The Pagan Tribes of Borneo / A Description of Their Physical Moral and Intellectual Condition, with Some Discussion of Their Ethnic Relations

by Charles Hose; William McDougall

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.