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.