all the

men taking part in it. On the occasion of the great peace-making at

Baram in March 1899, at which thousands of Kenyahs, Kayans, Klemantans,

and Ibans were present,[141] the Ibans made an elaborate image of the

hornbill some nine feet in height, and hung upon it many thousands of

cigarettes, and these were smoked by the men of the different tribes,

all apparently with full understanding of the value of the act.

A special deity or spirit, Pulang Gana, presides over the rice-culture

of the Ibans, but the crocodile also is intimately concerned with

it. The following account was given us by an intelligent Iban from

the Batang Lupar: --

Klieng first advised the Ibans to make friends with Pulang Gana, who is

a PETARA and the grandfather ("AKI") of PADI. Pulang Gana first taught

them to plant PADI and instructed them in the following rites: --

On going to a new district Ibans always make a life-size image of a

crocodile in clay on the land chosen for the PADI-farm. The image is

made chiefly by some elderly man of good repute and noted for skilful

farming. Then for seven days .the house is MALI, I.E. under special

restrictions -- no one may enter the house or do anything in it except

eat and sleep. At the end of the seven days they go to see the clay

crocodile and give it cloth and food and rice-spirit, and kill a fowl

and a pig before it. The ground round about the image is kept carefully

cleared and is held sacred for the next three years, and if this is not

done there will be poor crops on the other farms. When the rites have

been duly performed this clay crocodile destroys all the pests which

eat the rice. If, in a district where Ibans have been long settled,

the farm-pests become very noxious, the people pass three days MALI and

then make a tiny boat of bark, which they call UTAP. They then catch

one specimen of each kind of pest -- one sparrow, one grasshopper,

etc. -- and put them into the small boat, together with all they need

for food, and set the boat free to float away down the river. If this

does not drive away the pests, they resort to the more thorough and

certainly effectual process of making the clay crocodile.

Many Ibans claim the live crocodile as a relative, and, like almost

all the other peoples, will not eat the flesh of crocodiles, and will

not kill them, save in revenge when a crocodile has taken one of their

household. They say that the spirit of the crocodile sometimes becomes

a man just like an Iban, but better and more powerful in every way,

and sometimes he is met and spoken with in this form.

Another reason given for their fear of killing crocodiles is that

Ribai, the river-god, sometimes becomes a crocodile; and he may become

also a tiger or a bear. Klieng, too, may become any one of five beasts,

namely, the python, the maias, the crocodile, the bear, or the tiger,

and it is for this reason that Ibans seldom kill these animals. For

if a man should kill one which was really either Ribai or Klieng,

he would go mad.

The Ibans are by nature a less serious-minded and less religious

people than the Kenyahs and Kayans, and they have a greater variety of

myths and extravagant superstitions; nevertheless, they use the fowl

and the pig as sacrificial animals in much the same way as the other

tribes. They eat the fowl and both the wild and domestic pig freely,

except in so far as they are restrained by somewhat rigid notions of

economy in such matters. The fowl plays a larger part than the pig in

their religious practices, and its entrails are sometimes consulted

for omens.

Ibans will kill and eat all kinds of deer, but there are exceptions

to this rule. The deer are of some slight value to them as

omen-givers. Horned cattle they will kill and eat, but they are not

accustomed to their flesh, and few of them relish it.

Ibans have numerous animal fables that remind one strongly of AEsop's

fables and the Brer Rabbit stories of the Africans. In these KORA,

the land-tortoise, and PLANDOK, the tiny mouse-deer, figure largely

as cunning and unprincipled thieves and vagabonds that turn the laugh

always against the bigger animals and man.[142]

The NGARONG or Secret Helper

An important institution among some of the Ibans, which occurs but

in rare instances among the other peoples, is the NGARONG[143]

or secret helper. The NGARONG IS one of the very few topics in

regard to which the Ibans display any reluctance to speak freely. So

great is their reserve in this connection that one of us lived for

fourteen years on friendly terms with Ibans of various districts

without ascertaining the meaning of the word NGARONG, or suspecting

the great importance of the part played by the notion in the lives

of some of these people. The NGARONG seems to be usually the spirit

of some ancestor or dead relative, but not always so, and it is not

clear that it is always conceived as the spirit of a deceased human

being. This spirit becomes the special protector of some individual

Iban, to whom in a dream he manifests himself, in the first place

in human form, and announces that he will be his secret helper; and

he may or may not inform the dreamer in what form he will appear in

future. On the day after such a dream the Iban wanders through the

jungle looking for signs by which he may recognise his secret helper;

and if an animal behaves in a manner at all unusual, if a startled

deer stops a moment to gaze at him before bounding away, if a gibbon

gambols about persistently in the trees near him, if he comes upon a

bright quartzcrystal or a strangely. contorted root or creeper,[144]

that animal or object is for him full of a mysterious significance

and is the abode of his NGARONG. Sometimes the NGARONG, then assumes

the form of an Iban and speaks with him, promising all kinds of help

and good fortune. If this occurs the seer usually faints away, and

when he comes to himself again the NGARONG will have disappeared. Or,

again, a man may be told in his dream that if he will go into the

jungle he will meet his NGARONG in the form of a wild boar. He will

then, of course, go to seek it, and if by chance other men of his

house should kill a wild boar that day, he will go to them and beg

for its head or buy it at a good price if need be, carry it home

to his bed-place, offer it cooked rice and kill a fowl before it,

smearing the blood on the head and on himself, and humbly begging

for pardon. Or he may leave the corpse in the jungle and sacrifice a

fowl before it there. On the following night he hopes to dream of the

NGARONG again, and perhaps he is told in his dream to take the tusks

from the dead boar and that they will bring him good luck. Unless he

dreams something of this sort, he feels that he has been mistaken,

and that the boar was not really his secret helper.

Perhaps only one in a hundred men is fortunate enough to have a secret

helper, though it is ardently desired by many of them. Many a young man

goes to sleep on the grave of some distinguished person, or in some

wild and lonely spot, and lives for some days on a very restricted

diet, hoping that a secret helper will come to him in his dreams.

When, as is most commonly the case, the secret helper takes on the

form of some animal, all individuals of that species become objects

of especial regard to the fortunate Iban; he will not kill or eat

any such animal, and he will as far as possible restrain others from

doing so. A NGARONG may after a time manifest itself in some new form,

but even then the Iban will continue to respect the animal-form in

which it first appeared.

In some cases the cult of a secret helper will spread through

a whole family or household. The children and grandchildren will

usually respect the species of animal to which a man's secret helper

belongs, and will perhaps sacrifice fowls or pigs to it occasionally,

although they expect no help from it; but it is asserted that if

the great-grandchildren of a man behave well to his secret helper,

it will often befriend them just as much as its original protege.

The above general account of the secret helper is founded on the

descriptions of many different Ibans, and we will now supplement it

by describing several particular instances.

Anggus (an Ulu Ai Iban of the Batang Lupar) says that every Iban who

has no NGARONG hopes to get some bird or beast as his helper at the

BEGAWAI, the feast given to the PETARA. He himself has none, but he

will not kill the gibbon because the NGARONG of his grandfather,

who died twenty years ago, was a gibbon. Once a man came to his

grandfather in a dream and said to him, "Don't you kill the gibbon,"

and then turned into a grey gibbon. This gibbon helped him to become

rich and to take heads, and in all possible ways. On one occasion,

when he was about to go on the war-path, his NGARONG came to him in

a dream and said, "Go on, I will help you," and the next day he saw

in the jungle a grey gibbon which was undoubtedly his NGARONG. When

he died he said to his sons, "Don't you kill the gibbon," and his

sons and grandsons have obeyed him in this ever since. Anggus adds

that when a man dreams of a NGARONG. for the first time he does not

accept it, and will still kill animals of that kind; nor is a second

dream enough; but when he dreams the same dream a third time, then

his scepticism is overcome and he can no longer doubt his good fortune.

Anggus himself once shot a gibbon when told to do so by one of us. He

first said to it, "I don't want to kill you, but the TUAN who is

giving me wages expects me to, and the blame is his. But if you are

really the NGARONG of my grandfather, make the shot miss you." He

then shot and missed three times, and on shooting a fourth time he

killed a gibbon, but not the one he had spoken to. Anggus does not

think the gibbon helps either his father or himself.

Payang, an old Katibas Iban, tells us that he has been helped by

a python ever since he was a youth, when a man came to him in a

dream and said, "Sometimes I become a python and sometimes a cobra,

and I will always help you." It has certainly helped him very much,

but he does not know whether it has helped his children; nevertheless

he has forbidden them to kill it. He does not like to speak of it,

but he does so at our request. Payang concluded by saying that he

had no doubt that we white men have secret helpers, very much more

powerful than the Iban's, and that to them we owe our ability to do

so many wonderful things.

Imban, an Iban who had recently moved to the Baram river from the

Rejang, had once when sick seen in a dream the LABI-LABI, the large

river-turtle (TRIONYX SUBPLANUS), and had made a promise that if he

should recover he would never kill it. So when he settled on the Baram

river as head of a household, he attempted to impose a fine on his

people for killing the LABI-LABI, insisting that it was MALI to kill it

or bring its carcase into his river. They appealed to one of us as the

resident magistrate, and it was decided that if Imban wished to insist

on this observance he must remove to a small tributary stream. This

he has done, and a few of his people have followed him; and on them

he enforces a strict observance of his cult of the river-turtle.

A still more interesting case is the following one: -- A community of

Ibans were building a new house on the Dabai river some years ago,

and one day, while they were at work, a porcupine ran out of a hole

in the ground near by. During the following night one of the party

was told by the porcupine in a dream to join their new house with

his (the porcupine's). So they completed their house; and ever since

that time they have made yearly feasts in honour of the porcupines

that live beneath the house, and no one in the house dare injure one

of them, though they will still kill and eat other porcupines in the

jungle. They have had no death in the house during the seven years that

it has been built, and this they attribute to the protecting power of

the porcupines; and when any one is sick, they offer food to them, and

regard their good offices as far more important than the ministrations

of the MANANG (the medicine-man). Last year some relatives of these

Ibans moved to this village, and for three months the knowledge of

the part played by the porcupines was hidden from them as a mysterious

secret. At the end of that time this precious mystery was disclosed to

the new-comers, and the porcupines were feasted with every variety of

cooked rice, some of it being made into a rude image of a porcupine,

and with rice-spirit and cakes of sugar and rice-flour, salt and

dried fish, oil, betel-nut, and tobacco. Several fowls were slain,

and their blood was daubed on the chin of each person in the house,

a ceremony known as ENSELAN. The liver of one fowl was carefully taken

out and put with the food offered to the porcupines, that they might

read the omens from it; and they were then informed of the arrival of

the new-comers. The fowls were waved over the heads of the people by

the old men, while they prayed the porcupines to give them long life

and health, and a token of their goodwill in the form of a smooth

rounded pebble. On an occasion of this sort it is highly probable

that the required token will be found; for the secret helper would no

doubt be surreptitiously helped by some member of the household who,

being deficient in faith, prefers to make a certainty of so important

a matter rather than leave it entirely to the NGARONG.

Inquiries made since the publication of the facts reported in the

foregoing paragraphs have shown us that the cult of the NGARONG

or secret helper is probably not common to all branches of the Sea

Dayaks people. We have heard of its occurrence amongst the Ulu Ai

Dayaks both of the Batang Lupar and Rejang districts, but we have no

positive knowledge of its occurrence among other branches unless the

custom known as NAMPOK has some connection with it.

Conclusion

We have now to discuss some problems suggested by a review of the

facts set forth above, and to bring forward a few additional facts

that seem to throw light on these questions.

The question that we will first discuss is this: Are all or any of the

instances of peculiar regard paid to animals, or of animals sacrificed

to gods or spirits, or of the ceremonial use of their blood, to be

regarded as institutions surviving from a fully developed system of

totemism now fallen into decay? It will have been noticed that many of

the features of totemism, as it occurs in its best developed forms,

occur among the people of one or other of the tribes of Sarawak. We

have, in the first place, numerous cases in which a whole community

refuses to kill or eat an animal which is believed to protect and

aid them by omens and warnings and in other ways, and in which the

animal is worshipped with prayer and sacrifice (E.G. the hawk among

various tribes); we have at least one instance of a community claiming

to be related to a friendly species (Long Patas and the crocodile),

and having as usual an extravagant myth to account for the belief; we

have the domestic animal that is sacrificially slain, its blood being

sprinkled on the worshippers and its flesh eaten by them, and that is

never slain without religious rites (pig of the Kenyahs and Kayans); we

have the animal that must not be killed tatued on the skin of the men

(the dog), or its skin worn by fully grown men only (the tiger-cat), or

images of it made of clay or carved in wood and set up before the house

(the hawk and crocodile); we have also the animal that is claimed as

a relative imitated in popular dances (the Dok-monkey of the Kayans);

the belief that the souls of men assume the form of some animal that

must not be killed or eaten (deer and the ARCTOGALE among Klemantans);

the observance by invalids of a very strict avoidance of contact with

any part of an animal that must not be killed or eaten in any case

(horned cattle among many Kenyahs and Kayans).

Not only do we see these various customs, which in several parts of

the world have been observed as living elements of totem-cults, and

which in other parts have been accepted as evidence of totem-worship in

the past, but in the agricultural habits of the people we may see an

efficient cause of the decay of totemism, if at some time in the past

it has flourished among them. For it has been pointed out, especially

by Mr. Jevons in his INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION, that

totemism seems to flourish most naturally among tribes of hunters, and

that the introduction of agriculture must tend towards its decay. Now

there is some reason to suppose that the introduction to Borneo of

rice and of the art of cultivating it is of comparatively recent

date. Crawford reckoned that the cultivation of PADI was introduced

to the southern parts of Borneo from Java some 300 years ago, and

into the northern parts from the Philippine Islands about 150 years

ago. But whatever the date of the occurrence may have been, it seems

to be certain that, by the introduction of PADI cultivation from some

other country, most of the tribes of Sarawak were converted, probably

very rapidly, from hunting to agriculture. This conversion must have

caused great changes in their social conditions and in their customs

and superstitions; and, if totemism flourished among them while they

were still simple hunters, its decay may well have been one of the

chief of these changes.

A second factor that would have tended to bring about this change is

the prevalence of a belief in a god or beneficent spirit more powerful

than all others, and more directly concerned with the welfare of

his worshippers, however this belief may have come into being. And a

third factor that may have tended in the same direction is the custom

of head-hunting, and the important part played by the heads in the

religious life of the people. For there is some reason to think that

head-hunting is a comparatively young institution among the tribes

of Sarawak.

But in spite of all this, and although we do not think it is possible

completely to disprove the truth of the hypothesis that some or all

of these animal cults are vestiges of a once fully developed totemic

system, we are inclined to reject it. We are led to do so by four

considerations. In the first place, if by totemism we mean a social

organisation consisting in the division of a people into groups or

clans, each of which worships or holds in superstitious regard one

or more kinds of animal or plant, or other natural objects to which

the members of the group claim to be related by blood or by descent,

then it seems to us sufficiently wonderful that this system should

have existed among peoples so remote from one another in all things,

save certain of the external conditions of life, as the Indians

of North America and the natives of Australia. And it seems to us

that to invoke the aid of the hypothesis of totemism in the past to

explain the existence of a set of animal or plant superstitions in

any particular case is but to increase the mystery that shrouds their

origin; for unless it can be shown that the adoption or development

of totemism by any people brings with it immense advantages for them

in the struggle for existence, every fresh case in which the evidence

compels us to admit its occurrence, whether in the past or as a still

flourishing institution, can but increase the wonder with which we

have to regard its wide distribution.

Secondly, we have in the total absence of totemism among the Punans

very strong ground for rejecting the suggestion of its previous

existence among the Kenyahs. For in physical characters, in language,

and, as far as the difference in the mode of life permits, in customs

and beliefs, the Punans resemble the Kenyahs so closely that we must

assume them to be closely allied by blood; and it seems probable

that the Punans have merely persisted in the cultural condition from

which the Kenyahs and other tribes have been raised by the adoption

of agriculture and the practice of building substantial houses. Yet,

as we have said, the Punans, although in that condition of nomadic

hunters which is probably the most favourable to the development and

persistence of totemism, observe hardly any restrictions in their

hunting, and in fact seem to kill and eat with equal freedom almost

every bird and beast of the jungle, shooting them with the blow-pipe

and poisoned darts with consummate skill. The only exceptions to

this rule are, so far as we know, the omen-birds, a carnivore, and

a lizard, and, as we have said, it seems doubtful whether even these

are excepted in the case of Punans who have not had much intercourse

with other peoples.

Thirdly, although it may be said that even at the present time many

of the features of the religious side of totemism are present, we

have not been able to discover any traces of a social organisation

based upon totemism. There is no trace of any general division of

the people of any tribe into groups which claim specially intimate

relations with different animals, except in the case of the Klemantans;

and in their case such special relations seem to be the result merely

of the different conditions under which the various scattered groups

now live. There are no restrictions in the choice of a wife that might

indicate a rule of endogamy or exogamy. There are no ceremonies to

initiate youths into tribal mysteries; certain ceremonies in which the

youths take a leading part are directed exclusively to training them

for war and the taking of heads in battle. We know of no instance

of any group of people being named after an animal or plant which

is claimed as a relative; and in the case of the more homogeneous

tribes, such as the Kenyahs and Kayans, all prohibitions with regard to

animals and all benefits conferred by them are shared equally by all

the members of any one community, and, with but very few exceptions,

are the same for all the communities of the tribe.

Lastly, we think it unnecessary to regard the various animal

superstitions of these tribes as survivals of totemism, because

it seems possible to find a more direct and natural explanation of

almost every case. The numerous cases seem to fall into two groups:

the superstitious practices concerned with the sacrificial animals,

the pig and fowl on the one hand, and all those concerned with the

various other animals on the other hand. These latter may, we think,

be regarded as the expression of the direct and logical reaction of

the mind of the savage to the impression made upon it by the behaviour

of the animals.

It has been admirably shown by Professor Lloyd Morgan[145] how

we ourselves, and even professed psychologists among us, tend to

overestimate the complexity of the mental processes of animals;

and there can be no doubt that savages generally are subject to

this error in a very much greater degree, that, in fact, they make,

without questioning and in most cases without explicit statement even

to themselves, the practical assumption that the mental processes of

animals -- their passions, desires, motives, and powers of reasoning

-- are of the same order as, and in fact extremely similar to, their

own. That the Kenyahs entertain this belief in a very practical manner

is shown by their conduct when preparing for a hunting or fishing

excursion. If, for example, they are preparing to poison the fish

of a section of the river with the "tuba" root, they always speak

of the matter as little as possible, and use the most indirect and

fanciful modes of expression. Thus they will say, "There are many

leaves floating here," meaning, "There are plenty of fish in this

part of the river." And these elaborate precautions are taken lest

the birds should overhear their remarks and inform the fish of their

intentions -- when, of course, the fish would not stay to be caught,

but would swim away to some other part of the river.

Since this belief seems to be common to all or almost all savages

and primitive peoples, it would be a strange thing if prohibitions

against killing and eating certain animals and various superstitious

practices in regard to animals were not practically universal among

them. Bearing in mind the reality of this belief in the minds of these

peoples, it is easy to understand why they should shrink from killing

any creature so malignant-looking and powerful for harm as a snake,

and why they should feel uneasy in the presence of, and to some extent

dread, the MAIAS and the longnosed monkey, creatures whose resemblance

to man seems even to us somewhat uncanny. Their objection to killing

their troublesome and superfluous dogs seems to be due to a somewhat

similar feeling -- a recognition of intelligence and emotions not

unlike their own, but mysteriously hidden from them by the dumbness of

the animals. In the same way it is clear that it is but a very simple

and logical inference that the crocodiles are a friendly race, and

but the clearest dictate of prudence to avoid offending creatures so

powerful and agile; for if the crocodiles were possessed of the mental

powers attributed to them by the imagination of the people, they might

easily make it impossible for men to travel upon the rivers or dwell

on their banks. A similar process would lead to the prohibition against

the eating of the tiger-cat, the only large and dangerous carnivore.

The origin of the prohibitions against killing and eating deer and

horned cattle is perhaps not so clear. But it must be remembered that

until very recently the only horned cattle known to the tribes of the

interior were the wild cattle (the Seladang of the Malay peninsula),

very fierce and powerful creatures. These wild cattle hide themselves

in the remotest recesses of the forests, and, as they are but very

rarely seen, they may well be regarded as somewhat mysterious and

awful. Deer, on the other hand, abound in the forests, and, like most

deer, are very timid; and it is perhaps their timidity that has led in

some cases to the prohibition against their flesh, for we have seen

how a Kenyah chief feared lest his little son, safe at home, should

be infected with the deer's timidity if he himself a hundred miles

away should come in contact with the skin of one. In another case we

have seen that by the people of one community deer are regarded as

relatives, or as containing the souls of their ancestors, and that

this belief probably had its origin in the fact that deer are in

"the habit of frequenting the grassy clearings made about the tombs

by the people. And we saw that a similar belief in respect of certain

carnivores probably had a similar origin.

We think that even the elaborate cult of the hawk and of the other

omen-birds is to be explained on these lines. If we think of the

hawk's erratic behaviour, how he will come suddenly rushing down out

of the remotest blue of the sky to hover overhead, and then perhaps

to circle hither and thither in an apparently aimless manner, or

will keep flying on before a boat on the river, or come swiftly to

meet it, screaming as he comes, -- if we think of this, it is easy to

understand how a people whose whole world consists of dense forests and

dangerous rivers, a people extremely ignorant of natural causation,

yet intelligent and speculative, and always looking out for signs

that shall guide them among the mystery and dangers that surround

them, may have come to see in the hawk a messenger sent to them by

the beneficent Supreme Being. For this Being is vaguely conceived by

them as dwelling in the skies whence the hawk comes, and whither he so

often returns. And then we may suppose that the messenger himself has

come to be an object of worship in various degrees with the different

tribes, as seems to be the rule in all religious systems in which

servants of a deity mediate between him and man.

The origin of the various rites in which the fowl and pig are

sacrificed, and their blood smeared or sprinkled on men or on the

altar-posts of gods, or on the image of the hawk, and their souls

charged with messages to the Supreme Being -- the origin of this

group of customs must be sought in a different direction. To any

one acquainted with Robertson Smith's RELIGION OF THE SEMITES,

and with Mr. Jevon's INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION, the

idea naturally suggests itself that these animals are or were true

totems, of which the cult has passed into a late stage of decay. It

might be supposed that, being originally totem animals, they thereby

became domesticated by their worshippers; that they were occasionally

slain as a rite for the renewal of the bond between them and their

worshippers, their blood being smeared or sprinkled on the latter,

and their flesh ceremonially eaten by them; and that the eating of

them has become more and more frequent, until now every religious

rite, of however small importance, is made the occasion for the

killing and eating of them. It might also be supposed that, with the

development or the adoption of the conception of a Supreme Being,

the original purpose and character of the rites had become obscure,

so that the slaughtered animals are now regarded in some cases as

sacrifices offered to the deity.

