RELIGION
One evening when old Fatumak appeared to be in a philosophical mood and
Friedlander was at hand as a kind interpreter, a favourable opportunity
seemed present to ask the reader of the future to turn back the pages
of his memory and tell what he knew of the dim and misty past,--when
and how and by whom this fair little tropical world was created. After
the question was put to him, he sat silent for a while, with his eyes
cast down fixedly on a fresh bolus of betel nut, for the various
condiments whereof he was rummaging in his betel basket on the floor
beside him. When the mixture was duly spread out upon the green leaf of
wild pepper, to add the last supreme touch, he took up his bamboo box
of powdered lime, holding it between his thumb and middle finger and,
tapping it meditatively with his forefinger, shook out a sprinkling of
lime through the small hole in the bottom; then he lovingly folded
the leaf over its contents, and throwing his head back and rolling up
his eyes, crammed the bolus far back in his cheek, then in a somewhat
muffled voice at length replied, “There are many strange stories
about those times, but I think they are all untrue, yet what I am now
about to tell you I know is just what really happened.” He leaned
back against the door post and ruminated quietly, while Friedlander
explained to me what had just been said, and then Fatumak resumed, with
the following story, which I give without the frequent interruptions:
“Long, long ago when there was nothing but sea and sky, and no land,
there was a large piece of driftwood like the trunk of a coconut palm
floating on the waves; on the under side of it was a great barnacle,
and out of this came the first woman, and she lived in the water and
never went up on top of the huge log. Very soon she had a daughter,
whom she warned that on no account was she to go up on top of the log.
The daughter’s curiosity was, however, too much for her and when it
was low tide and the bottom of the sea came up to meet the log, she
crept up on top, and a _gal_ tree [hibiscus] grew down from the
sky and stuck fast to the log and held it in one place. When she got up
into the air and daylight, she found that the driftwood was inhabited
by all sorts of devils (_kan_) that hover about on the surface of
the sea, and they were all clothed, but she was not. As soon as the
clothed devils of the sea caught sight of her and saw that she was not
like themselves and was naked, they killed her and preserved her body
in salt.
“Very soon the mother missed her daughter and came up to look for her
and found only her dead body preserved in salt. Then Yalafath, the
ruler of _Falraman_ (Heaven), was sorry for her and commanded the
_kan_ who had killed her to work a charm that would bring her to
life again. When this was accomplished, Yalafath gave to the mother and
daughter packages of sand and yams and told them to go over the sea and
scatter the sand and plant the yams, but to return to the driftwood
and the _gal_ tree in seven days without fail. So they set out
and did as they were told, but enjoyed it so much that they completely
forgot when the seven days were up. Yalafath was very, very angry and
sent a rat after them, telling him to eat up all the yam plants. When
the mother and daughter saw their plants destroyed, they came to their
senses and remembered the promise, so they hurried back to ask pardon
of Yalafath. He forgave them and sent them a cat to kill the rat. Then
he commanded the daughter to marry the _kan_ who had first killed
her and brought her to life again, and he gave them a large canoe with
a sail, and they travelled everywhere and found that where the sand
had been scattered in piles there were the high lands and mountains,
where white people lived and they had everything they wanted. Where
the sand had been scattered broadcast were the low coral islands. The
dark people are the children of that _kan_ and the daughter of the
barnacle woman, but white people are children of _kans_ for they
go everywhere in the big ships that Yalafath has given them, and they
take everything, even coconuts and sand, from the dark people.”
This narrative does not seem to me to bear the stamp of antiquity. In
the first place, cats are of comparatively recent introduction on the
island, probably from some of the whaling vessels which frequently
traded there fifteen or twenty years ago. In the second place, the
reference to the white man taking away the coconuts and even the
sand from the dark people is an allusion to a copra-trader who,--so
Friedlander told me,--a few years ago cast anchor in the Tomil harbour,
and, after discharging his cargo, found that there was not enough dried
copra to give him proper ballast, so he had to fill one of his holds
with sand-ballast; this the natives could not understand and thought
that even the very soil of their island was valuable to the strange
white people. I have, nevertheless, given the story as it was told,
although it may be merely the offspring of Fatumak’s imagination and
tinged with his belief in the ruling of man’s actions by a superior
being and a company of subordinate demons.
