The cries of various animals are all interpreted by the Dyaks, those which have evil significations far outnumbering the good-omened cries. The worst of all omens is the cry of a deer, which will make a Dyak abandon any project on which he is engaged, no matter how deeply his heart may be set on it.
On one occasion, a Dyak had married a young girl for whom he had a very strong attachment, which was returned. On the third day after the marriage, the English missionary entered the head house and was surprised to see the young husband sitting in it hard at work on some brass wire. This was a very strong circumstance, as the head house is tenanted only by the bachelors. The missionary naturally asked him what he was doing there, and what had become of his wife, to which he answered sorrowfully that he had no wife, a deer having cried on the preceding night, so that they were obliged to dissolve the marriage at once.
“But,” said his interrogator, “are you not sorry for this?”
“Very sorry!”
“What are you doing with the wire?”
“Making ornaments for the girl whom I want for my new wife.”
It seems that the belief in the Antus is so ingrained in the minds of the Dyaks, that whenever any one meets with an accident, some Antu or other is presumed to have been the author of the injury, and to require appeasal. Mr. Brooke mentions that he once found the leaf of a palm tree folded in a peculiar manner, lying near his house. This was an offering to the Antu, because a man had fallen down there and injured himself.
The leaf was supposed to be possessed by the Antu, who would avenge himself if his leaf were disturbed by causing the arm of the offender to swell. However, Mr. Brooke picked up the leaf and threw it away, and within two days his arm became swollen and inflamed, and remained in that state for nearly a fortnight afterward.
In connection with this subject must be mentioned the ordeals by which disputes are often settled. These are of various kinds, but the favorite plan is the ordeal of diving. The two disputants are taken to the river and wade into the water up to the chin. At a given signal they plunge beneath the surface, and the one who can remain longest under water wins the case. There was a very curious instance of such an ordeal where the honor of a family was involved. The daughter of a chief was found to have disgraced herself, and laid the blame upon a young man of rank. He, however, utterly contradicted her story, and at last the dispute was brought to an end by the ordeal of diving. The young chief won his cause, and the result was that the offending girl had to leave the village, and her father was deserted by his followers, so that he was also obliged to seek another home.
Then there is the salt ordeal. Each litigant is provided with a lump of salt of precisely the same weight, and he whose salt retains its shape longest in water is held to be the winner. There is also the boiling-water test, which is exactly the same as that which was practised in England in former days, the hand being dipped into the hot liquid, and coming out uninjured if the appellant be innocent. Lastly, there is the snail ordeal. Each party takes a snail and puts it on a plate, and lime juice is poured over them, when the snail that first moves is considered to have indicated that its owner is in the wrong.