But we do not think that this tempting hypothesis as to the origin of

the rites can be upheld in this case. In the first place, the wild

pig of the jungle is hunted in sport and killed and eaten freely by

all the various tribes, and is, in fact, treated on the whole with

less respect and ceremony than perhaps any other animal. Secondly,

the domestic pig differs so much from the wild pig that Mr. Oldfield

Thomas has pronounced it to be of a different species, and it seems

possible that it has been introduced to Borneo by the Chinese at

a comparatively recent date. Further, there is reason to suppose

that the custom of sacrificing pigs and fowls arose through the

substitution of them for human beings in certain rites. For there

is a number of rites of which it is admitted by the people that the

slaughter of human beings was formerly a central feature; of these,

the most important and the most widely spread are the funeral rites

of a great chief, the rites at the building of a new house, and those

on returning from a successful war expedition. In all these fowls

or pigs are now substituted as a rule, but we know of instances in

which in recent years human beings were the victims. Thus some years

ago, on the death of the chief of a community of Klemantans (the

Orang Bukit), a slave was bought by his son, and a feast was made,

and the slave was killed through each man of the community giving

him a slight wound. This was said to be the revival of an old and

almost obsolete custom. In another recent case, when a mixed party

of Kayans and Kenyahs returned from a successful war expedition, only

the Kenyahs had secured heads. The Kayans therefore took an old woman,

one of the captives, and killed her by driving a long pole against her

abdomen, as many of them as possible taking part by holding and helping

to thrust the pole. The head was then divided among the parties of

Kayans, and pieces of the flesh were hung on poles beside the river,

just as is done with the flesh of slain enemies and with the flesh of

the pigs that are always slaughtered on such occasions. It was said

that this killing of a human being was equivalent to killing a pig,

only much finer.

Kayans tell us that they used to kill slaves at the death of a chief,

usually three, but at least one, and that they nailed them to the tomb,

in order that they might accompany the chief on his long journey to

the other world and paddle the canoe in which he must travel. This is

no longer done, but a wooden figure of a man is put up at the head

and another of a woman at the foot of the coffin of a chief as it

lies in state before the funeral. And a small wooden figure of a man

is usually fixed on the top of the tomb, and it is said that this

is to row the canoe for the chief. A live fowl is usually tied to

this figure, and although it is said to be put there merely to eat

the maggots, we think there can be no doubt that we see here going

on the process of substitution of fowl for slave.

In building a new house it is customary among almost all these tribes

to put a fowl into the hole dug to receive the first of the piles

that are to support the house, and to allow the end of the pile to

fall upon the fowl so as to kill it. The Kenyahs admit that formerly

a girl was usually killed in this way, and there is reason to believe

that in all cases a human victim was formerly the rule, and that the

fowl is a substitute merely.[146]

In the following cases, too, we see the idea of substitution of fowls

or pigs for men.

It is customary with the Malanaus of Niah to kill buffalo, and also

to kill fowls, and put them together with eggs on poles in the caves

in which the swifts build the edible nests, in order to secure a good

crop of nests. One year, when the nests were scanty they bought a slave

in Brunei, and killed him in the cave, in the hope of increasing the

number of nests.

It was formerly the custom to exact a fine of one or more slaves as

punishment for certain offences, E.G. the accidental setting fire to

a house. At the present time, when slaves are scarcer than of yore,

they are rarely given in such cases, but usually brass gongs; and

the gongs are always accompanied by a pig.

Now, when slaves were killed and nailed to the tomb of a chief,

the purpose was perfectly clear and simple. It Was done in just the

same spirit in which the weapons and shield and clothing are still

always hung on the tomb of a deceased warrior, in order, namely,

that his shade may not be without them on the journey to the other

world. On the introduction of the domestic pig it may well have become

customary for the poorer classes, who could not afford to kill a

slave, or for families which owned no slaves, to kill a pig as in

some degree a compensation for the want of human victims. If such

a custom were once introduced, it may well have spread rapidly from

motives of both economy and humanity; for a slave is as a rule very

kindly treated by his master, and in many cases comes to be regarded

as a member of the family.

We may suppose, too, that it was formerly the custom to kill a slave

when prayers of public importance were made to the Supreme Being, in

order that the soul of the slave might carry the prayer to him. If this

was the case, the substitution of pig for slave, on the introduction

of the domestic pig, may be the more readily conceived to have become

customary, when we remember that these people regard the souls of

animals as essentially similar to their own.[147] If such a custom of

substitution once gained a footing, it would naturally become usual to

take the opportunity of communicating with the higher powers whenever

a pig was to be slaughtered.

This view, that in all sacrifices of the pig and fowl these are

but substitutes for human victims, finds very strong support in the

following facts: -- The Kalabits, a tribe inhabiting the north-western

corner of the Baram district, breed the water-buffalo and use it in

cultivating their land. It has probably been introduced to this area

from North Borneo at a recent date. The religious rites of this people

closely resemble those of the tribes with which we have been dealing

above; but in all cases in which pigs are sacrificed by the latter,

buffaloes are used by the Kalabits.

The rite of sprinkling the blood of pigs and fowls on men and on the

altar-posts and images may, we think, be an extension or adaptation

of the blood-brotherhood ceremony. We have seen that with the Kayans

and Kenyahs the essential feature of this ceremony is the drawing of

a little blood from the arm of the two men, each of whom then drinks

or consumes in a cigarette the blood of the other one. Such a rite

calls for no remote explanation; it seems to have suggested itself

naturally to the minds of primitive people all the world over as a

process for the cementing of friendship. When two hostile communities

wished to make a permanent peace with one another, it would be natural

that they should wish to perform a ceremony similar to the rite of

blood-brotherhood. But the interchange of drops of blood between large

numbers of persons would obviously be inconvenient; and if the idea of

substituting fowls and pigs for human victims had once taken root in

their minds, it would have been but a small step to substitute their

blood for human blood in the peacemaking ceremonies. We have seen

above that in such a ceremony fowls are exchanged by the two parties,

so that the men of either party are smeared with the blood of the fowl

originally belonging to the other party. It may be that here, too, the

blood of slaves was formerly used, but of this we have no evidence. The

custom of smearing the blood of fowls and pigs on the two parties to

a friendly compact having been arrived at in this way, the rite might

readily be extended to the cases in which the hawk, represented by

his wooden image, or the Supreme Being, also represented by an image,

is invoked as one of the parties to the compact. We are inclined to

think that in some such way as we have here suggested, namely, by the

substitution of pigs and fowls for human victims, and of their blood

for human blood, the origin of the customs of sacrificing fowls and

pigs, and of ceremonially sprinkling their blood, may be explained.

We conclude, then, that the various superstitions entertained by these

tribes in regard to animals are not to be looked upon as survivals

of totemism, but that they may all be explained in a simpler and more

satisfactory manner.

