But the most costly is the Gusi, which is worth almost any sum that the owner chooses to demand for it. The Gusi jar is neither large nor pretty. It is of a dark olive green color, and about two feet in height. These jars are very scarce, and are considered as being worth on an average about five hundred pounds. Seven or eight hundred pounds have been paid for a Gusi jar, and there have been one or two so valuable that many thousands pounds have been offered and refused for them.
Mr. St. John mentions a jar of this kind belonging to the Sultan of Brunei, which derived its chief value from the fact that it spoke on certain great occasions. For example, the Sultan declared that on the night before his wife died the jar uttered hollow moaning sounds, and that it never failed to apprize him of any coming misfortune by wailing pitifully. This jar is kept in the women’s apartments, and is always covered with gold brocade, except when wanted for consultation, or to exhibit its medicinal properties. Water poured into a Gusi jar is thought by the Dyaks and by the Malays to be the best possible medicine for all kinds of diseases, and, when sprinkled over the fields, to be a certain means of procuring a good crop. As the people are willing to pay highly for this medicated water, there is some reason for the enormous cost of these jars.
One of them is said to possess a quality which belongs to itself. It increased everything that was put into it. If, for example, it were half filled with rice in the evening it would be nearly full in the morning; and if water was poured into it, a few hours would increase the depth of water by several inches. It is remarkable that the art of making these jars is lost. The Chinese, admirable imitators as they are, have always failed when they have endeavored to palm off upon a Dyak a jar manufactured by themselves.
CHAPTER CXIX.
BORNEO—Concluded.
RELIGION—OMENS—FUNERALS.
THE STATE OF RELIGION AMONG THE DYAKS — THEIR BELIEF IN A SUPREME BEING — THE VARIOUS SUBORDINATE GODS — THE ANTUS, AND THEIR FORMS — CATCHING A RUNAWAY SOUL — THE BUAU AND HIS NATURE — ORIGIN OF LAND LEECHES — CHARMS, AND THEIR VALUE — OMENS — THE GOOD AND EVIL BIRDS — A SIMPLE CAUSE OF DIVORCE — THE ENCHANTED LEAF — THE ORDEALS OF DIVING, BOILING WATER, SALT, AND SNAILS — THE ENCHANTED WATER — A CURIOUS CEREMONY — DYAK FUNERALS — THE OFFICE OF SEXTON.
The religion of the Dyaks is a very difficult subject, as the people themselves seem to have an exceedingly vague idea of it, and to be rather unwilling to impart the little knowledge which they have. It is tolerably clear that they have an idea of a Supreme Being, whom they call by different names, according to their tribes; the Sea Dyaks, for example, calling him Batara, and the land Dyaks Tapa. Next to the Supreme, by whom mankind was created, were some very powerful though inferior deities, such as Tenabi, who made the earth and the lower animals; Iang, who taught religion to the Dyaks, and still inspires them with holiness; and Jirong, the lord of life and death.
Besides those chief deities there are innumerable Antus or minor gods, which correspond in some degree to the fauns and satyrs of the ancients. They are called by many names, and as, according to Dyak ideas, there is scarcely a square rod of forest that does not contain its Antu, the people live as it were in a world peopled with supernatural beings. Some of them even declare that they have seen the Antus, the chief distinction of whom seems to be that they have no heads, the neck being terminated in a sharp point. They are capable of assuming the form of a human being or of any animal at will, but always without heads, so that they can be at once recognized.
The story of one of these Antu-seers is a very strange one. He declared that he saw a squirrel in a tree, threw a spear at it, and brought it to the ground. When he went to pick it up, it suddenly rose, faced him, and changed itself into a dog. The dog walked a few paces, changed again into a human being, and sat slowly down on the trunk of a fallen tree. The body of the spectre was parti-colored, and instead of a head it had a pointed neck.
The Dyak ran off in terror, and was immediately smitten with a violent fever, his soul having been drawn from the body by the Antu, and about to journey toward the spirit world. The doctor, however, went off to the spot where the Antu appeared, captured the fugitive soul, brought it back, and restored it to the body by means of the invisible hole in the head through which the Antu had summoned it. Next morning the fever was gone, and the man was quite well.
They tell another story of one of these inimical beings, who are supposed to be ghosts of persons killed in battle, and called Buaus. A Buau pounced upon a woman named Temunyan during her husband’s absence, carried her off, and by his magic arts fixed her against a rock from which she could not move. When the husband returned, he went in search of his wife, and, having found her, concocted a scheme by which the Buau was induced to release her. By stratagem the husband contrived to destroy the Buau, and took his wife home.