CHAPTER 15
Animistic Beliefs Connected with Animals and Plants[126]
Many of the animals, both wild and domesticated, are held by the Kenyahs in peculiar regard; those that most influence their conduct are the omen-birds, and among the omen-birds the common white-headed carrion-hawk (HALIASTER INTERMEDIUS) is by far the most important. The Kenyahs always observe the movements of this hawk with keen interest, for by a well-established code of rules they interpret his movements in the heavens as signs by which they must be guided in many matters of moment, especially in the conduct of warlike or any other dangerous expeditions.[127] The hawk is always spoken of and addressed as BALI FLAKI, and is formally consulted before any party of Kenyahs sets out from home for distant parts.
To illustrate the formalities with which they read the omens we will transcribe here a passage from a journal kept by one of us. The occasion of the incidents described was the setting out of a large body of Kenyahs from the house of Tama Bulan (Pl. 27), a chief who by his personal merits had attained to a position of great influence among the other Kenyah chiefs, and who had been confirmed in his authority by His Highness the Rajah of Sarawak. The object of the expedition was to visit and make peace with another great fighting tribe, the Madangs, who live in the remotest interior of Borneo.[128] Tama Bulan, whose belief in the value of the omens had been slightly shaken, was willing to start without ceremonies, and to make those powers which he believed to protect us responsible for himself and his people also. But the people had begged him not to neglect the traditional rites, and he had yielded to their wishes.
At break of day, before I was up, Tama Bulan was washed by the women at the river's brink with water and the blood of pigs to purify him for his journey, and later in the morning the people set to work to seek omens and a guarantee of their safety on the journey from the hawks that are so numerous here. A small shelter of sticks and leaves was made on the river-bank before the house, and the women having been sent to their rooms, three men of the upper class[129] sat under this leaf-shelter beside a small fire, and searched the sky for hawks. After sitting there silently for about an hour the three men suddenly became animated; one of them took in his right hand a small chick and a stick frayed by many deep cuts with a knife, and waved them repeatedly from left to right, at the same time pouring out a rapid flood of words. They had caught sight of a hawk high up and far away from them, and they were trying to persuade it to fly towards the right. Presently the hawk, a tiny speck in the sky, sailed slowly out of sight behind a hill on the right, and the men settled themselves to watch for a second hawk which must fly towards the left, and a third which must circle round and round. In the course of about half-an-hour two hawks had obligingly put in an appearance, and behaved just as it was hoped and desired that they should behave; and so this part of the business was finished, and about a score of men bustled about preparing for the next act. They brought many fowls and several young pigs, and a bundle of long poles pointed at either end. Before the house stand upright two great boles of timber; the upper end of each of them is carved into a rude face and crowned with a brass gong (Pl. 157). These are two images of the one Supreme Being, Bali Penyalong, and they seem to be at the same time the altars of the god. A tall young tree, stripped of all but its topmost twigs, stands beside one of them, and is supposed to reach to heaven or, at least, by its greater proximity to the regions above, to facilitate intercourse. As to the meaning of this and many other features of these rites it is impossible to form any exact idea, for the opinions of these people in such matters are hardly less vague and diversified than those of more civilized worshippers. Tama Bulan, in his character of high priest,[130] took his stand before one of these images, while a nephew, one of the three men who had watched the hawks, officiated before the other and went through exactly the same ceremonies as his uncle, at the same time with him. Tama Bulan held a small bamboo water-vessel in his left hand, and with a frayed stick in his right hand sprinkled some of the water on the image, all the time looking up into its face and rapidly repeating a set form of words. Presently he took a fowl, snipped off its head and sprinkled its blood upon the image, and so again with another and another fowl. Then he held a young pig while a follower gashed its throat, and as the blood leapt out he scattered it on the image, while the score of men standing round about put their hands, some on him, some on one another; maintaining in this way physical contact with one another and with their leader, they joined in the prayer or incantation which he kept pouring forth in the same rapid mechanical fashion in which many a curate at home reads the Church service. In the house, meanwhile, four boys were pounding at two big drums to keep away from the worshippers all sounds but the words of their own prayers.[131] Then another fowl and another pig were sacrificed in similar fashion at each altar, and the second part of the rite was finished by the men sticking the carcases of the slaughtered beasts each one on the point of a pole, and fixing the poles upright in the earth before the images.