There are no set forms of religious observance in Uap, but they believe
that there is in the sky overhead an abode of departed spirits; it
is supposed to be a large house, known as _Falraman_, and over
it presides Yalafath, the creator of the world, who is a kind but
rather unsympathetic god; nevertheless, if, in distress, prayers are
offered to him, he intervenes and overrules the horde of evil demons.
_Falraman_ is precisely like any large house in Uap, and the
spirits of men and women who go there assume the same bodily shape
that they had in this life, but it is only the “thinking-part,” or
_tafenai_, that really goes. The _tafenai_ of children also
go to _Falraman_, but whether or not they grow old is not known
to mortals. The _tafenai_ of stillborn children, however, never
get into _Falraman_; all they know is how to cry; therefore they
stay in the ground where they have been buried and cry incessantly
for their mothers. After a _tafenai_ has been long enough in
_Falraman_ to have the mortal “heaviness” and earthly odour wear
off, it goes back to its former dwelling place in Uap and it is then
known as an _athegith_, but is invisible to mortal eyes. If a
_tafenai_ find that it had not been befittingly honoured at
burial, it brings sickness to the household and will not desist until
its dead body has been laid away with due lamentations and funeral
songs, and the _mach-mach_ man has pronounced a charm exhorting it
to desist. It is the _tafenai_ trying to escape out of the body
that makes a person ill, and all the charms said over sick people are
exhortations to the _tafenai_ to remain; when a man is delirious,
his _tafenai_ has left his body and it may or may not be enticed
to return.
One day, an unfortunate, feeble-minded epileptic, of decidedly negroid
type, with thick lips and wild-staring, restless eyes, came with others
of the people to Friedlander’s house to hear a phonograph recital;
the excitement evidently brought on an attack, and he suddenly gave
the symptomatic wild shriek of epileptics and fell to the ground
with violent contortions. The bystanders made not the least attempt
to help him, but stood about shouting with laughter at his writhings.
The fit soon passed off, and he was again on his feet, walking about
with a dazed air, and a following of heartless, jeering little boys.
I asked Fatumak if he knew what was the matter with the poor fellow,
and, in a tone implying that it was a childish question, he answered,
“Oh, yes, he is just a foolish sort of a fellow who has a wandering
_tafenai_ which floats around with the wind, and when it strikes
him he falls to the ground and struggles with it.”
When a man sleeps, his _tafenai_ escapes and wanders about playing
all manner of queer pranks; in the morning when he awakes, it is the
_tafenai_ creeping back into his body through the nostrils that
rouses him, wherefore a man so often wakes up sneezing or coughing.
“A wise man has his _tafenai_ in his head; a fool has it in his
belly,” said Fatumak.
Yalafath, who is the supreme deity and has the general supervision
of mankind, has attributes benignant indeed, but of a lukewarm
character, negative rather than positive; herein, however, in this
benignity, feeble though it be, he is unparalleled in the theology
of the Borneans or of the Naga Hill tribes of Upper India, where all
deities are malevolent. Of the numerous lesser deities, there is Luk,
the god of the _tsuru_, or dance; Nagadamang is bold and aids
the _athegiths_ in their vengeance; Marapou, who sends the wind
and rain and causes storms at sea; Begbalel, who looks after the taro
fields and makes or mars the crops; Kanepai is always present at dances
to make men so giddy that they must have water poured on their heads
before they recover and can go on with the dance, but Bak is the real
god of the Tsuru; Nagadamang is the god of war, and when he is heard
growling, war is sure to follow; if he knocks at a house-post, sickness
results. Muibab is also a god of war; the frigate-bird, sacred to him,
bears his name. Boradaileng punishes the _tafenai_ of bad men
by thrusting them into a pit of fire. To be bad enough to deserve
this punishment, a man must have been guilty of cutting down trees
or coconut palms on another man’s land. Of course, the sea, sky, and
earth teem with invisible demons who are accountable for every natural
phenomenon or misfortune.
