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.