Suggested Theory of the Origin of Totemism

Before bringing this chapter to an end, we would point out that among

the facts we have described there are some which seem to suggest a

possible and, indeed, as it seems to us, a very natural and probable

mode of origin of totem-worship. We refer to the varieties of the

NGARONG of the Ibans and sporadic analogous cases among the other

tribes. We have seen that the NGARONG may assume the form of some

curious natural object, or of some one animal distinguished from its

fellows by some slight peculiarity, which receives the attentions of

some one man only. In such cases the NGARONG is hardly distinguishable

from a fetish. In other cases the man, being unable to distinguish the

particular animal which he believes to be animated by his NGARONG,

extends his regard and gratitude to the whole species. In such a

case it seems difficult to deny the name "individual totem" to the

species, if the term is to be used at all. In other cases, again,

all the members of a man's family and all his descendants, and, if

he be a chief, all the members of the community over which he rules,

may come to share in the benefits conferred by his NGARONG, and in the

feeling of respect for it and in the performance of rites in honour

of the species of animal in one individual of which it is supposed

to reside. In such cases the species approaches very closely the

clan-totem in some of its varieties. (In speaking of the "Kobong"

of certain natives of Western Australia, Sir G. Grey[148] says,

"This arises from the family belief that some one individual of the

species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime,

and to be carefully avoided.")

Of similar cases among other tribes of guardian-animals appearing

to men in dreams and claiming their respect and gratitude, we must

mention the case of Aban Jau, a powerful chief of the Sebops, a

Klemantan sub-tribe. He had hunted and eaten the wild pig freely

like all his fellow-tribesmen, until once in a dream a wild boar

appeared to him, and told him that he had always helped him in his

fighting. Thereafter Aban Jau refused, until the day of his death,

to kill or eat either the wild or the domestic pig, although he would

still consult for omens the livers of pigs killed by others.[149]

We have described above (vol. ii., p. 76) how a Kayan may become

blood-brother to a crocodile in a dream, and may thereafter be called

Baya (crocodile), and how in this way one Kayan chief had come to

regard himself as both son and nephew to crocodiles, and how he

believed that they brought him success in hunting and carried him

ashore when (in a dream) he had fallen into the river. The cousin

of this chief, too, regarded himself as specially befriended by

crocodiles because his great-grandfather had become blood-brother to

one in a dream. So it is clear that the members of the family to which

these young men belong are likely to continue to regard themselves

as related by blood to the crocodiles, and bound to them by special

ties of gratitude.

In another case we saw how all the people of one household regard

themselves as related to the crocodiles and specially favoured by them,

explaining the relation as due to one of their ancestors having become

a crocodile. In another case we saw that some ill-defined relation

to the gibbon is claimed by a community of Kenyahs whose house is

decorated with carvings of the form of the gibbon, and whose members

will not kill the gibbon. And in yet another case we saw that a Kayan

house is decorated with conventionalised carvings of some animal

whose species has been forgotten by the community. In each of these

last three cases, it seems highly probable that the special relation

to the animal was established by some such process as we see going

on in the preceding case; so that we seem to have in this series one

case of incipient totemism and others illustrating various stages of

decay of abortive beginnings of totemism. And it is easy to imagine

how in the absence of unfavourable conditions such beginnings might

grow to a fully developed totem-system. For suppose that in any one

community there happened to be at one time two or more prosperous

families, each claiming to be related with and protected by some

species of animal as the result of friendly overtures made by the

animals to members of the families in their dreams. It would then be

highly probable that members of other families, envious of the good

fortune of these, would have similar dream experiences, and so come

to claim a similar protection; until very soon the members of any

family that could claim no such protection would come to be regarded

as unfortunate and even somewhat disreputable beings, while the faith

of one family in its guardian-animal would react upon and strengthen

the faith of others in theirs. So a system of clan-totems would be

established, around which would grow up various myths of origin,

various magical practices, and various religious rites.

It is well known that such dreams as convince the Iban, the Kayan,

and the Kenyah of the reality of his special relation to some animal,

and lead him to respect all animals of some one species, produce

similar results in other parts of the world. We quote the following

passages from Mr. Frazer's remarks on individual totems in his book

on totemism: -- "An Australian seems usually to get his individual

totem by dreaming that he has been transformed into an animal of that

species." "In America the individual totem is usually the first animal

of which a youth dreams during the long and generally solitary fast

which American Indians observe at puberty." Such dream experiences

are then the VERA CAUSA of the inception of faith in individual

totems among the peoples in which totemism is most highly developed;

and among the tribes of Sarawak we find cases which illustrate how a

similar faith, strengthened by further dreams and by the good fortune

of its possessor, may spread to all the members of his family or

of his household and to his descendants, until in some cases the

guardian animal becomes almost, though not quite, a clan-totem. The

further development of such incipient totems among these tribes is

probably prevented at the present time, not only by their agricultural

habits, but also by their passionate addiction to war and fighting and

head-hunting; for these pursuits necessitate the strict subordination

of each community to its chief, and compel all families to unite

in the cult of the hawk to the detriment of all other animal-cults,

because the hawk is, by its habits, so much better suited than any

other animal to be a guide to them on warlike expeditions.[150]

The prevalence of the belief in a Supreme Being must also tend to

prevent the development of totemism.

Plants

In Chapter VI. we have described most of the superstitious beliefs

and practices connected with the PADI plant and the rice.

It is not clear that any other plants are regarded as be-souled; but

we mention here certain customs in connection with some of them that

seem to point in that direction. The SILAT, a common jungle palm,

figures most prominently in rites and beliefs of the Kayans. The

leaves of this palm are used to decorate the heads taken in war;

and on the occasion of any ceremonial use of the heads, fresh leaves

are always hung upon or about them. No other leaves will serve this

purpose, though it is difficult to say in what the special virtue of

this plant consists. The leaves of the same plant are hung about the

doorway of a new house when the people first take up their abode in it;

but it is hung in such a way that passers-by do not brush against it,

and children especially are kept away from it. It is commonly hung

about the altar-posts of the gods; and it is a strip of this leaf

that is tied about the wrist of a sick man to confine his soul to his

body at the close of the soul-catching ceremony. It is tied also about

the wrists of men returning from any warlike expedition. When applied

for any ceremonial purpose it is called ISANG; and it is not until it

has been so used that it becomes an "unclean" object. It is used in

its merely material aspect for roofing leaf shelters in the jungle,

and is put to other similar uses to which the broad tough leaves are

well adapted. Most or all of the peoples use the leaves of this plant

in the same ways as the Kayans.

LONG, a species of CALADIUM, is commonly hung, both root and leaves,

upon the door of a room to mark that it is LALI (tabu) owing to

sickness, harvesting, or any other circumstance.

OROBONG, a weed (not unlike the foxglove in appearance) which always

grows freely among the young PADI, is gathered by the female friends

of any woman passing through the ordeal of childbirth. They boil

the leaves and wash her body with the decoction on several days

following the delivery. It is held that, if this is not done, the

woman's abdomen will not regain its normal state. This usage also is

common to the Kayans with many other tribes.

The leaves of the DRACAENA are sometimes tied beneath the prow of

a boat during journeys to distant parts (as mentioned on p. 70,

vol. ii.); they are also hung upon the tombs and, with the ISANG,

upon altar posts, when the rites are performed.

The Ibans and some of the Klemantans will not make the first stroke

in cutting down the TAPANG tree (ARBOURIA), alleging that, if they

do so, great troubles will befall them.

Supplementary Note on the NGARONG

Since correcting the proofs of this chapter we have come upon a brief

account of the guardian spirits of the Iban, which corroborates

our account of the Ngarong. It is contained in a series of papers

entitled RELIGIOUS RITES AND CUSTOMS OF THE IBANS OR DYAKS OF SARAWAK,

BORNEO, written by Leo Nyuak (an Iban educated in a mission school),

and translated by the Very Rev. Edm. Dunn (ANTHROPOS, vol. i. p. 182,

1905). In this account the guardian spirit is called TUA, and we are

told that ,The TUA or guardian spirit of an Iban has its external

manifestation in a snake, a leopard, or some other denizen of the

forest. It is supposed to be the spirit of some ancestor renowned

for bravery, or some other virtue, who at death has taken an animal

form ... it is revealed in a dream what animal form the honoured dead

has taken."

