Towards the end of the first year the lobes of the ears are perforated, and a ring (or, in the case of a girl, several small rings) is inserted in each. Of childish affections of health, the commonest at this age is yaws (FRAMBOESIA) about the mouth. Kayan mothers believe that every child must go through this, and that one attack protects against its recurrence; and the rareness of the disease in adults seems to bear out this belief. Most of the children are weaned about the end of their second year.
During the next years, until the boy is five or six years of age, he remains always under the care of his mother. He spends the day running about within and around the house and among the boats at the landing-place, playing with his fellows, chasing the pigs and fowls, and bathing in the river. The children are in the main what is commonly called good, they cry but little, and quarrels and outbreaks of temper are few. During the boy's third year a hole is punched in the shell of each ear. A single blow with a bamboo punch takes out a circular piece; into this a circular plug of wax or wood is inserted. The girl, on the other hand, has more rings added to the lobes of her cars, which gradually yield to the weight, and begin to assume the desired character of slender loops. During these years the boy normally takes the first step of his initiation as a warrior by striking a blow at a freshly taken head, or, if need be, at an old one (see vol. ii. p. 169).
It is at some time in the course of these years, usually not earlier than the beginning of the child's third year, that he first receives a name. The occasion of the rite is a general naming of all the children of the house of suitable age; and the time is determined by the conclusion of a successful harvest; for a general feast is made for which much rice and BURAK are required, and these cannot be spared in a year of poor harvest. For each child who is to be named a small human image in soft wood is prepared. This is an effigy of Laki Pesong, the god whose special function it is to care for the welfare of the children. A small mat is woven and a few strips of rattan provided for each child. Each child sits with his (or her) mother in the gallery beside the door of their room, and the parents announce the name they propose for the child. Then the father, or some other man, after killing a chick or young pig, lays the image on the mat before the child, passes one of the rattan strips beneath it, and, holding the image firmly with a big toe on each end of it, pulls the strip rapidly to and fro, until it is made hot by its friction against the image, and smoke begins to rise. While this goes on, the same man, or another, pours out a stream of words addressed to Laki Pesong, the sense of which is a supplication for an answer to the question, "Is this a suitable name? Will he be prosperous under it? Will he enjoy a long life?" etc. He continues the sawing movement until the strip breaks in two. The two pieces are then compared; if they are of unequal length, this result is regarded as expressing the approval of the proposed name by Laki Pesong; if they are of approximately equal length, the god is held to have expressed his disapproval, and another name is proposed and submitted to the same test. If disapproval is thus expressed several times, the naming of the child is postponed to another occasion (Pls. 53, 168).
If a name has been approved, the image, together with the knife used in killing the pig or chicken, is wrapped up in the small mat; the bundle, which, as well as the ceremony, is called PUSA, is thrust behind the rafters of the gallery opposite the door of the child's room, to remain there as a memento of the naming.
When the naming is accomplished a general feast begins, the parents of the newly named children contributing the chief part of the good things; and a number of specially invited guests may participate.
The name so given at this ceremony is borne until the child becomes a parent; when he resigns it in favour of the name given to his child with the title Taman (= father) prefixed (or Tinan in the case of a woman).
Among the Kayans of the upper Rejang the naming ceremonies differ widely from those described above, and are even more elaborate. The following description was given us by Laki Bo, a Kayan PENGHULU.[170] A child is named sometime between its third month and the end of its second year, the date depending partly on the father's capacity to afford the expenses incidental to the ceremony. The father and his friends obtain specimens of all the edible animals and fish, and after drying them over the fire, set them up in his room in attitudes as lifelike as possible. He procures also the leaves of a species of banana tree which bears very large horn-like fruit, known as PUTI ORAN; and having procured the services of a female DAYONG, who has a reputation for skill in naming, he calls all the friends and relatives of the family to the feast. The DAYONG enters the room where the child is, bearing a fowl's egg, while gongs and drums are beaten and guns discharged. She strokes the child from forehead to navel with the egg, calling out some name at each stroke, until she feels that she has found a suitable name. The whole company then pretends to fall asleep; and presently some go out into the gallery. The DAYONG then calls upon sixteen of the women to enter the room; they enter led by a woman who, pretending to be a fowl, clucks and crows, and says, "Why are you all asleep here? It has been daylight for a long time. Don't you hear me crowing? Wake up, wake up." The child, which has been kept in its parents' cubicle during this first part of the ceremony, is then brought into the large room, and a fowl and small pig are slaughtered and their entrails examined. If these yield favourable omens, the DAYONG begins to chant, invoking the protection of good spirits for the child. Then sixteen men and sixteen women, whose parents are still living, are sent to fetch water for the use of the child and its mother. The feasting then begins, some person eating on behalf of the child, if it is too young to partake of the feast. Eight days later the DAYONG again invokes the protection of the beneficent spirits, and the child is taken out into the gallery and shown to all the household. Some near relative makes a cross upon its right foot with a piece of charcoal, and the child is taken to the door of each room to receive some small present from each roomhold. The child must then return to its parents' room and remain there eight days. After the next harvest a similar feast of pigs' flesh and dried animals is made, and the name is confirmed. But if in the meantime the child has been ill, or any other untoward event has happened, a new name is given to it. In this case it would be usual to choose the well-tried name of some prosperous uncle or aunt. Again the child must be confined to its parents' room for eight days following the feast; and after that time it is free to go where it will, or rather wherever children are allowed to go.
From five or six years onwards the boy more and more accompanies the men in their excursions on the river and in the jungle, and is taught to make himself useful on these occasions, and also on the PADI farm, where he helps in scaring pests and in other odd jobs. But he still has much leisure, which is chiefly devoted to playing with his fellows. Among the principal boys' games the following deserve mention: — Spinning of peg-tops of hard wood, usually thrown overhand, but sometimes underhand, in a manner very similar to that of English boys, each boy in turn striving to strike the tops of the others with his own; this game is played about the time of PADI harvest. Simple kites are flown. A roughly made bow with unfeathered arrow is a somewhat rare toy. Most of the out-door games are of the nature of practice for the chase and war, and of trials of strength and of endurance of pain. Wrestling is perhaps the most popular sport with the older boys and with men. Each grips his antagonist's waist-cloth at its lower edge behind, and strives to lay him on his back (Pl. 169). Throwing mock spears at the domestic pigs or goats, and thrusting a spear through a bounding hoop, afford practice for sport and war. Running games like prisoner's base, and diving and swimming games, are also played. All these boys' games are but little organised, and the competitive motive is not very strongly operative; there are few set rules, and but little scope for, training in leadership and subordination is afforded by them.
In the house less active games are played. In one of the most popular of these a number of children squat in a ring upon the floor; one takes a glowing ember from a hearth, and passes it on to his neighbour, who in turn passes it on as quickly as possible. In this way it goes round and round the ring until the last spark of fire goes out. He or she who holds it at that moment is then dubbed ABAN LALU or BALU DOH (=widower Lalu or widow Doh).
Pets, in the form of birds and the smaller mammals, especially hornbills, parrokeets, squirrels, porcupines, are kept in wicker cages.