“Are you sorry?”
“Very sorry.”
“What are you doing with that brass wire?”
“Making perik”—the brass chain-work which the women wear round their waists—“for a young woman whom I want to get for my new wife.”
CHAPTER VI.
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE LAND DAYAKS—Continued.
Religion—Belief in Supreme Being—Traces of Hinduism—Sacrifices—Pamali or Interdict—Mr. Chalmers’s Account of the Dayak Religion—A Future State—Spirits by Nature—Ghosts of Departed Men—Transformations—Catching the Soul—Conversion of the Priest to Christianity—Story—Other Ghosts—Custom of Pamali, or Taboo—Sacrifices—Things and Actions Interdicted—Not to Eat Horned Animals—Reasons for not Eating Venison—Of Snakes—The Living Principle—Causes of Sickness—Spirits Blinding the Eyes of Men—Incantations to Propitiate or Foil the Spirits of Evil—Catching the Soul—Feasts and Incantations connected with Farming Operations—The Blessing of the Seed—The Feast of First Fruits—Securing the Soul of the Rice—Exciting Night Scene—The Harvest Home—Singular Ceremony—Head Feasts—Offering the Drinking Cup—Minor Ceremonies—Images—Dreams—Love—Journeys of the Soul—Warnings in Sleep—Magic Stones—Anecdote—Ordeals—Omens—Birds of Omen—Method of Consulting them—Beneficial Effects of the Head Feasts—Languages of the Land Dayaks—Deer—The Sibuyaus free from Prejudice—Story of the Cobra De Capella—Names—Change of Name—Prohibited Degrees of Affinity—Heights—Medical Knowledge—Priests and Priestesses—Origin of the latter—Their Practices—Manufactures—Agriculture—Story of the Origin of Rice—The Pleiades.
Religion.—This principally consists of a number of superstitious observances. They are given up to the fear of ghosts; and in the propitiation of these by small offerings and certain ceremonies consists the principal part of their worship. But though this is the case, I am quite convinced that they have a firm, though not clear belief in the existence of one Supreme Being, who is above all, and over all; and in this lies the best hope of the missionary. If we could trace back the origin of their superstitions, we should probably find that many of their inferior spirits are simply heroes of old who have assumed the form of demigods; in fact, all my inquiries among the wild tribes confirm me in the opinion that they believe in a Supreme Being. I have mentioned in my Limbang Journal old Japer saying,—“When I speak of the God of the Pakatan tribe, I mean Him who made the heavens, the earth, and man.” I have always thought that the three inferior spirits mentioned by Mr. Chalmers in the extract I will give, Tenabi, Iang, and Jirong are merely agents of Tapa, and occasionally their subordinate position is overlooked by the Dayak narrators. It reminds one of the three powers in the Hindu religion, “Brahma,” “Vishnu,” and “Siva,” issuing from the Godhead Bram—and, in the Dayak religion, “Tenabi,” the maker of the material world; Iang, the Instructor, and Jirong, the Renovator and Destroyer, emanating from the Godhead Tapa, the great Creator and Preserver. Before proceeding, I will give the substance of Mr. Chalmers’s account of the religion of the Land Dayaks; I may also premise by saying, that the Sarawak Land Dayaks call their God “Tapa,” the Silakaus and Laras “Jewata,” and the Sibuyaus, “Batara.”
In common with many other barbarous tribes, their religious system relates principally to this life. They are like the rest of mankind, continually liable to physical evils, poverty, misfortune, sickness, and these they try to avert from themselves by the practice of ancient customs which are supposed to be effectual for the purpose. This system may be classed as follows:—
The killing of pigs and fowls, the flesh of which is eaten, small portions being set aside with rice for the spiritual powers; and from the blood mixed with spittle, turmeric, and cocoa-nut water, a filthy mess is concocted, and called physic, with which the people attending the feast are anointed on the head and face. Dancing by the elders and the priestesses about a kind of bamboo altar, erected on these occasions either in the long room or on the exterior platform of one of the houses, round which the offerings are placed, always accompanied by the beating of all the gongs and drums of the tribe by the young lads, and singing, or rather chanting, by the priestesses. The “pamali,” or taboo of an apartment, house, or village for one, two, four, eight, and even sixteen days, during which in the case of a village, no stranger can enter it, in the case of a house, no one beside the families residing therein, and in the case of an apartment no one out of the family.
It cannot be denied that they have some belief in the Supreme God who is called “Tapa,” the Creator or Maker, though their idea of Him as a moral governor is very hazy and confused. They possess also some glimmerings of a future existence, though scarcely any idea of a future state of rewards and punishments. The following are a few particulars of the Dayak theology.