Tama Bulan now came up into the house to perform the third and last act. A pig was brought and laid bound upon the floor, and Tama Bulan, stooping, with a sword in his right hand, kept punching the pig gently behind the shoulder as though to keep its attention, and addressed it with a rapid flow of words, each phrase beginning "O Bali Bouin." The pig's throat was then cut by an attendant, and Tama Bulan, standing up, diluted its blood with water and scattered it abroad over all of us as we stood round about him, while he still kept up the rapid patter of words. Then he pulled off the head of a fowl and concluded the rites by once more sprinkling us all with blood and water. Everyone seemed relieved and well satisfied to have got through this important business, and to have secured protectors for all the party during the forthcoming journey. For the three hawks will watch over them, and are held to have given them explicit guarantees of safety. The frayed stick that had figured so largely in the rites was stuck under the rafters of the roof among a row of others previously used, and there it will remain, a sign and a pledge of the piety of the people, as long as the house shall stand. And then as Tama Bulan, pretty well covered with blood, went away to wash himself, I felt as though I had just lived through a book of the AENEID, and was about to follow Father Aeneas to the shores of Latium.
This elaborate rite, so well fitted to set agoing the speculative fancy of any one acquainted with the writings of Robertson Smith and Messrs. Jevons and Frazer, was one of the first that we witnessed together. After giving all our facts we shall return to discuss some of the interesting questions raised by it, but it will be seen that we are far from having discovered satisfactory explanations of all its features. Obscure features to which we would direct attention are the use of the fire and the frayed stick, for these figure in almost all rites in which the omen-birds are consulted or prayers and sacrifices made. The Kenyahs seem to feel that the purpose of fire is to carry up the prayers to heaven by means of the ascending flame and smoke, in somewhat the same way as the tall pole planted by the side of the image of Bali Penyalong facilitates communion with the spirit; for they conceive him as dwelling somewhere above the earth.
Before going out to attack an enemy, omens are always sought in the way we have described, and if the expedition is successful the warriors bring home not only the heads of the slain enemy, but also pieces of their flesh, which they fix upon poles before the house, one for each family, as a thank-offering to Bali Flaki for his guidance and protection. It seldom occurs that a hawk actually takes or eats these pieces of flesh, and that does not seem to be expected. Without favourable omens from the hawks Kenyahs will not set out on any expedition, and even when they have secured them, they still anxiously look out for further guidance, and may be stopped or turned back at any time by unfavourable omens. Thus, should a hawk fly over their boat going in the same direction as themselves, this is a good omen; but if one should fly towards them as they travel, and especially if it should scream as it does so, this is a terribly bad omen, and only in case they can obtain other very favourable omens to counteract the impression made by it will they continue their journey. If one of a party dies on the journey, they will stop for one whole day for fear of offending Bali Flaki. If a hawk should scream just as they are about to deliver an attack, that means that some of the elder men will be killed in the battle.
Bali Flaki is also consulted before sowing and harvesting the rice crop, but besides being appealed to publicly on behalf of the whole community, his aid may be sought privately by any man who wishes to injure another. For this purpose a man makes a rough wooden image in human form, and retires to some quiet spot on the river bank where he sets up a TEGULUN, a horizontal pole supported about a yard above the ground by a pair of vertical poles. He lights a small fire beside the TEGULUN, and, taking a fowl in one hand, he sits on the ground behind it so as to see through it a square patch of sky,[132] and so waits until a hawk becomes visible upon this patch. As soon as a hawk appears he kills the fowl, and with a frayed stick smears its blood on the wooden image, saying, "Put fat in his mouth" (which means "Let his head be taken and fed with fat in the usual way"), and he puts a bit of fat in the mouth of the image. Then he strikes at the breast of the image with a small wooden spear, and throws it into a pool of water reddened with red earth, and then takes it out and buries it in the ground. While the hawk is visible, he waves it towards the left; for he knows that if it flies to the left he will prevail over his enemy, but that if it goes to the right his enemy is too strong for him.
When a new house is built, a wooden image of Bali Flaki with wings extended is put up before it, and an offering of mixed food is put on a little shelf before the image, and at times, especially after getting good omens from the hawks, it is offered bits of flesh and is smeared with pig's blood. If the people have good luck in their new house, they renew the image; but if not, they usually allow it to fall into decay. If, when a man is sitting down to a meal, he espies a hawk in the heavens, he will throw a morsel of food towards it, exclaiming, "Bali Flaki!"