The Pagan Tribes of Borneo Part 24

The Kayan's att.i.tude 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 superst.i.tious 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.serted 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 superst.i.tious 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 superst.i.tion 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.ds, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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-G.o.d Klieng, and the G.o.d 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-G.o.d, 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-G.o.d is completely anthropomorphic. Corresponding with this increased importance and definition of the anthropomorphic hawk-G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 gra.s.shopper, 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-G.o.d, 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 superst.i.tions; 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