Fire came to the people of Uap through the god Derra (lightning), who
came down and struck a large hibiscus tree at Ugutam, a slave village
at the northern end of the island. A woman, whose name is unrecorded,
begged the god for the fire; he gave her some and showed her how to
bake an earthen pot. When the fire died out, he taught her how to
obtain more by means of the fire-drill, and told her that fire in a new
house must always be started in this manner, and for it only the wood
of the hibiscus tree should be used, moreover this wood must be cut
with shell knives or shell axes, neither iron nor steel must touch it.
Lusarer taught them, in days gone by, how to make the sacred mats or
_umbul_, of which I have already spoken; they are never used,
nor even unwrapped, but pass from father to son as sacred heirlooms
hanging from the rafters to attest the wealth and respectability of the
family.
I could not discover that sacrifices or offerings were ever made to
the gods, but in the enclosures about the houses I frequently noticed
a palm-leaf basket hanging to one of the trees or bushes in front of
the house; in these baskets there were invariably pieces of coconut
that appeared to have been scorched or partly roasted, also some broken
egg-shells and some dried leaves, probably of the wild pepper. Repeated
questioning failed to bring out an explanation of these baskets,
further than that they were hung out merely in sport; often the
house-owners professed absolute ignorance of their existence, and said
it was no doubt some childish game. They were, however, so universal
that I am convinced they bore a meaning that the people did not wish to
disclose.
While uttering incantations to cure sickness or to drive away the
_athegiths_, the wizard waves a wand of palm-leaves, with which
from time to time he touches the sick person. When wind and waves are
to be lulled at sea, he uses as a talisman the sharp, barbed spine
from the tail of the stingray; standing in the bow of the canoe he
flourishes this dagger-like talisman above his head as he shouts
out the mystic words, stabbing at the invisible god who has brought
on the bad weather, “shooing” him off, as if he were a chicken or a
trespassing dog. This incantation is known as _momok nu flaifang_.
Another occasion on which the services of the _mach-mach_ are
invoked, is the naming of a child, which takes place ten days after
its birth, when for the first time it is brought to its father’s
house from the _tapal_, or small secluded house in the “bush,”
whereto prospective mothers retire on the first symptoms of labour. On
the ninth day after birth, a carrying basket is made for it, and the
mother carries it to a small house adjoining the family house; here
the mother and child must remain over night. On the following day the
_mach-mach_ receives it in its father’s house, and, touching it
on the head with leaves from the heart of a coconut palm, he exhorts
Yalafath to protect the child and see that it is never hungry and never
sick, and, by waving the leaves of the life-giving coconut over it,
chases away evil demons of misfortune. The chosen name, usually that
of some near relative, either living or dead, is then given to the
child, which up to this time has been called _sugau_, if a boy,
or _ligau_, if a girl. The ceremony of naming a child is known as
_momok nu sumpau_.
For all these services the _mach-mach_, who is apparently in no
way regarded as a priest, but merely as a wise man and an exorcist, is
paid either in shell money, or coconuts, and baskets of yams or taro.
It is in this fashion that good old Fatumak makes his comfortable
living and is enabled to trade so lavishly with Friedlander for
products from the white man’s country where the barnacle woman and her
daughter deposited the sand in heaps.
[Illustration: THE MODE OF CARRYING BABIES; THE SOLE OF THE
BABY’S FOOT MAY BE SEEN AT THE END OF THE HAMPER]