Whether the patient live or die, the manang is rewarded for his trouble. He makes sure of this before he undertakes a case, as he is put to considerable inconvenience by being fetched away from his own home and his own work. He takes up his abode with the patient, and has his meals with the family, and in other ways makes himself at home. If a cure be effected, he receives a present in addition to his regular fee. Herbal remedies are often administered internally or applied outwardly by him, but, in addition to these, spells are muttered and incantations made to exorcize the evil spirit that is tormenting the man.
Every manang consults his familiar spirit as to what is best to be done for the case. When a person complains of pain in his body, the familiar is said to suggest that some mischievous spirit has put something into him to cause the pain. The manang will then manipulate the part, and pretend to draw something out—a small piece of wood or a stone, or whatever it may chance to be—and exhibit it as the cause of the pain in the body. This he has by his magical power been able to remove from the body without even leaving a mark on the skin!
The manang always possesses a lupong, or medicine-box (see [p. 184]), generally made of the bark of a tree, and this is filled with charms consisting of scraps of wood or bark, curiously twisted roots, pebbles, and fragments of quartz. These medicinal charms are either inherited, or have been revealed by the spirits in dreams to their owners. One important and necessary charm is the Batu Ilau (“stone of light”)—a bit of quartz crystal which every manang possesses.
The manang never carries his own box of charms; the people who fetch him must carry it for him. He arrives at the house of the sick man generally at sunset, for he never performs in daylight, unless the case is very serious and he is paid extra for doing so. It is difficult and dangerous work, he says, to have any dealings with the spirits in the daytime. Sitting down by the patient, after some inquiries, he produces out of his medicine-box a boar’s tusk or pebble, or some other charm, and gently strokes the body with it. If there be several medicine-men called in, the leader undertakes the preliminary examination, the rest giving their assent.
The manang now produces his Batu Ilau (“stone of light”), and gravely looks into it to diagnose the character of the disease, and to see where the soul is, and to discover what is the proper ceremony necessary for the case in question. Where there is serious illness the witch-doctor affirms that the spirit of the afflicted person has already left the body and is on its way to the next world, but that he may be able to overtake it and bring it back, and restore it to the person to whom it belongs. He pretends to converse with the spirit that troubles the sick man, repeating aloud the answers that the spirit is supposed to make.
There are many different ceremonies resorted to in cases of illness, but the following is what is common to all manang performances.
In the public hall of the Dyak house a long-handled spear is fixed blade upwards, with a few leaves tied round it, and at its foot are placed the medicine-boxes of all the witch-doctors who take part in the ceremony. This is called the Pagar Api (“fence of fire”). Why it is called by this curious name is not clear. The manangs all squat on the floor, and the leader begins a long monotonous drawl, the rest either singing in concert or joining in the choruses or singing antiphonally with him. After a tiresome period of this dull drawling, they stand up and march with slow and solemn step in single file round the Pagar Api. The monotonous chant sometimes slackens, sometimes quickens, as they march round and round the whole night through, with only one interval for food in the middle of the night. The patient simply lies on his mat and listens.
Most of what is chanted is unintelligible, and consists of meaningless sounds, it being supposed that what is not understood by man is intelligible to the spirits. But some parts of it, though expressed in very prolix and ornate language, can be understood by the careful listener.
The witch-doctors call upon the sickness to be off to the ends of the earth, and return to the unseen regions from whence it came. They invoke the aid of spirits and of ancient worthies and unworthies down to their own immediate ancestors, and spin the invocation out to a sufficient length to last till early morning. Then comes the climax to which all this has been leading—the truant soul has to be caught and brought back again to the body of the sick man.
If the patient be in a dangerous state they pretend his soul has escaped far away. Perhaps they give out that it has escaped to the river, and they will wave about a garment or a piece of woven cloth to imitate the action of throwing a casting net to enclose it as a fish is caught. Or else they say that it has escaped into the jungle, and they will rush out of the house to secure it there. Or perhaps they say that it has been carried over the sea to unknown lands, and they all sit down and imitate the action of paddling a boat to follow it. But this is only done in special cases, and I have often been told by Dyaks who have been present at a particular manang performance: “The man was very ill indeed. His samengat (soul) had gone so far away that the manangs had great difficulty in finding it. They paddled over the sea, they threw a net into the water, and did many other things before they ultimately succeeded in catching it.”