CHAPTER 16

Magic, Spells, and Charms

Magic is in a comparatively neglected and backward condition among the

Kayans and Kenyahs, Punans, Ibans, and the more warlike up-country

Klemantans. On the other hand, some of the coastwise tribes of

Klemantans, especially the Malanaus and Kadayans, cultivate magic

with some assiduity.

The Kayans dislike and discourage all magical practices, with the

exception of those which are publicly practised for beneficent purposes

and have the sanction of custom.

In the old days they used to kill those suspected of working any evil

by magic. There are no recognised magicians among them other than

the DAYONGS, and these, as we have seen, perform the functions of the

priest and the physician rather than those OF the wizard or sorcerer.

Some of the DAYONGS make use at certain ceremonies of a rough mask

carved out OF wood, or made from the shell of a gourd. The mask is

merely an oval shell with slits for eyes and mouth, generally blackened

with age and use. It may be worn during the soul-catching ceremony,

but not during attendance on the recently deceased. This use of a

mask is not known to us among any other of the peoples (Pl. 151).

The medicine man of the Ibans is known as MANANG; the MANANGS are

more numerous than the DAYONGS of the Kayans; they are more strictly

professional in the sense that they do but little other work, depending

chiefly on what they can earn by their treatment of disease and by

other ways of practising upon the superstitions of their fellows. They

generally work in groups of three or four, or more in cases of serious

illness, and, with the imitativeness and disregard for tradition

characteristic of the IBAN, they have developed a great variety of

procedures,[151] into most of which the element of deliberate fraud

enters to a much greater extent than into the practice of the Kayan

DAYONGS. The Sea Dayak MANANG is usually covered with skin disease

(tinea) and shirks all hard work with the other members of the village.

A peculiar and infrequent variety of Sea Dayak MANANG are the MANANG

BALI. They are men who adopt and continuously wear woman's dress

and behave in all ways like women, except that they avoid as far as

possible taking any part in the domestic labour. They claim to have

been told in dreams to adopt this mode of life; they are employed

for the same purpose as the more ordinary MANANGS, and they practise

similar methods.

Among the IBANS certain persons get a bad reputation for working harm

by magic. They are said to be cunning in sorcery (TAU TEPANG), and

these persons may properly be said to be sorcerers or witches. They are

believed to work harm in many ill-defined ways, especially to health;

but their procedures are not generally known; they probably include

poisoning, but, like the practices of our European witches in recent

times, they probably have but little existence outside the timorous

imaginations of the people. Such persons are disliked and shunned,

though not killed as they would be among Kayans or Kenyahs. They are

not professional sorcerers, I.E. their help is not called in by other

persons who wish to work evil on their enemies, for others do not dare

to do this. At the present time in Sarawak, if a man accuses another

of practising TEPANG, he is liable to be sued for libel and fined.[152]

Black Magic

The most important of the magical practices is one known and

occasionally resorted to among all the peoples for the purpose of

bringing about the death of a personal enemy. We describe the procedure

as carried out by the Sebops (Klemantans), but in all essentials the

account holds good for all or nearly all the peoples. It is not usual

to invoke the aid of any recognised magician. The man whose heart is

filled with hatred against another will retire secretly to a spot at

the edge of a PADI field, or of some other clearing, where he can see

a large expanse of sky and yet feel sure of being unobserved. Here

he sets up the BATANG PRA, a pole supported horizontally some six or

eight feet above the ground, its ends resting on two vertical poles. A

little figure of a man or woman (according to the sex of the person

aimed at), which has been carved for the purpose out of soft wood,

is fixed upright in the ground beneath the BATANG PRA. This is called

TEGULUN KALINGAI USA, which, literally translated, is "the reflected

image of the body." The operator makes a fire beside the TEGULUN,

digs a small hole in the ground, and fills it with water coloured with

ferruginous earth. This pool is called BAWANG DAAR,[153] the lake of

blood. Sitting before the TEGULUN he scans the space of sky framed by

the BATANG PRA, searching for some hawk upon the wing. As soon as he

sees a hawk within this area, he addresses it, waving in one hand a

small frayed stick, and saying, "Put fat in the mouth of So-and-So,"

and he puts a bit of pork fat into the mouth of the TEGULUN. Then

saying, "Send him to BAWANG DAAR," he immerses the TEGULUN in his pool

of reddened water; and taking it out again he thrusts into it a little

wooden spear. After this he buries the TEGULUN in a hole in the ground,

covering it with earth. (Only people who die by violence or of some

much-feared disease are normally buried in this fashion.) This done

he keeps shouting to the hawk to go to the left, at the same time

waving his stick in that direction. If the hawk passes out of the

area of operations towards the right, he knows that his attempt will

not succeed, and he desists for the time being; if it flies out to

the left he knows that his arts will prevail, and he addresses the

hawk as follows: --

"BALI FLAKI TUAI MUSIT, OU MATEI IYA KALUNAN ITO TAMA ODOH (the name

of the victim), TUJU KAU, BALI FLAKI, MIEU TUOR BAWANG DAAR AU MULOH

USUK, BALI FLAKI, MIEU NIAK BOIN NA ALAM UJUN, PALA UJA MATEI SAGAM;

MATEI DAAR KAYU SAGAM; MATEI SUAT; MATEI AIOH SAGAM; MATEI MANYAT ALAM

SUNGEI; MATEI PADAM; MATEI NAKAP BAYA; MATEI SAKIT ULUN; MATEI SAKIT

USOK." (Translation runs -- "O Bali Flaki, go your way, let this man

Tama Odoh die; go and put him in the lake of blood, O Bali Flaki;

stab him in the chest, Bali Flaki, put fat of pig in his mouth that

he may die to-morrow (this is equivalent to -- let his head be taken;

for fat is always put in the mouth of the head taken in battle); let

him be killed by a falling tree, to-morrow; let him die from a wound;

let him die by the hand of his enemy, tomorrow; let him be drowned,

to-morrow; let him die of a deadly disease; let him be caught by

a crocodile; let him die of pain in the head; let him die of pain

in the chest.") It will be observed that the formula calls upon the

hawks to give effect to the malevolent wishes, so that the operation

is not one of direct magical or sympathetic action, but rather is

one by which the aid of a higher power is invoked. This feature of

the process renders it one which the strongest minded cannot pooh-pooh.

With this comprehensive curse the rite is concluded and the vengeful

man returns home and secretly observes his enemy. The latter may

become aware that magic is being worked against him through dreaming

that fat is put into his mouth; and as he is probably more or less

aware of the hatred of his enemy, it is not unlikely that such a dream

will come to him.[154] There can be no doubt that, if in this or any

other way a man learns that he has been made the object of a magical

attempt of this sort, he, in many cases, suffers in health; and it is

probable that in some cases such knowledge has proved fatal. If it is

discovered that any man has attempted to injure another in this way,

he falls into general reprobation, and, if the case can be proved

against him, heavy damages in the form of pigs, gongs, etc., may be

awarded by the house-chief.

A curse is sometimes imposed without formality, and in the heat of

the moment, in the face of their enemy. Under these circumstances

the curse is usually muttered indistinctly, and seems then to work

upon the victim all the more powerfully. The words used are similar

to those of the curse written out above.

A characteristic bit of Iban magic is the following: -- A man, angered

by finding that some one has deposited dirt in or about his property

or premises, takes a few burning sticks and, thrusting them into the

dirt, says, "Now let them suffer the pains of dysentery."

