The moral of these mythical tales is good. All sin is displeasing to the gods, and will meet with deserved punishment, but specially are they angry when they see human beings ill-treat and ridicule dumb animals.
These Batu Kudi are not worshipped. Offerings of food are sometimes seen hanging near them, but these are not made to the “stones of wrath,” but to the gods of whose displeasure they are the testimony.
The Sea Dyak belief in a future life has already been mentioned in the chapter on Burial Rites. But it is no gloomy Tartarus, nor is it a happy Elysium, that lies before him. It is simply a prolongation of the present state of things in a new sphere. The dead are supposed to build houses, make paddy farms, and go through all the drudgery of a labouring life in that other world. This future life does not, in the mind of the Dyak, mean immortality. Death is still the final and inevitable destiny of man. He may live many lives in different spheres—he may die as often as seven times—but in the end he becomes annihilated, and absorbed into air, or earth, or certain jungle plants.
To sum up, the Sea Dyak worships his gods. There are good spirits ready to help him, and evil spirits eager to harm him. He has omens and divination and dreams to encourage or warn him. The traditions of his ancestors, handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation, are his authority for his beliefs. He makes sacrifices to the gods and spirits, and invokes their help in long incantations. He believes he has a soul which after death will live in another world a future life differing little from his existence in the flesh.
CHAPTER XVI
DYAK FEASTS
Four classes of feasts—Preparations—Feasts connected with: 1, Head-taking; 2, Farming; 3, The dead; 4, Dreams, etc.—House-warming—Social feasts.
The Dyak religious feasts may be divided into the four following classes: