Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo / A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles

by Edwin Herbert Gomes

Like the ancient Romans, who took auguries from the flight or notes of certain birds—the raven, the owl, the magpie, the eagle, and the vulture—the Dyak has his sacred birds, whose flight or calls are supposed to intimate to him the will of unseen powers. They are seven in number, and their native names are: Katupong, Beragai, Kutok, Embuas, Nendak, Papau, and Bejampong. They are beautiful in plumage, but, like most tropical birds, they have little song, and their calls are shrill and piercing. They are supposed to be manifestations of the seven spirit sons of the great god Singalang Burong (see the “Story of Siu,” [p. 278]).

The system, as carried out by the Dyaks, is most elaborate and complicated, and the younger men have constantly to ask the older ones how to act in unexpected combinations of apparently contradictory omens. The law and observance of omens occupy a greater share of the thoughts of the Dyak than any other part of his religion.

It is not only to the cry of birds that the Dyaks pay heed. There are certain animals—the deer, the armadillo, the lizard, the bat, the python, the cobra, even the rat, as well as certain insects—which all may give omens under special circumstances. But these other creatures are subordinate to the birds, from which alone augury is sought at the beginning of any important undertaking.

Some idea of the method in which the Dyaks carry out their system of omens may be gathered from what is done at the commencement of the yearly rice-farming. Some man who has the reputation of being fortunate, and has had large paddy crops, will be the augur, and undertake to obtain omens for a large area of land on which he and others intend to plant. The Dyaks begin clearing the ground of jungle and high grass when the Pleiades appear at a certain height above the horizon at sunset. Some little time before this the augur sets about his work. He will have to hear the cry of the nendak, the katupong, and the beragai, all on his left. If these cries come from birds on his right, they are not propitious. The cries of the other sacred birds must sound on his right. He goes forth in the early morning, and wanders about the jungle till the cry of the nendak is heard on his left. He will then break off a twig of anything growing near, and take it home and put it in a safe place. But it may happen that some other omen bird or animal is first to be seen or heard. In that case he must give the matter up, return, and try his chance another day. Thus, sometimes several days pass before he has obtained his first omen. When he has heard the nendak, he will then listen for the katupong and the other birds in the necessary order. There is always the liability of delays caused by the wrong birds being heard, and it may possibly be a month or more before he obtains all those augural predictions, which will give him confidence that his farming for the year will be successful. When the augur has collected a twig for each bird he has heard, he takes these to the land selected for farming, buries them in the ground, and with a short form of address to the birds and to Pulang Gana—the god of the Earth—clears a small portion of the ground of grass or jungle, and then returns home. The magic virtues of the birds have been conveyed to the land, and the work of clearing it for planting may be begun at any time.

The sacred birds can be bad omens as well as good. If heard on the wrong side, or in the wrong order, the matter in hand must be postponed or altogether abandoned, unless a subsequent conjunction of good omens occurs, which in the judgment of old experts more than counterbalances the bad omens.

I have mentioned the omens necessary before planting the seed. In a similar manner, before beginning to build a house, or starting on a war expedition, or undertaking any new line of action, certain omens are required if good fortune is to attend them and the Fates be propitious.

For house-building, the cries of the same birds are required, and in the same order as before planting the seed. But for a war expedition, birds heard on the right hand are best, except in the case of the nendak, which may be heard either on the right or on the left hand side.

There are, I believe, certain substitutions for this tedious process of seeking the omens of birds. It is said that for farming, if a piece of gold be hidden in the ground, the hearing of the proper omen birds may be dispensed with. If a fowl be sacrificed, and the blood made to drop in a hole in the earth in which the fowl is afterwards buried, it is said the gods will be satisfied, and a good harvest ensue. And on the occasion of a war expedition, if an offering is made with beating of gongs and drums on starting from the house, it is said that no cries of birds need be obeyed afterwards. But none of these methods are ever used, the Dyaks preferring to submit to the tedious procedure of listening to the cries of the birds.

It is in regard to farming that the practice is most conspicuous. And if any of these omen birds are heard or seen by the Dyak on his way to his work on his paddy land, it foretells either good or evil to himself or to his farm—if good, then all is well, and he goes on his way rejoicing; if evil, he will at once turn back and wait for the following day before going to his work again. The nendak foretells good, whether heard on the right hand or the left; so does the katupong; but the papau is of evil omen, and, if heard, the man must at once beat a retreat. A beragai heard occasionally does not matter, but if heard frequently, no work must be done for one day. The embuas heard on the right hand is very bad, and in order to insure a good harvest, the unlucky man must not work on his farm for five days. The cry of the beragai acts as an antidote, and destroys the bad effects of the cries of birds of bad omen. For instance, the kutok and katupong are both birds of bad omen, but if after hearing them the cry of a beragai is heard, no evil effects need be dreaded. If the cry of a deer, a gazelle, or a mouse-deer be heard, or if a rat crosses the path of a man on his way to his farm, a day’s rest is necessary, or he will either cut himself, or become ill, or suffer by failure of his crop.

When a remarkably good omen is heard—one which foretells a plentiful harvest—the man must go to his farm at once, and do some trifling work there, and then return, and in this way clench the foreshadowed luck and at the same time reverence the spirit who promises it. Should a deer, a gazelle, or a mouse-deer come out of the jungle to the farm when a man is at work there, it is an exceptionally good omen. It means that customers will come to buy the paddy, and that therefore the crop will be very good in order that there may be paddy to sell. They honour this omen by resting from work for three days.