Therapeutic Magical Procedures

It was said in Chapter XIV. that the Kayans treat disease by three

distinct methods, namely, by soul-catching, by drugs and regimen,

and by extraction of the supposed cause of the trouble. This last

operation seems to fall under the head of magic and may be described

here. It is usually performed by the DAYONGS, and is applied more

particularly in cases in which localised pain is a prominent feature

of the disorder. The DAYONG comes provided with a short tube, prepared

by pushing out the core of a section of the stem of a certain plant

of the ginger family. After inquiring of the patient the locality of

his pains, he holds up the polished blade of a sword, and, gazing at

it as one seeing visions, he sings a long incantation beginning: --

BALI DAYONG USUN LASAN

URIP ULUN KAM KELUNAN

NINI KETAI NATONG TAWANG LEMAN

BALI DAYONG.[155]

The crowd of people, men and women, sitting round the central figure,

join in the BALI DAYONG, which recurs as the refrain at the end of

each verse, intoning in loud deep voices. It seems clear from the use

of the words BALI DAYONG that the whole is addressed to some superior

power; for no human DAYONG, and indeed no human being, is addressed or

spoken of with the title BALI. And it would perhaps be more correct,

therefore, to describe the address as a supplication rather than

an incantation, and the whole operation as a religious rite rather

than a magical procedure. But we are here on the disputed borderland

between magic and religion, and other features incline us to regard

the process as magical rather than religious.

During the singing of a number of verses in this way, the DAYONG seems

to become more and more distraught and unconscious of his surroundings;

and when the singing ceases he behaves in a strange manner, which

strikes the attendant crowd with awe, starting suddenly and making

strange clucking noises. Then he produces the tube mentioned above,

and pressing one end upon the skin of the part indicated by the

patient as the seat of the pain, he sucks strongly, and, presently

withdrawing it, he blows out of it on to his palm a small black

pellet, which moves mysteriously upon his hand as he exhibits it

to the patient and his friends as the cause of the pain; and if the

patient has complained of more than one seat of pain, the operation

is repeated. It only remains for the DAYONG to return gradually with

some violent gestures and contortions to his normal state, and to

receive his fee, which properly consists of the sword used by him

in the ceremony, and a live fowl. The whole procedure is very well

adapted to secure therapeutic effects by suggestion. The singing and

the atmosphere of awe engendered by the DAYONG'S reputation and his

uncanny behaviour prepare the patient, the suction applied through the

tube gives him the impression that something is being drawn through

his skin, and the skilful production of the mysterious black pellet

completes the suggestive process, under the influence of which, no

doubt, many an ache or pain has suddenly disappeared. On one occasion,

one of us being a little indisposed in a Klemantan house, we made an

opportunity to examine the methods of the DAYONG a little more closely

than is usually possible, by inviting one to undertake the extraction

of his pains. We were then able to realise more vividly the suggestive

force of the procedure, and to see that the black pellets were bits of

dark beeswax which were carried upon the finger-nails of the DAYONG,

and surreptitiously introduced by him into his mouth as they were

required for exhibition after being blown through the tube; we could

see also that the mysterious movements of the pellets upon his palm

were produced by the help of short fine hairs protruding from it. It

seems impossible to deny the presence of a certain element of fraud in

this procedure, but we think that it would be hasty and uncharitable

to assert that the DAYONG'S attitude is wholly one of fraud; we

must remember that our most orthodox medical practitioners accord a

legitimate place in their armamentarium to MISTURA RUBRA (solution of

burnt sugar) and to similar aids whose operation is purely suggestive.

Most of the coastwise tribes seek to drive away epidemic disease by

the following procedure: -- One or more rough human images are carved

from the pith of the sago palm and placed on a small raft or boat,

or full-rigged Malay ship, together with rice and other food carefully

prepared. The boat is decorated with ribbons of the leaves and with the

blossoms of the areca palm, and allowed to float out to sea with the

ebb-tide in the belief or hope that it will carry the sickness with it.

Among the Ibans, if a man has deceived people in a serious matter by

means of a malicious lie, and if the untruth is discovered, one of

the deceived party takes a stick and throws it down at some spot by

which people are constantly passing, saying in the presence of others,

"Let any one who does not add to this liar's heap (TUGONG BULA) suffer

from pains in the head." Then others do likewise, and the nature of

the growing heap becoming known, every passer-by throws a stick upon

it lest he should suffer pains. In this way the heap grows until it

attains a large size, in some cases that of a small haystack, and,

being known by the name of the liar, is a cause of great shame to him.

When any man has his hair cut or shaved, he sees that the hair cut

off is burnt or otherwise carefully disposed of. This is common to all

the Borneans. It would seem that this is not prompted by fear of any

definite harm, nor is there, so far as we know, any recognised way

of using the hair cut off to work injury to its former owner. The

custom seems rather to be due to the fact that shields and swords

are decorated with the hair of enemies by Kenyahs and others;

therefore it is felt that to use a man's hair for this purpose is

almost equivalent to taking his head; and it is well to guard against

this possibility. No doubt also it is vaguely felt that if the hair

of one's head should come into the possession of any other person,

that person would acquire some indefinable power over one.

Magical practices for the injury of enemies and rivals are more various

and frequent among the coastwise Klemantans, especially the Bisayas,

Kadayans, and Malanaus. It is probable that they have learnt much

of this from the Malays. One variety is to hang up at the edge of

a PADI field a yam or other root covered with projecting spikes of

bamboo cane. This is done openly to spoil the crop.

Another trick is to tie under a bench in the boat of one's enemy a

pebble, generally of quartz. This is supposed to make the boat so

heavy that it can only travel very slowly.

Charms

These practices involve the application of charms. Charms are

extensively used by all the peoples, least so by Kayans. In every

house is at least one bundle of charms, known as SIAP AIOH by the

Kenyahs, by whom more importance is attached to it than by any of

the other tribes. This bundle, which is the property of the whole

household or village, generally contains hair taken from the heads

that hang in the gallery; a crocodile's tooth; the blades of a few

knives that have been used in special ceremonies; a few crystals or

pebbles of strange shapes; pig's teeth of unusual shape (of both wild

and domestic pig); feathers of a fowl (these seem to be substitutes

for Bali Flaki's feathers, which they would hardly dare to touch);

stone axe-heads called the teeth of Balingo;[156] and ISANG, I.E. palm

leaves that have been put to ceremonial use (Fig. 80).

The whole bundle, blackened with the smoke and dust of years, hangs

in the gallery over the principal hearth beside the heads, usually

in a widemeshed basket. It constitutes the most precious possession

of the household, being of even greater value than the heads. No one

willingly touches or handles the SIAP, not even the chief. And when

it becomes necessary to touch the bundle, as in transferring it to

a new house, some old man is specially told off for the duty; he who

touches it brings upon himself the risk of death, for it is very PARIT

to touch it, I.E. strongly against custom and therefore dangerous.[157]

Its function seems to be to bring luck or prosperity of all kinds to

the house; without it nothing would prosper, especially in warfare.

Many individuals keep a small private bunch of SIAP, made up of various

small objects, of unusual forms, generally without any human hair

(Fig. 81). These are generally obtained through dreams. A man dreams

that something of value is to be given him, and then, if on waking

his eye falls upon a crystal of quartz, or any other slightly peculiar

object, he takes it and hangs it above his sleeping-place; when going

to bed he addresses it, saying that he wants a dream favourable to

any business he may have in hand. If such a dream comes to him, the

thing becomes SIAP; but if his dreams are inauspicious, the object

is rejected. Since no one can come in contact with another man's SIAP

without risk of injury, the inconvenience occasioned by multiplication

of SIAP bundles puts a limit to their number. Nevertheless a man who

possesses private SIAP will carry it with him attached to the sheath

of his sword, and special hooks are provided in most houses for the

hanging up of such swords (Fig. 82).

There are many instances of SIAP of specialised function. A man

specially devoted to hunting with the blowpipe will have a special

blow-pipe SIAP tied to his quiver (this is especially common among

Punans). He will dip this SIAP in the blood of every animal he kills,

so that it becomes thickly encrusted. This is thought to increase or

preserve its virtue.

Another special kind of SIAP is that which ensures a man against hurt

from firearms, through causing any gun aimed at him to miss fire.

The Ibans use personal charms which they call PENGAROH; but in

accordance with their more individualistic disposition, they have

no important charm common to the whole household corresponding to

the household SIAP of the other peoples. The objects composing the

PENGAROH are an assortment even more varied and fantastic than the

SIAP of other peoples. In many cases they are carried with small china

pots of oil, which are used to rub on the body as a universal remedy.

A curious object to be occasionally seen in some Sea Dayak houses

is the empugau. It is a blackened bundle hung in a basket among the

heads above the hearth. It is covered with the smoke and soot of ages,

and though it is generally claimed as the property of some one man who

has inherited it from his forefathers, even he knows nothing of its

history and composition, and is unwilling to examine it closely. It

is regarded by the Ibans as the head of some half-human monster. On

careful examination of several specimens we have found the EMPUGAU

to consist of a large cocoanut in its husk, tricked out with a rude

face mask having part of the fibrous husk combed out to look like

hair. The Ibans regard it with some awe, and it seems probable that

it has formerly played some part in magical procedures.

Love Charms

Love charms are used by most of the peoples, though the Kayans and

Kenyahs are exceptions, since they prefer to rely chiefly upon the

power of music and personal attractions. These charms are in almost all

cases strongly odorous substances. The Iban youth strings together

a necklace of strongly scented seed known as BUAH BALONG. This

he generally carries about with him, and, when his inclination is

directed towards some fair one, he places it under her pillow, or

endeavours to persuade her to wear it about her neck. If she accepts

it, he reckons her half won.

Klemantans, among whom love charms go by the generic name SANGKIL,

make use of a variety of charms, of which one of the most used is a

scented oil that they contrive to smuggle on to the garments or other

personal property of the woman.

Those that have had much contact with Malays make use of pieces of

paper on which they scrawl certain conventional patterns.

Charms are used by Ibans to ensure success in trapping. The trapper

carries a stick one end of which is carved to represent the human

form (Fig. 83). He uses this to measure the appropriate height of

the traps set for animals of different species.

All the peoples observe a large number of restrictions in regard to

contact with objects, especially articles of food. Some of these are

mentioned in other chapters. Here we notice a few typical instances. In

Chapter XV. we related that each of the peoples avoid certain animals;

in some cases they avoid not only killing or touching these animals,

but also even very remote relations with them: as, for example,

taking food from a vessel in which their flesh has been cooked on some

previous occasion; coming within the range of the odour of the object;

coming into a house in which there is any part of such an animal.

The evil resulting from breach of any such prohibitions generally takes

the form of wasting sickness with pains in the head, chronic cough,

dysentery, or spitting of blood. When a Kenyah has knowingly for

any reason, or unintentionally, come in contact with any one of the

forbidden objects, or if he finds himself suffering from any of these

things, and therefore suspects that he has unwittingly come under their

influence, he subjects himself to a process of purification. At break

of day he descends, with other members of his family, to the brink of

the river provided with a chicken, a sword-blade, two frayed sticks,

and a length of spiky vine known as ATAT. This latter is bent into

the form of a ring, within which he takes his stand and awaits the

appearance of Isit (the spider hunter -- one of the omen-birds). He

calls it by name, Bali Isit; and as soon as Isit calls in reply,

he pours out a long-winded address, charging him to convey to Bali

Penyalong his prayer for recovery or protection. Then he snips off

the head of the chicken, and wipes some of its blood on the frayed

sticks and on the ring. The ring, with the chicken and the frayed

sticks, are then lifted above his head by his attendants, and water is

poured upon them from a bamboo, so that it drips from them on to his

head. Eight times the ring is lifted up, and each time the pouring out

of the water is repeated. Then, standing on the blade of the sword,

he again addresses the omen-bird as before. This completes the rite,

which is known as LEMAWA.

A similar rite of purification is practised by most of the other

peoples. In some cases the principal feature of the rite of

purification is being spat upon by the chief.

It may be broadly said that all these peoples are constantly on the

alert to provide against unknown dangers; that, having no definite

theories of causation, they are apt to accept every hint of danger

or hurtful influence suggested by the attributes and relations of

things, and to seek to avoid these influences or to ward them off

or counteract them by every means that in any way suggests itself to

their minds as possibly efficacious.

Although the Kayans regard a madman as possessed by an evil spirit,

they seem to have no traditional methods of casting out the spirit;

but some of the Klemantans practise a rite of exorcism; this varies

in detail from tribe to tribe, and attains the greatest elaboration

among the Malanaus. The rite is known as BAYOH, and bears a general

resemblance to the corresponding Malay rite known as BERHANTU. The

Malanaus are Klemantans of the coast regions of Sarawak, most of

whom have recently become converted to Islam, while all of them have

been much influenced by contact with Malays. The following account is

reproduced from a paper published by one of us (C. H.) in the REVIEW

OF THE FAR EAST (Feb. 1907), to the editor of which we are indebted

for permission to make use of the paper: --

The ceremony of casting out evil spirits is of frequent occurrence

among Malanaus, and the noise of gongs and drums throughout the night,

lasting every night for sometimes a whole week, cannot fail to impress

even a casual observer.

The natives of Niah, who are Malanaus, believe in a multitude of

spirits, good and bad, great and small, important and of little

account. At the head of these is Ula Gemilang, the sea divinity,

a power who works for the good of man.[158] Adum Girang is another

spirit of the sea, as also is Raja Duan, who has power over the sun,

a spirit who is distinguished, when he appears in human form, by his

white head-cloth. Majau is said to be pre-eminently rich. Aiar Urai

Arang is said to be a small child whose mother is Aiar. Besides these

there are other powerful spirits of the sea, the land, the up-river

country, and so forth, and each is attended by innumerable slaves

and attendants of ghostly kind; they have influence of many kinds

over the dwellers in this world, some for good, others very much for

evil. Madness is caused by various evil spirits throwing themselves

into mortals, ghosts with red eyes which flash like lightning. The

"amok" devil which comes from the swamp, differs from those which

drive people to commit suicide -- these again being quite distinct

from those which cause merely harmless lunacy.

It not infrequently happens that when a woman (or more rarely a man)

is insane or is very ill, she is urged to admit that a devil has

possessed her, and to become a medicine woman. By this means she

becomes well of her complaint, and at the same time acquires the

power of helping others to cast out devils. But she is not able of

her own accord to determine whether she shall become a medicine woman

or not. For three nights she is taken through the ceremony of BAYOH,

afterwards to be described, without a rattan swing, and then for three

nights with the swing. If the indications are favourable, some three

weeks are allowed to elapse before she undergoes the final test of

five nights with the swing. The first BAYOH is to satisfy the people,

the second to appease the demon; and if her malady is cured by the

eleven nights of artificial hysteria, she is considered to have been

accepted both by men and spirits in her new role of exorciser.

As one woman expressed it, she is now "in with the demons." Even

then, however, it does not follow that she is able to see when an

evil spirit has ceased to possess a person. One old female, who had

worked at BAYOH for fifteen years, admitted that if a devil went into

herself she could turn it out, but only a more powerful woman than

herself could turn devils out of others.